Free Web NovelChapter 42: COME LOCK THE DOOR BEHIND ME
Chapter 43
Lumi
"Let go, Lumi," Ren said, his voice dropping into that dangerously flat, quiet tone. He didn’t look down at me. He kept his eyes fixed on the dark hallway, his body rigid as stone.
"Why aren’t you talking to me?" I asked, my voice thick and slurred as I kept my fingers tightly knotted in the fabric of his leather jacket.
Ren didn’t look down at me. He kept his eyes fixed firmly on the dark hallway, his jaw set in a hard, rigid line. "You’re drunk, Lumi. Go to sleep."
"No," I whispered, my fingers tightening until my knuckles ached. The alcohol was swirling violently in my head, blurring my vision, but it also stripped away every single filter I had left.
I didn’t want him to walk away into the dark. I couldn’t handle the thought of being alone in this empty apartment with nothing but my own messy thoughts.
"Why won’t you look at me, Ren? Just look at me." He let out a sharp, irritated breath through his nose.
He firmly wrapped his large, warm fingers around my wrists, pulling my hands off his jacket with enough force to show his frustration, but gently enough not to hurt me. "I’m not doing this with you tonight. I don’t want to fight."
He let go of my wrists and turned on his heel, fully intending to walk away and leave me on the cushions.
The rejection stabbed straight through my chest, sharp and agonizing. Something inside me completely broke. All the walls I had spent weeks building up against him, against my feelings, against the world, just crumbled into dust.
"Of course you don’t," I choked out, a ragged, miserable sob tearing from my throat before I could stop it. "Because I’m the problem. Right? I’m always the fucking problem."
Ren froze. His back was still turned to me, his broad shoulders rising and falling with a heavy breath, but he stopped walking.
"I’m just so tired," I laughed, and the sound was hollow, and completely broken as the tears finally poured over my eyelashes.
I pulled my knees up to my chest right there on the sofa, burying my face in my hands.
"I am so tired of feeling like the problem. Callum looks at me and thinks I ruined everything. Sienna thinks I’m the problem. And now you... you look at me like I’m some kind of disgusting chore you have to clean up because your sister asked you to."
The room went completely silent, save for the sound of my ragged breathing. My drunk brain was spinning, digging up every ounce of insecurity and loneliness I had been burying for months.
"Lumi..." The shift in his voice was instant. The coldness was completely gone, replaced by something heavy, strained, and raw.
I heard the heavy thud of his boots on the floor as he turned around. He walked back to the sofa, the overwhelming heat of his massive body suddenly enveloping me as he leaned in.
He reached out, his large hands hovering near my shoulders, hesitant to touch me.
"That’s not what I meant," he said, his voice dropping into a rough whisper. "Look at me. Lumi, that is not what I meant at all."
"Then what did you mean?!" I cried, snapping my head up. The anger rushed in to replace the sadness, a toxic, fiery wave of pure frustration.
I didn’t know what was happening to me. I didn’t know why my heart was beating this fast, or why his opinion mattered more than the air in my lungs.
Before he could answer, I scrambled to my feet. But I didn’t step off the sofa. I stood right up on the cushions, the uneven springs sinking under my bare feet.
Standing on the sofa finally bridged the massive height gap between us. For the first time tonight, I was looking down at him.
Ren stayed on his feet, his head tilted back as he stared up at me in absolute shock. In the dim moonlight, I could see the dark, dried smudge of the stranger’s blood on his knuckles, and the fierce conflict burning in his dark eyes.
"You think you can just turn your car around, beat a man half to death, and then act like I’m nothing?" I hissed, my voice trembling with bitter resentment as I pointed a shaking finger at his chest.
"You told me you only care because of Neve. You told me to start acting like a mature woman. But you’re the coward, Ren! You’re the one hiding behind your sister because you’re too terrified to admit why you actually stayed in that club!"
"Lumi, get down from there," he warned, his voice shaking with a dangerous level of emotion. His breathing was ragged. "You’re out of your mind right now."
"I am out of my mind!" I shouted right back, stepping right to the very edge of the cushions, our chests nearly colliding.
"I don’t know what’s happening to me! I don’t know why I care so much! I hate that you have this power over me. I hate that you can just walk into a room and make me feel like I can’t breathe."
My voice suddenly cracked, the anger draining out of me as quickly as it had arrived, leaving behind nothing but a raw, bleeding vulnerability. I looked at his lips, then back up to his beautiful, tortured eyes.
"I missed you," I whispered, the confession slipping out before I could stop it. "Ren... I missed you so much."
My mind completely emptied out, driven entirely by a desperate, drunken need to feel close to him. I didn’t want him to speak. I didn’t want him to say another cold word.
I reached out, forcefully cupping his harsh, rigid jaw with both of my hands, and I pulled his head down.
And I smashed my lips against his.
The kiss was chaotic and messy, fueled by the heavy alcohol in my system and the months of suffocating tension we had been ignoring. freeweɓnovēl.coɱ
I tasted the faint, metallic tang of blood on his skin, mixed with the intoxicating warmth of his breath.
I poured every ounce of my loneliness, my heartbreak, and my undeniable attraction into that single, reckless touch.
For a split second, Ren’s body went entirely rigid under my hands. Then, a low, deep growl rumbled from the very depths of his chest.
His large hands came up, clamping firmly around my waist, and for one beautiful, terrifying moment, he kissed me back.
He kissed me with a fierce, desperate hunger that made my knees weak, his lips bruising mine as he anchored me against his massive chest.
The world spun completely out of control, and I let myself drown in it.
But just as quickly as the fire ignited, it stopped.
He suddenly caught my wrists, his grip firm and unyielding as he forced his lips away from mine.
He took a heavy step backward, breaking the contact so abruptly that I stumbled slightly on the cushions.
He was breathing hard, his chest heaving under his shirt, his eyes completely dark and wild in the moonlight. He let go of my wrists, his hands trembling slightly as he dropped them to his sides.
"We can’t do this," he said. His voice was rough, jagged, and completely strained, like he was forcing the words past a wall of pure resistance.
I stared down at him from the sofa, my lips swollen and tingling, my mind completely confused by the sudden rejection. The rejection hurt worse than any argument.
"Why?" I asked, my voice breaking as a fresh wave of tears rushed to my eyes. I looked down at my green silk dress, then back at him, feeling completely humiliated. "Why, Ren? Am I not attractive enough to you? Don’t I look good tonight?"
He closed his eyes for a brief second, his jaw clenching so hard a muscle ticked violently in his cheek.
When he opened them, the look in his gaze wasn’t cold—it was filled with a deep, aching pain.
"Lumi, look at yourself," he said, his voice dropping into a low, heavy rumble. "You are beautiful. You look incredible. You are the only thing I’ve been able to see all night, and it’s driving me completely insane."
He took another step back, putting a deliberate, painful amount of distance between us.
"But you’re drunk," he continued, his tone turning firm and unshakeable.
"You are hurting, and you are completely intoxicated. When you are sober, and you look me dead in the eye and tell me that you want this...that you want...me...then I will go as far as you want. I won’t stop."
He looked at me, his eyes cutting right through the foggy haze in my brain.
"But right now? You don’t know what you’re doing. If I touch you tonight, I know exactly what will happen. You’ll wake up tomorrow, you’ll look at me, and you won’t see me, Lumi. You’ll see someone who took advantage of a vulnerable woman.
Because right now even though it hurts, I know you’re not seeing me. You’re seeing your husband. You’re seeing Callum. And I’m just the man you want to use to escape a ghost."
The words hit me like a blow, knocking the remaining breath straight out of my lungs. My mouth hung open in complete shock. My hands fell to my sides, useless and trembling.
He didn’t wait for me to answer. He turned around, his heavy leather jacket shifting on his shoulders as he walked away from the sofa. He didn’t look back at me. He didn’t offer to help me down.
"Go to bed, Lumi," he said flatly, his heavy boots clicking against the floor as he walked toward the front door of the apartment.
He grabbed the handle, pulling it open to reveal the dimly lit hallway outside.
"Come lock the door behind me before you do." He stepped out into the hallway, and the door clicked quietly into place, leaving me entirely alone in the silent, dark room.
