CHAPTER TEN
Gray
Wrapping my hand around my cock, I tried to make thoughts of her go away as hot water pounded against my shoulders. The softness of her skin. The little gasping breaths. The mewling sounds. The passion in her eyes when I touched her. The fear in her eyes when… what?
What happened in the bedroom? What had I done to turn passion into terror so quickly?
I didn’t know. And I hated myself. For so many reasons, I hated the man I’d become.
Raising my face to the shower spray, I punished my cock, trying to force the cum from it hard and quick. Maybe if I got off, I wouldn’t carry such a hard-on for the woman under my protection. Maybe I could get her off my mind.
But even as I stroked, thoughts of her wouldn’t go away.
Her eyes turning dark with need. Her lips swollen from my kisses. Her scent. Her gasping breaths as my finger dipped into her wet core, her body tightening around it. The feel of her nails on my skin, digging into me as if I was the only solid thing she could hold on to.
Maybe I was. On this mountain, in this cabin… she only had me to protect her. And I was doing a shit job of it so far.
Disgusted with myself, I stroked harder, faster, scowling down at my traitorous cock.
Come, dammit.
Over the past two years, I’d hardly touched myself. Even that had seemed like a betrayal of my wife’s memory. But I needed this now. Not for pleasure, but for pure release. Since I seemed unable to control anything else, maybe I could control this.
From the moment I saw the goddess at her cabin down the hill, watched her on the screen as she cried and then began to smile, I knew I was changing. I could feel the change, the need, the longing for something more in my life begin to alter me.
But in that church six years ago, I’d promised to love Jessica forever. Until death us do part, I remembered saying. Death did part us, but the love hadn’t stopped. How could I still love Jess and allow another woman into my bed, my life? My heart.
How could they both fit?
“Jess, honey, I’m so sorry.”
I could so clearly imagine Jessica. Her image hadn’t faded at all. Even now, I could nearly see her mouth around my cock. In this instant, I could close my eyes and imagine her lips closing around me instead of my hand, her skilled tongue swirling around the tip. I could see her on her knees, one hand cupping my balls, the other tight around the few inches she couldn’t take into her throat.
I could also clearly remember the night she laid in my arms, still sniffling after finishing a book she’d just read. She’d threaded her fingers through mine and cleared her throat. “Promise me something.”
We’d been married for nearly four years at the time, together for over six, and I still would have promised her anything. “What’s that?”
“If anything happens to me, promise that you’ll go on. Find someone else to love you as much as I love you.”
At the time, I hadn’t thought losing her was even possible. We were young. We had years and years and years before that would happen, so the promise was an easy one to make. “I’ll promise if you promise the same,” I’d told her that cold winter night.
Then something did happen. Bam.
And I’d broken that promise. I thought I’d forever break that promise.
Until now.
Promise me… I could almost hear the whisper of Jess’s voice.
“Jessica, no,” I rasped, stroking harder, faster, closing my eyes against the pain of remembering. But I knew I was fighting a losing battle. I’d been drawn to Zoe from the moment she stepped onto that deck. And the bitch of it was, I shouldn’t have ever even known she was there.
If those two squirrels hadn’t knocked that particular security camera off its tracks, I’d never have known who lived there. Never seen her. Never… watched. Waited. Worried about her safety.
Fuck. I was pathetic.
I was doing more than a shit job of protecting her. Hell, I couldn’t keep my eyes off her. My hands off her. And what had I done to scare her so badly?
She asked me to make love to her, then froze.
If I looked past my self-loathing, I knew she hadn’t been afraid of me. Something happened in her mind that scared her. Not me. It couldn’t have been me, because she’d so frantically wanted me to stay. She’d curled into me, hung onto me as if only I could save her. Fell asleep in my arms.
My hand slowed as I considered this new insight.
She hadn’t been afraid of me. Something else, yes, but not me.
Standing straighter, the water rained down on my head. I wished I could open my skull and let it wash away the fear and uncertainty that rattled around in my brain. Because that was what this was. Fear.
“Jessica, tell me what I should do.”
Jessica had been an intellectual. A psychiatrist, she and I would have long discussions about anything and everything. We bounced thoughts and ideas off each other, helping the other see all sides.
But Jessica was quiet now, as she was supposed to be. Her brilliant mind shut down by a raving lunatic on a rampage.
It wasn’t until I lifted my face to the water, that I felt her. Not Jessica. Zoe.
Very slowly, I turned to where she stood just inside the bathroom door.
She’d already caught me jacking off, so I didn’t remove my hand from my cock. I didn’t resume stroking either. Through the fog of the shower, I just looked at her. Watched her approach me until she was just on the other side of the glass.
Lifting a hand, she placed her palm against the glass, her eyes not leaving mine. If I’d shocked her by my act of masturbation, I couldn’t tell. All I could see was a softness in her gaze as she looked at me.
Letting myself go, I placed my palm against hers, and we just stood there for what felt like endless moments. She lifted her four-leaf pendant to her lips and kissed it, then began to slowly untie her robe. It dropped to the floor, revealing her perfect breasts. She was breathing hard. So was I. But that didn’t stop her from pushing the shorts down her legs.
Then she was naked in front of me. As naked as I was in front of her. Both of us equally vulnerable as I opened the shower door, welcoming her in if she wanted.
She wanted.
Moving under the stream of water, she pressed herself against me and we stood that way for a long time. I felt her exhale, and then she looked up at me.
“Truth or dare.”
Dare was almost a temptation I couldn’t resist, but I knew we had much to say to each other, so I chose the former. “Truth.”
“Who’s Jessica?”
She’d been in the doorway longer than I thought, because she’d heard me, saw me, begging my late wife for help. It was fitting. After all, I’d watched her without her consent or knowledge many times.
“My wife.” She stiffened, and I immediately added, “She died two years ago.”
Sympathy became a living thing in her eyes. “I’m so sorry.”
I stroked down her spine, feeling the hill and valley of each vertebrae. “Truth or dare.”
She swallowed. “Truth.”
“What happened in the bedroom? What scared you?”
She swallowed again, a cloud of pain coming over her features. “I was raped a few months ago. The man… one of the men…” She shook her head and pressed her face into my chest.
One of the men?
My arms tightened around her, rage building in my chest. Jessica had counseled many rape victims, and she would come home and talk about the range of feelings those women went through.
“I’m so sorry, Zoe. And I’m sorry I brought that horrible memory back to you.”
When she looked up at me again, it wasn’t sadness in her eyes. It was something else. Anger. No. It was rage. But not at me.
“It’s not that, Gray. The first man, he… when he was… you know… when he was in me, he said…” She growled in frustration, the sound coming through her tightly set jaw. “Why is this so hard to talk about? I’ve never talked to anyone about it. Never. Not even my best friend. Nobody.”
“Just say it however it comes,” I told her, pushing her wet hair back from her face, careful of the wound. “No filter. It doesn’t have to be perfect. It just needs to come out. Monsters in a dark closet are rarely as scary in the light of day.”
She licked her lips and nodded slowly. “When he was inside me,” the words came in a rush, “he told me I was wet, saying that I wouldn’t be wet if I didn’t want it. He told me that I was a natural at sex, just like my mother.” She was breathing hard after it all spilled out.
I held her closer. Tighter. Remembered Jessica ranting about something similar.
“You couldn’t help that, sweetheart,” I said, then tipped her chin up until she looked at me. “It was a natural body response.”
She frowned, wanting to believe me but uncertain.
I went on, remembering Jessica’s words. “When something comes at your eye, you blink, right? You can’t force your body to not have that reaction. It does it involuntarily. Same thing happens if something scares you. Your body, without your permission or knowledge, dumps adrenaline into your system.”
Hope flared in her eyes. “So, you’re saying that—”
“Yes. When something penetrates you, hurts you, your body’s response will be to lubricate... to protect you. Not because you were turned on or wanted it. You couldn’t have stopped it if you tried.”
She stared up at me for a long time. “How do you know this?”
“Jessica. My wife. She was a therapist. She treated many rape victims and she would talk about things like that. She said that the victims so often blamed themselves. Not just because of what they wore or where they were, things the media plays on to victim blame. It runs deeper than that. Jess said that women hated how their body reacted. They lubricated. Many orgasmed. It created a huge chasm in their minds. How could they have hated something so much when their body responded so differently?”
Zoe was nodding, tiny little shakes of her head. “Yes. I felt like that. I hated myself so much.”
“Jess said that is one of the things that stop women from going to the police. The rapist, in court, will swear that she was wet, that she came. It can end up being a bigger source of shame than the attack itself.”
Air whooshed out of Zoe’s lungs, and I saw the hurt and confusion begin to melt off of her. “I thought it was just me.”
“From what Jessica said, it’s not something women talk about so it perpetuates everything else going on for them mentally and physically.”
Her eyes widened. “I need to write about this. Maybe have one of my stories talk about rape and the aftermath, but then how the woman is able to still have her happy ever after with the man who helps her heal.”
I kissed her nose, her forehead, the bruise just beneath her eye. “I think that’s a wonderful idea.”
We stood that way even as the water began to cool. Something else she had said kept tapping at my brain. A part of me dreaded asking the question, but I really wanted to know. “You mentioned that the man said you were like your mother. Will you tell me what you meant?”
She shivered, and I didn’t know if it was because of the cooling water or from something else. “I—”
“How about we get dried off first?” I suggested, and she nodded.
Like she’d only remembered that she was naked, she lifted her arms, crossing them over her breasts. “Don’t. Your body is beautiful. Don’t hide it from me.” I extended both of my hands to her, urging her to uncover herself… but only on her own terms.
She seemed to relax, and her eyes fell from my face, to my chest, to my stomach. Lower. They widened and whipped back up to my face. Another day, at another time, her reaction might have been funny.
Today, it served as additional proof of just how innocent she was, despite the lush curves and supermodel looks. And that word again — vulnerable.
“The truth is, my mother was… is… a porn star,” she just blurted out.
I had to admit, that surprised me. I wasn’t sure what I expected, but that wasn’t it. I tried to imagine how it would be to grow up with that knowledge, be around that scene. It couldn’t have been easy, and from the way her face looked right now, it had been a nightmare. And it couldn’t have been easy to admit it either.
I blew out a breath. All right. If she wanted to continue the truth game, I’d go all in.
“The truth is, my wife was pregnant with our daughter when she was killed.”
Her fingers squeezed mine, her eyes filling with tears. “You win.”
I squeezed her fingers back. “There is no winner in any of this. Keep saying what you need to say.”
“The truth is, she wants me to do a movie with her. Mother-daughter is apparently a thing.”
I couldn’t even imagine that. Why did people have to suck so much?
My jaw was tight, the muscle throbbing as I confessed, “I killed the man who killed her.”
She didn’t look frightened. She only nodded, causing the tears that had brimmed to spill over. “I’m afraid of becoming like my mother, so I push people away.”
My chest constricted, and it took everything inside me to reach out and wipe away her tears. “I’m afraid to love anyone again. That hasn’t worked out too well in my life so far.”
The energy that always seemed to weave around us grew stronger as each of us let down our walls.
Zoe licked her lips. “The truth is, I’m desperate to make love with you, but I’m afraid I’ll freak out again.”
“I’m afraid that when I make love to you, it means I’ve cheated on my wife.”
We stood there, our souls as bare as our bodies, the air pulsing between us.
Then, when she stepped closer to me, her face lifting, our lips pressing together, I knew neither of us had to be afraid any longer.