Mine

Chapter Eighteen

I put a spell on you...because you're mine...

Miray feels her entire world tilt, slip off its carefully ordered and safe axis and sharpen. The colours around her seem more vibrant, the air around her throbs with energy. She'd watched him in the theater silently, in awe of him. He hadn't changed at all, and yet he looks so different to her. More mature. The young man she knew, seems...more sure of himself, there's a steel in him, a resolve, a confidence and it's intoxicating watching him on the stage, owning the stage and everyone on it.

Now, standing across from him, the past five years fall away and her body wants to surge towards him. She stays in the doorway watching him for a moment as he pulls off his shirt and rubs a towel through his hair. There's a part in the play that involves water so at the end of the night he was pretty much as drenched as the theater goers in the seats. It takes a will she doesn't know how she's able to muster to stay where she is. Miray forces herself to remember why she is here. She forces herself to wrap herself in her anger and determination to keep herself from falling into his arms.

She speaks and watches his bare back stiffen and the towel stop in his hair. Slowly he turns and blinks as if he doesn't believe she's quite real. His eyes fill with love and Miray has to take a step back at the force of emotion in his eyes. She knew he loved her as much as he was capable, knew he desired her but this... there's something different about the way he's looking at her now.

Boran tries to compose himself and she sees his throat work as he struggles to speak. "What... what are you doing here?"

"Paris? Turns out the photographer for the Pantene campaign is between clients and can shoot me if I come to him easier than if he came to Istanbul."

That's not what he means and they both know it.

His voice is shaky when he speaks again. "Give me a minute and I'll change and we can go somewhere to talk."

Anticipation courses through her and she slams it down hard with a bitter snort. "Why bother? Why not just pick up where we left off here, right? Another fuck for old times sake? I mean, that's what that last time was about right? One last fuck before you were on your way to freedom?"

She watches his eyes flare with anger and it gives her the push she needs move towards him without giving in to her heart. Oh? Her eyes challenge. He doesn't like that, huh? Doesn't like to hear sweet, innocent Miray using bad words? She cranes her neck to look up at him. "You hypocrite." She remembers very well that he liked it when she used dirty words when he was inside of her. It gave him a thrill to have her say them when they were in bed.

"You know that's not what I meant the last time we were together," he insists, his voice tight with anger.

"Wasn't it? I mean, you obviously knew what you were planning when you lured me there. I wonder if you wrote the letter before you fucked me or after."

He grabs her arm. "Stop calling it that!" he snaps, brown eyes lit with fury.

Desire throbs between them, hot and thick and they both still.

"You know that's not what it was. You and I were never just about sex. If it was I would have had you when we were still filming and knew how you felt about me. I explained to you why I left. I was destroying you. Eventually you would have ended up hating me."

"And you think I don't now?" She snaps back at him, jerking against his grasp because she needs to hang on to the anger and not give in to the urge to break down and cry against him because her heart feels like it's breaking all over again seeing him. "I hate you! I hate you for giving me hope that we can have something real. I hate that you took away the one thing that made my life bearable those few months. You were everything!" She shoves at him, unable to keep the hot tears from spilling down her cheeks.

Boran pulls her close to him, ignoring her struggles.

"Let me go. For God sake let me go," she whispers into his neck.

"I'm trying," he groans, his own voice thick with emotion. "I've been trying for years. I've tried and it's like cutting off a limb, damn it."

"Then why, damn you? Why?" she asks, lifting damp eyes to him. She'd meant to be strong, meant to hold on to her anger and stay in control but there was no control with him. Ever. Everything was chaos, and alive, and messy and raw.

"Because I couldn't be the man that you wanted, the man that you deserved then," he admits, eyes closed and breathing ragged against her face.

Something penetrates the back of her mind through the shower of emotions washing over her. Then? What does that mean? Then? As opposed to now? Before she can ask he's cupping her face and his mouth is lowering to hers. Anticipation sizzles through her and her breath catches when his lips finally claim hers again after five years and it's as if no time at all has passed between them. Every resolve, every bit of anger, every bit of resistance dissolves and she just melts against his bare chest and opens her mouth beneath his. His fingers move from her face into her hair and desire pools hot between her legs and her knees weaken as his tongue meets hers. Her body comes to life in a way it hasn't for the past five years beneath his mouth and a thread of guilt starts to grow at the thought.

Kubilay doesn't deserve this. They've fought so hard to get to a better place with each other. There home is a good one for their little boy. Boran will leave again and she'll be destroyed again and what? Kubilay will just pick up the pieces again?

Kubilay knows something happened with Boran. He's never confronted her but he was so comforting and kind to her in the months after Boran left that she can't help but think that he surely knew. Did he love her that much? Was their life with little Alihan worth swallowing the pain it surely had caused him?

Somehow she knows if it had been Boran in his place, he wouldn't be near as understanding. He's much too emotional, volatile. Odd. She always thought of Kubilay as the one with the temper. Miray pulls away. "No." She places her hands on his chest, feels his heart racing beneath her fingers. "This isn't why I came here." Despite her angry words earlier, she doesn't want to risk falling back into his arms. She holds him off, not because she's worried he will try and come for her again, but to keep space between them so she won't reach for him again.

His desire fogged eyes clear and he steps back, reaching for a clean shirt.

"I'm here about Alihan."

Boran turns back to her and a flash of panic moves through his eyes. "What's wrong?"

She quickly shakes her head. "No, he's fine. I would have told you earlier if it was anything like that." Miray studies him as the fear disappears from his eyes, replaced with relief. She knows he's always liked Alihan, cared for him but... something is different.

Alihan hit his head once, following another boy off the porch of a friend's house as they played a balancing game. Kubilay had seen him fall first, jumping to his feet from where they sat talking on the front lawn. The look in his eyes, the panic... Miray had seen that look just now in Boran's eyes. A father's terror. Her heart both lifted and tightened with dread as she knew what his reply would be when she uttered her request, the thing that had brought her here.

"He's been cast in a movie. One you're also a part of." Miray sees understanding dawn on his face and she watches his face change. His expression stills like stone, as if he knows what she's going to say.

"No," he says simply. Not angry. Just firmly.

"I haven't even asked you anything yet," she says, annoyance and unease growing in her stomach.

"You're going to ask me to pull out of the movie. The answer is no."

Miray makes a sound of desperate frustration. "For goodness sake. What difference does it make? You can easily get another movie, another show. Why not just-"

With wild eyes he grabs her face. "Because Alihan is my son and I'm done staying out of his life. Any moment I can have with him, I'll take even if I have to fight you to have that. I'm fucking done. Do you hear me, Miray? I'm fucking done."