CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Zoe
“I think I’ve come up with the perfect name for him,” I told Gray as he came in from outside. He’d been up on the roof, pushing the snow off, worrying me half to death.
Gray kicked off his boots and scowled at the kitten in my hands. “Little Shit?”
I held the kitten closer to my face but couldn’t keep the smirk off my lips. “No, better. Gonad the Barbarian.”
In spite of himself, Gray laughed, shaking his head. I’d inspected his testicles very thoroughly this morning, and knew firsthand that they had survived the attack with only a few puncture wounds and scratches. After some kisses to make them better, I’d declared him healed, but Gray hadn’t agreed until I’d kissed them many more times, then did a “pole dance with my vagina.”
I was still smiling about that. I was actually smiling about a lot of things.
It was my fourth day in the cabin, and I didn’t think such happiness was possible. As Maggie plopped onto her rug, the kitten started to squirm, and I put him down and watched him go pounce on her tail.
I looked around me, still unable to believe all this was real. A good dog, a mischievous kitten, the sexiest man on the planet… and me.
I’d come to Montana to get lost. I’d been found instead.
The picture of domestic bliss was complete with the bubbling stew on the stove. It actually looked really good and smelled even better. It was funny. Today was the first day I’d missed the internet. It was weird how often I’d relied on it for simple things, like recipes. Luckily, I’d found a cookbook in one of the cabinets. I missed the accompanying videos when things got complicated, but I’d managed to throw it all together and was pretty proud of myself. I might survive as an adult, after all.
Washing my hands, I moved over to the stove to check the stew.
“Smells good.”
I squealed when Gray placed his cold hands on my cheeks, then lowered them until his arms were around me. I leaned back into his chest, perfectly content.
The lights blinked on, then back off just as quickly. I stared at the lightbulb hanging down over the island, wondering if it would come on again. It didn’t. And a part of me was very glad.
“It might be another day or so before the power is on for good,” he told me, his lips in my hair. “Temperature should be in the low fifties tomorrow, which will help everything melt.”
I glanced outside, watched the water dripping off the trees. My winter wonderland was slowly dissolving before my eyes. I lifted my fingers to my pendant, thinking about Leslie and how my best friend was probably going crazy with worry over me.
“What’s wrong?”
His question warmed me. Even though he couldn’t see my face, Gray already knew me so well. “I was just thinking of my best friend. She’s probably sick with worry about me. I wish there was some way I could contact her, let her know I’m okay.”
“What about your mother?”
I stiffened, but he didn’t reverse the question, just let it hang in the air. “I honestly don’t know if she’s worried about me, but I’m worried about her.” I shrugged. “I guess twenty-two years of conditioning isn’t so simple to put away.”
I felt him nod. “And your father?”
My heart twisted a little. “I don’t know who my father is. Mom narrowed it down to eight different men, but…” I shrugged again, “she really doesn’t know, and I don’t think she wants to know.”
“Did you ever try to find out?”
I picked up the wooden spoon and stirred the stew, inhaling the rich scent as I tested the softness of the potatoes. “She would never tell me their names, but when I was a teenager, I did the math to see the timeframe in which I was conceived. Then I researched the movies she did during that time period, then researched the men. There were, um, more than eight, so I’m not really sure.”
His hands moved to my shoulders, his thumbs soothing away the tension. “Please don’t tell me you watched her movies.”
I wrinkled my nose. “No, although one auto-started once and about gave me a heart attack. The thing is, I look so much like my mother that I couldn’t tell if any of them could be genetically linked to me. I ended up feeling worse about myself, about everything if I’m honest, so I stopped searching.” I looked up at him, and he kissed my forehead, his fingers still working magic on my shoulders. “I plan to change my name when I get back to California. Give myself at least one layer of protection against men who think they have rights to me just because of who my mother is.”
“When did you find out what your mom did for a living?”
I stirred the stew, needing something to do with my hands. “I’ve always known. Cynthia — that’s what she prefers me to call her — never pulled any punches. She is of the ‘God created us to have sex so it’s a natural and beautiful thing so we should all just go have an orgy’ mindset.”
Gray snorted. “Cynthia uses the words ‘God’ and ‘orgy’ in the same sentence?”
I rolled my eyes. “Cynthia uses all kinds of words in the same sentence.” I changed my voice into her annoying manic twitter. “Zoe… will you please run to the store for me, my darling. We’re out of milk and I need batteries for my vibrator.”
“Good god.”
I exhaled a long breath. “I know, right?”
His hands tightened on my shoulders, his thumb working on a knot. He chuckled, but it didn’t hold much humor. “I mean, doesn’t she get enough sex without needing to, you know…?”
I wrinkled my nose and slapped his hand, but he didn’t stop massaging. “She’s a sex addict. And yes, I know all about that too. I know that she needs to have sex, with someone else or with herself, at least once a day, more is better.”
“She tells you that?”
He didn’t get it. “Since I was little.” I switched to her twittering tone again. “Darling, I’m going upstairs with the plumber now for a little loving. Be a good girl and let me know if…” I shrugged, “fill-in-the-blank boyfriend comes home.”
Gray was quiet, and I glanced up at him to see his mouth hanging open. “Did any of the fill-in-the-blank boyfriends ever try anything with you?”
I stirred again. “Yes. The girlfriends did too.”
“You’re kidding me.”
“Nope, and I have to say, that is one thing I can thank Cynthia for. She never let any of them touch me, and if they did, they were gone. That part of my childhood could have been very different.” I tested the potatoes again. “Although I think it was less from her wanting to protect me than it was that she saw me as competition. She was proud of me, but a part of me thinks she was jealous of me too. My youth.”
He shook his head, his hands moving up to my scalp, massaging there. Bliss. “But now she wants you to star in a movie with her?”
“Right. When I turned eighteen, things changed and the pressure to go into the business increased. She thinks it will make her star even shinier to be a successful mother-daughter team. Her goal is to out produce the Sexxxtons.”
“B-but…” He was sputtering. “Isn’t that illegal?”
“Very. Which is why the porn industry has so many politicians in its pocket. They also have very high paid lawyers. Did you know there is a thing called GSA Syndrome? Genetic Sexual Attraction. Those filthy lawyers have successfully used it to get around the incest laws.” I felt the slow heat of anger begin to burn in my stomach, and I realized it was the first time my ulcer had presented itself in days.
“That’s hard to believe.”
I nodded. “It’s also why sex trafficking isn’t cracked down on as hard as it should be. Sex is a powerful industry. There’s lots of talk about drugs or even gambling, but porn is just as dangerous, in my opinion. There are a lot of sick people out there. People who put porn before anything, including their families. It’s an addiction that few people talk about.”
Gray’s hands covered mine, forcing me to put the spoon down, probably before I turned our stew into mush. “This might sound like I’m trying to pat you on the head, but I’m going to say it anyway.” He kissed my hair. “I’m proud of you. Proud that you could withstand the pressures and come out so… normal.”
I laughed, authentically delighted. “I think that’s the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me.” Linking my hands through his, I made a confession to the rhythmic motion of his thumb rubbing in circles. “It’s one of the reasons I held onto my virginity so tightly. It was kind of like a badge of honor in a world with no honor. Plus, I used it like a cross to hold Dracula away. When Cynthia or Theo…” I gritted my teeth at the name, the ulcer giving a small pulse of revulsion.
“Theo?”
“Cynthia’s agent for as long as I can remember. When he would try to tell me how great things would be if I joined up, I’d pull out my v-card and remind them that I didn’t want some porn king to be my first. In some ways, Mom actually seemed to connect with that. I think in some ways, she found it romantic. She lost her virginity when she was seven when my grandparents began to sell her out for sex, so the idea of being able to choose a first lover connected with her.”
Gray’s thumb stopped, then his hands moved down to encircle me, hugging me tight against his chest. “That’s terrible.”
I nodded, snuggling my back into his warmth. “Yes, it is. You wouldn’t believe how many women in porn were abused as a child. The industry feeds off their insecurities, making all these promises of a better life. I can remember overhearing directors tell Mom that a scene would be ‘normal.’ Hours later, she would come out of the studio crying and barely able to walk. I’d help her into a bath when we got home, and she’d fall into this terrible depression that would last for days.”
“I’m sorry, Zoe.”
I whisked away a stupid tear. “My friend Leslie asked me why I don’t just turn my back on Mom. Cynthia. That’s why. I remember how hurt she’s been, and beneath the porn queen glam and façade, she’s just a hurt little girl wanting someone to love her. If I didn’t, no one would.”
More tears fell, and I wiped them away with the sleeve of the robe then grabbed a paper towel to dab at my nose. Gray’s hands went back to my shoulders, starting the massage again.
When I’d stuffed all the emotion carefully away, I glanced up at this beautiful man behind me, wanting to change the subject. “What about your parents? Do you see them much?”
The massage stopped then started again. “They’re both dead. Overdosed when I was eight.”
I closed my eyes, my heart hurting for him, and wishing I’d left the subject on me. How much pain could one person take? “I’m sorry.”
He ran his hands up and down my arms. “It was a long time ago.”
“Do you have any brothers or sisters? Grandparents?”
His breath was warm in my hair. “Only child, thank god. Nobody claimed me so if I do have other relatives alive, they’re dead to me.”
The ulcer fired, and I pressed my hand to my stomach. “If no one claimed you, does that mean…?”
“Yeah. Ten years in the foster system.”
I turned in his arms and pressed my cheek to his chest. “At the risk of sounding like I’m the one now patting you on the head, you’re an amazing person, Gray. With all the obstacles put into your path, you’ve become a wonderful human being. I hope you know that.”
“Sometimes I’m not so sure. But there were good times. There was this one family who was totally great. The dad taught me all kinds of stuff. He’s really the person I could point to who made the biggest difference. Taught me skills. Made me curious.”
I rubbed his back, my fingers slipping under his t-shirt to feel his warm skin. “What happened?”
He exhaled. “The mom got cancer and I was put into another home. Not a good home unfortunately, but my time with the Petersons gave me some mental tools I hadn’t had before. Before them, I got into a lot of fights, had a lot of rage inside me. After them, I learned how to channel it into something more productive. I didn’t want to be another foster kid failure. I wanted out, you know? I wanted to become so successful that no one could ever touch me again.”
“And you did?”
“Yeah, but not in time to save Jessica. We were living in a pretty bad neighborhood at the time. Not like the slums, but not good either. I’d just had my first real success and had been looking for new homes in better places the day she died.”
I wasn’t sure if I should go there, but I did. “What happened?”
Another long exhale. “It was Halloween and we ran out of candy. She asked me to go to the store for more, and when I came back, just ten minutes later, a man who was imitating Michael Myers had busted into the house and shot her.”
My mind immediately flashed to the white-masked man of the Halloween series. I remembered that movie, and how terrifying it was. I also remembered the press coverage of a madman going on a killing spree somewhere on the east coast. He’d visited four homes that night, leaving seven people dead in his wake. And one unborn baby. I remembered being so sad when I’d seen the news story.
I shivered, and Gray held me tighter, running a hand up and down my back. “I’m glad you killed him.”
He made a noise but didn’t respond.
“From what the news reports said, you saved the lives of others that night.” I was remembering more. “His family tried to sue you, didn’t they? They said that because he was mentally ill, you shouldn’t have killed him. And what you did to him was… overkill.”
He still didn’t respond, the hand just continued to soothe. My hands continued to soothe him right back.
“There was a lot of press coverage. Talk of mental health problems and gun control and victim rights.”
“Yes,” he said, finally speaking. “The moment the judge declared that the family had no case against me, I packed up and moved here.”
“You were shot, if I remember correctly.”
“Yes.”
I pushed up his shirt, searching for the scar I’d touched numerous times. I found it and ran my finger over the smooth tissue. “There?”
“Yes.”
Lifting onto my tiptoes, I kissed it. “I’m never going to whine about my life ever again.”
He pushed my hair back from my face, cupping my cheek with his palm. “Don’t ever downgrade your own experience. The things you’ve lived with are as real as mine. It’s not a contest.”
I loved him for that.
Actually, I loved him for so many reasons. Not just the exciting fireworks kind of love. This felt safer. Deeper. Familiar. And while I loved having sex with him, I loved standing here like this just as much.
The lights flicked on. Off. On. Off.
“Zoe…”
I lifted my face to look up into those beautiful eyes. “Yes?”
Off. On. Off. On. Off.
“When the snow melts, will you stay?”
I thought about my life in California. There was Leslie, who I’d miss very much. There was Mom, who I’d worry about. That was it. No other ties. No other reasons.
“Yes.”
He smiled, the gap between his teeth causing my heart to squeeze hard in my chest. Then he kissed me and lifted me to the counter, untying my robe to expose my breasts to his mouth.
I looked over at the kitten, who was snuggled under Maggie’s chin. “Want me to keep an eye on Gonad?”
He grinned against my breast, his lips still sucking, his tongue washing over my nipple. “No,” he said, licking up my chest to my neck before nuzzling against my ear. “Like a hero in one of your novels, I’ll face the claw-bearing demon with nothing but bravery in my heart.”
As he slipped inside my body, connecting us, I took his face in my hands. “My hero.”