28
A little time later and we soon found ourselves curled up under the covers and as Draven had requested, we did this naked.
“I remember that look,” Draven commented and when I asked what he meant, he nodded at the screen. It was the part when Jane Eyre first travels to Thornfield Hall and she looked terrified. And I kind of had to say, I could relate. I also remembered walking into Afterlife’s VIP the first time as Draven did, but I can imagine my memories of this time were quite different to his.
“Tell me Keira, did you also think that I had an insane wife locked away in one of my towers somewhere?” he asked playfully.
“An insane wife no, but maybe a seduced sex slave or two,” I replied with a smirk. He gave me a pretend look of shock and whispered,
“And now I only have one seduced sex slave to warm my bed, whatever will become of me and my reputation as a scoundrel?” he teased back making me growl.
“I think you will live…or at least you will if you don’t ever speak of there being another woman in this bed again.” At this he roared with laughter. Then he pulled me closer and hummed sexually in my ear,
“You are and always will be the only woman I want in my bed, sexually seduced or as a willing slave, for I am not picky which, as long as you stay where you are needed,” he told me making me shiver against him, only this time it wasn’t with sexual desire like he thought.
No, unfortunately it was hearing the word ‘slave’ that did it, even if it was only said so in jest. My mind was instantly taken back to my nightmare, one that was still yet to explain itself. Or more importantly, explain why had there been the physical evidence left over from it…surely a thing like that wasn’t possible?
“Keira?” Draven saying my name dragged me away from my dark demonic tormentor who had secretly plagued my thoughts.
“And if I tried to run from my sexual tyrant of a husband?” I enquired making his eyes seep into purple liquid before answering me, as obviously he liked the idea.
“I think you have seen my chains Keira, or do you need reminding of what they look like?” I shuddered in his hold at just the thought. He grinned down at me and chuckled,
“And now my shy wife is back once more.” I didn’t say anything but instead looked back at the telly blushing.
“I will never forget those shy, doe eyed looks you used to give me. The way my presence used to make your pulse quicken and the sound of you drawing in a shuddered breath with every stolen touch I took.” I blushed at his words and when I wouldn’t look up at him, he forced the action upon me. He reached my chin and hooked his finger under it, bringing up my face to look at him.
“You made me feel like a tyrant. Like some wicked master trying to steal you away from the world so that I may make you mine and enslave your heart.” I bit my lip at what his words did to me and asked him shyly,
“Is that not what you wanted to do?”
“Fuck yes!” I giggled at his outburst.
“I have told you many a time of how I wanted to pluck you from your world and chain you to my own, so that I may have you whenever I wanted you. Which, after one sweet taste of your lips, I soon discovered was all the damn time!” It was like listening to the confessions of an obsessed stalker again. Then he reached down, picked up my hand and started playing with my wedding ring.
“I wanted to brand myself to you, body, mind and soul. So that everyone out there, human or not, all knew that you belonged to me and would do so for all eternity.” This time I could see for myself the sincerity not just in his words and the intensity in which he spoke them, but also in his deep purple gaze.
“And now, I have my wish,” he added finishing this statement with a kiss.
We continued to watch the movie and as usual I got suckered in to one of my favourite love stories of all time.
“This is one of my first favourite parts…” I uttered on a heavy sigh. Draven wrapped his arms closer, pulling me back against him and said,
“As this is one of mine,” he said running his fingertips up my neck and then down to skim across my breast and definitely not speaking about the film. Much to Draven’s disappointment I told him,
“Ssshh, this is where they finally meet and AHHH!” Suddenly I jumped a mile as the horse suddenly reared up out of the fog, scaring both her and me half to death. My automatic reflex kicked in and I gripped onto Draven’s arm tighter as though I had just been startled by a zombie movie not a period drama.
Draven burst out laughing and I scowled at him but with his arms holding me, his hands stroked down my back. He had paused the screen so now all it showed was her frightened face, one that had mimicked my own.
“She faces a God and an army in Hell, but a horse throwing its rider scares her…tell me sweetheart of mine, what am I going to do with you?” Draven asked me after first talking to himself or the Gods, who knew.
“I don’t know, protect me if we ever go to a farm?” I said making him start roaring with laughter. After this he re-started the movie with barely a look and soon I was gasping for a different reason.
“Well, that was rude,” he commented making me look back at him in surprise. He was of course referring to the part when that ‘thrown rider’ had just called Jane a witch, telling her to get away from him.
“Like you can talk!” I said strangely defending Mr Rochester. He raised an eyebrow at me asking me without words to explain my outburst.
“Oh, come on, remember how you used to treat me…remember when I fell into you the first time I was in the VIP. You looked at me like you wanted to throw me out of your club yourself.” The look he gave me was one of astonishment.
“Is that what you think?”
“No, it’s not what I think, it’s what I know…I was there remember,” I said feeling like we were once again digging up the past and I was already starting to regret it. Especially when I’d asked him in the car not to speak of it again. But what could I say, I think deep down because of his cold treatment towards me back then, it just seemed to stay with me. Like it had imprinted on my mind, with such an impact at the start, that because of it I was always trying to find ways into his mind. What had he really been thinking back then?
So once again he told me.
“Then let me enlighten you. If I looked at all strained, angered or irritated by your presence standing there in front of me, after once again nearly falling at my feet, then the tense emotion I had shown was one I solely directed at myself.”
“What do you mean?” He looked up as if to ask the Gods for help on this one as his irritation grew before he levelled me with a hard look.
“What I mean is that every second I was with you I was doing so fighting myself for control. I swear my palms would itch at just the sight of you! I wanted to grab you, throw you over my shoulder and snarl ‘mine’ to the world, before taking you to a place no one would ever find you. That is what I fought against and in doing so, saved you any fear you would have gone through finding yourself my prisoner.”
“Oh,” was all I could manage to say after that.
“Yes, oh,” he mimicked after his outburst. Yep, he was definitely getting annoyed at having to obviously keep repeating himself. So, after a moment of silence that lingered between us, I decided to cut the tension.
“I would have liked to have seen you back in those times,” I told him, as I watched Mr Rochester dressed like a gentleman. His tight waistcoat tapering down strong shoulders into a slim waist.
“In those times?” Draven enquired, clearly interested in what I had to say next. I nodded at the screen as he had once done and said,
“You know, from the 1800’s, all suited and booted sat upon a horse in the grounds of some old English Estate…or a castle,” I added making his lips twitch as he fought a smile.
“Well, I can’t say that the thought of seeing you also in a tight…” He paused saying this with a quick tug at my waist, tightening his hands around me to emphasise his point before continuing,
“… fitted corseted dress, with your skirts billowing in the wind as you ran towards me across those vast green lands…yes, that is a sight I would want to see myself indeed.” I grinned contentedly and snuggled closer to him, telling him without words this time, that I liked what he’d just said.
“Keira…you’re biting your lip again,” Draven whispered behind me as though he was speaking from the shadows of a dream. It was a little time later and another of my favourite parts. Of course, I had watched every adaptation of this story, but my all-time favourite was unbelievably, the one Draven had bought. I think it was probably because it was the longest, being that it was on two disks. No doubt thinking that he would get me naked next to him and squirming for nearly four hours, which of course, he did.
But to be honest it was my favourite because I think the actors played it that way. It wasn’t about anything else, the grand house, the side characters, the fine costumes worn, nor the clever filming or even the skilful directing. No, it was only about the two people on screen and their ability to convince you long enough, into not only believing in their love but more importantly, of the true love that would one day find you, as it did for Jane.
“It’s the part where she saves him from the fire…it’s the part where he wants to kiss her for the first time, listen to what he says…”
‘What, are you going without saying goodnight, Jane…you just…you just saved my life.’ Mr Rochester says played well by actor Toby Stephens.
“But he just told her to leave…” Draven said sticking up for Jane again.
“Ssshh.” I told Draven as he interrupted the magic on screen. Then I couldn’t help it, having seen and read it over a hundred times before I start mouthing the same words being said.
‘We might at least shake hands…’ he said reaching out for her, but anyone watching knows that he wants more from her than just her hand. Which is confirmed when he speaks and again and my lips seemed to follow in a mind of their own.
‘I knew you would do me good, the first time I met you, I knew I wouldn’t mind being your debt…’ he said as he caresses her hand, both of them silhouetted in the shadows with only the romantic glow of the few candles behind them. Then, as if embarrassed, the actress Ruth Wilson, who plays Jane, and acting just as well as her co-star, lets out a nervous laugh before replying,
‘There is no debt, Sir…’ then after repeating herself more seriously this time, she tries to pull away. And it was at this point that I always wondered why, as she knows even then that she loves him. But after being with Draven, I now knew how frightening that intensity could be. So, she tells him that she is cold, using this as her reason to get away. But it was what he did next that always melted my insides.
He takes hold of his dressing gown and stepping closer to her, wraps it around her, now with them being too close and face to face, the intensity of the scene grew. Now with only a hair’s breadth away from each other, he tells her,
‘And we agreed that you would never be cold again.’ Then he pulled her slightly, holding her captive by gripping the lapels and then he tests her,
‘Well, if you must leave me…you must.’ At which point he let her go and, in that moment, I always thought that was a test, one she had unknowingly failed by leaving. I released a big sigh once it showed her back in her room, safe for now and unknowing of any of the horrors she would have to endure at the hands of love.
Back then, I could sympathise.
“You love this story, don’t you?” Draven asked the obvious and I said,
“I don’t know why but the story just…well it just stayed with me above all others.”
“Mm, I wonder why?” he mused, and I wanted to tell him why, but I stopped myself before I would voice the words…
‘Because I think it was fate.’
No instead I continued to talk about the movie.
“Of course, that’s not what was written but most of it was the same.” Draven made an amused sound behind me and I turned to look at him over my bare shoulder to enquire what he meant by it.
“Just how many times have you read this book, my little librarian?” he teased.
“A few,” I said giving him my vague response and not admitting how many times I had read it or watched it. I knew he knew I was lying when he laughed again, only louder this time.
After this, it was the time when Mr Rochester leaves and I couldn’t help but say,
“I know what that feels like,” in a small voice at seeing Jane’s gutted expression. Draven growled low behind me and his hold around my torso tightened but other than that, he didn’t comment as we continued to watch the movie. And once again, I wanted to kick myself, knowing I had just spoken my thoughts aloud.
As I watched the montage of clips of Jane struggling with her loss and battling her inner feelings for Mr Rochester, it made me realise just how much this movie mirrored many of my own feelings and fears. The sad tortured way he forced her to feel things for him, when sat among his own kind, surrounding himself with beautiful women dripping with wealth and living a life full of virtue. But it was the way his eyes would seek out her own in a room full of these people, confusing her even more on what it was he saw when his gaze beheld her?
Even watching how the mad wife cries and screams into the night, howling like the beast she is, makes me think of all those times I myself was faced with all those strange questions lurking inside my mind. Asking myself who and what he really was behind the closed doors of his club?
Not long after this point we reached the part where she asks him for her wages, and Draven pulled me back tight to his frame and whispered once more in my ear,
“Oh look, another stubborn woman that won’t take money from the man who loves her and wants to give her everything.”
“Behave,” I warned back, bending my elbow and poking him with it in his belly, but secretly loving the sound of his voice speaking tenderly in my ear. Then came the part when she leaves, and Draven couldn’t help but get his own back and say,
“And now she leaves him…I know what that feels like.” And like he did, I ignored his comment as I knew he had made it in reference to my own earlier.
We watched it a while into the second disk when I felt him tense behind me. It was the part where finally she was returning home after her Aunty had died. At first, I couldn’t understand why this part was affecting him but then I remembered what this story meant to us.
What it meant to me.
Of course, unbeknown to me at the time, it was Draven’s first secret message of love to me, marked in a simple but effective way with my lost hairclip. A message I wouldn’t discover the full meaning of until the time was right.
The second he saw her about to speak, he did a beautiful thing, starting with when he paused the screen. Then when reaching around to caress my face, he spoke the beautiful declaration of hidden love, not just for her but also for me.
“Thank you, Keira, for your great kindness. I am strangely glad to get back again to you; and wherever you are, is my home, my only home.” I looked up at him, giving him a beaming grin when he adapted the line to include my name and once he had finished, doing so by sealing his words with a kiss.
“I think I am not the only one who has read this book more than a few times,” I told him after first having to swallow down the emotional lump his sweetness had caused.
“Well, the moment I saw it I knew I had to read it again, this time trying to see it through your eyes,” he confessed.
“And what did you surmise, I wonder?”
“Well, of course it gave me hope.”
“Hope?” I questioned.
“Yes, hope that not only was I dealing with a hopeless romantic but that I was dealing with one obviously willing to overlook certain dark aspects should we say, of the man she would fall in love with.” Yeah, he could say that again! Now, I wondered how Jane would have reacted if Mr Rochester’s secret had been that he was actually a supernatural king. Oh, and instead of having a crazy wife locked away, he just had a murdering, stab happy waitress named Layla who wanted to see her head mounted on a spike.
I am thinking poor Jane would have done more than go running off to the moors, and more like hitching a carriage ride to the nearest port and saying sayonara to England, to forever become a nun and pray for her immortal soul.
“And you got all that from a book?” I laughed at my own question.
“Keira, you saw me as a demon who hunted you down and chased you on my rooftop, pinning you to a door. Then I kissed you, took what I wanted and the next day you woke and the first thing you did was come back to me. So yes, I believe it was a fair statement made and an assumption proven correct, don’t you?”
“Okay, so maybe you have a small point.” He laughed and said,
“I think you will find it is an ocean sized point there, love.” Again, I chose to ignore him and continue watching until my real favourite part started to play out.
I couldn’t help but feel so sorry for her. Watching her emotional turmoil raging within her, trying to break free but kept under sacred guard, locked to her chest deep within her heart. The way he pushed and pushed at her, making her believe for as long as possible that she would have to leave him. For he was to be married and she knew she could torture her soul by staying around to watch that happen.
The similarities of our combined stories were mounting by the second. I remembered back to only my second day in his bedchamber back at Afterlife. Standing by the door, readying myself to leave after the torturous task of telling Draven the horrific story of my past.
But Draven wouldn’t let me, no instead he pushed against my barriers of self-preservation and started tearing them down with each step he made towards me. He was like a man on only one mission and just like Mr Rochester was now, it was to prove his love. To prove his worth. To prove that once and for all there was no other that held claim to his heart.
I found tears streaming down my cheeks as I watched it all play out and I held my breath so that the sob wouldn’t erupt at the sweet memory of it all. I watched her own tears fall as mine did now. I wanted to ask her, if you knew of the pain that was coming, would you still do this? Would you still let yourself fall into the abyss of your heart? The endless love that never seems to catch you but only seems to embrace you as you fall gently into the night. I wanted to ask her…
Was it worth it?
I looked towards another bedroom door and saw the memory of ourselves flickering there like a projection from the past. The way we were back then, the way I was so frightened and unsure. Was this another trick? Was he just trying to get me to stay, like Mr Rochester was doing now? My answer came in the form of Draven’s thumb, wiping away my tears. He too looked towards where my mind had wandered, and he must have seen it for himself.
He surely could see the same emotions that were played out that day…the day he finally made me his forever. Because this ring was just a symbol like the ones hidden beneath our skin. They didn’t define our love or mean that we would be together forever, destined to love one another till death do us part. Being married and saying the words didn’t mean he was finally mine or I his.
But that day had.
That day I didn’t run from him or his love for me, had meant only one thing to him…
He got to keep me forever.
And as I looked back at the screen and watched the brief happy times they shared before reality ripped it all away from them, then right then I saw the same thing for me and Draven. I saw those brief moments of happiness were neither tainted by death or threat, capture or sacrifice.
We were simply two people in love and wanting to get lost in the comfort our entwined souls created. You didn’t have to be supernatural to experience that type of love, for it happened every day. That feeling you get when you finally meet the one. It was unlike anything you had ever felt before and if you thought you knew what love was before it, then it merely left you feeling foolish for even thinking it was love.
The sheer pain you felt when they weren’t with you, had you nearly forgetting how to breathe and had you clutching at your chest as though you could feel a part of you was missing.
And a part of you was missing.
Sure, you may in time be able to live through it and carry on, but deep down, you would always know that for the rest of your life, you would walk the journey alone and incomplete. A piece of you missing and the place you knew where to find it, you weren’t allowed to go. Not until it was your time.
I didn’t know it back then, in that dark place waiting for my tortured lost soul to be saved from myself. From the memories of pain that I was holding onto or the feeling like no one would ever truly understand me. The day Draven would eventually come back to me, back from not only his own metaphorical death but for one that felt raw and real enough to be my own.
But come back to me he did.
As was the way with true love.
Like Jane making her way back to Mr Rochester. Draven had found a way back to me. He had found his way home.
And now looking back at the man I loved with this amount of emotion near bursting from me,
I knew that this…
This was finally our time.