I wasn’t safe with Jamie. I never had been, not since that first meeting. I felt things for her that I thought I could only feel for Lynn. I only saw Jamie occasionally, usually for a few hours at a time. Then one day, she showed up at my dorm room. I heard a knock and got up to answer the door, stopping short when I saw the signature ponytail and the grease-stained clothing.

“Jamie?” I asked, wide-eyed.

She clasped her hands together nervously.

“Are you all right?” I reached out a hand.

“Can I come in?” she asked.

I stepped to the side to let her in the room. “Is Lynn okay?” I asked.

She waved a hand in the air. “She’s fine. She’s always fine. She has to be fine. The rest of us make sure of that.”

“What do you mean?”

She rolled her eyes. “You have to know that we step in and take on the world for her.” She shrugged. “That’s what friends are for.”

I knew her close friends did a lot to protect her. They showed up when she needed them, always.

“She’ll be back soon. I’m sure of it,” she said. “Until then, you get me.”

It wasn’t uncommon for Jamie to show up sometimes. She changed the oil in my car more often than I did. She built a deck on the back of my parents’ house last year. She was handy.

“Why are you here?” I asked. I let my eyes drag slowly down her body. Jamie and I did a lot of flirting, but we’d never taken it past that.

“Lynn said your kitchenette sink is broken. I’m here to fix it.” She threw up her hands.

I took two steps toward her. “Why are you really here, Jamie?” My voice was soft, because I knew that if I came at her too hard, she’d bolt.

“Has Lynn ever showed you her scars?” she asked on a quick blow of breath. She held my gaze as she waited for me to answer.

“What difference does that make?” I stiffened my spine.

She stepped closer, and stopped when her lips almost touched mine. “It makes all the difference,” she whispered. “Until she shows you her scars, she’ll never truly be yours.”

She was right. Lynn and I had sex on her eighteenth birthday. It was the first time for both of us. Since then, when we were close, she always insisted on turning off the lights or doing it with her shirt on. “She’s mine.” I scoffed. Of course, she was already mine.

“She’s not,” Jamie insisted. Then she clapped her hands together and said brightly, “Show me that broken sink.”

“You know the dorm has maintenance people for this sort of thing, right?”

“Who needs maintenance when you have me?” She brushed against me as she walked to the door. “Be right back. Have to get my tools.”

She came back carrying a canvas bag filled with what seemed like every tool she owned. She opened some cabinet doors and slipped beneath the sink. Every few minutes I saw her come out, grab another tool, and then go back in.

I stood and watched her. It seemed like every time I saw her, she was on her back. I knew she didn’t assume that position for many people. It made her too vulnerable. Yet she did it for me, to fix my sink.

Finally, she was done and she stood up and dusted her hands together. “All fixed,” she said. She turned to the sink and turned the water on. The sink drained the way it was supposed to. She took a minute to wash her hands. I stepped up behind her, braced my arms against the countertop on each side of her, and ran my nose up the side of her neck, taking in the scent of clean woman and machine grease. It was all Jamie and it was wonderful. I pressed my front against her back.

She froze, resting her palms on the edge of the counter. “What are you doing?” she asked. She turned her head to look over her shoulder at me.

“I want to see your scars,” I said as I reached around to her front, hooked my fingers in the sleeves of the flannel shirt that was always tied around her waist, and pulled the knot free. I leaned back long enough that it dropped to the floor between us. Before she could move away, I pressed back against her. My lips touched the side of her neck and she hissed in a breath.

She reached up and back, cupping the back of my head in her hand. “You don’t want to see my scars, Mason. I promise you. They’re scary.” She tilted her head so I could press my lips harder against her neck. She shivered against me, and a shot of adrenaline surged through my veins.

“Stand still,” I said. I leaned back, putting my hands on her hips. I slowly slid my thumbs beneath the edge of her white tank top. The rugged texture of crisscrossed scars abraded the pads of my thumbs, and I stopped to drag my thumbs back and forth across the area where the scars met. She gasped, but she didn’t move. She spread her legs a little wider and leaned forward. I lifted the shirt, replacing my thumbs with my lips.

I lingered, feeling the puckered softness that was her past. I tasted the regret and the pain. But I also tasted the future. I tasted promises made and promises yet to be kept. I tasted hope and desire. I pushed her shirt higher, and unhooked her bra when I came to it, spreading the fabric wide as I lifted her shirt all the way to rest on her shoulders.

“They’re not very pretty,” she whispered. Her voice shook.

“They’re beautiful.” I kissed each one, licking them with my tongue, tasting the years of pain. I tasted her will to survive in each brush of my tongue. I tasted her strength. And I tasted her love for me.

She lifted her shirt over her head and lowered her arms, shifting her shoulders so that her bra fell forward.

“Are they just on your back?” I asked.

She nodded. “And my arms.”

Slowly, I swept my hands up and down her back, rubbing down her arms and back up.

“That feels so good.” She arched her back like a kitten. “No one has ever touched me like this before.”

“You’re not a virgin.” That much I knew to be true.

“I am in all the ways that matter.”

I hoped she meant she was a virgin to love. That she was a virgin to desire. “Will you let me make you come?” I asked.

“Yes, please.” She laughed. It was a deep, dark sound filled with uncertainty.

Jamie had dark stains on her soul that were as thick as the ones that were usually on her clothing. I shoved them to the side as I reached around her and unbuttoned her jeans. I lowered her pants and her panties down to her ankles, and then bent behind her to help her step out of them.

I slid back up her body, my hands skimming her curves. I cupped her breast with one hand as my other dipped down between her legs. “Is this why you came here?” I whispered against her ear.

“Yes.”

“I thought so. I can give you what you need.”

“I know you can.”

I reached into her curls and slid my finger against her wetness. Her head fell back against my shoulder and I took her weight against me.

“Don’t be easy with me. Don’t treat me like I’m broken.”

Her words shook me to my very core.

I pressed hard with my finger, making tight circles against her swollen clit. She whimpered and hung her head forward, her neck limp. I knew she was close when she turned her head to kiss me and, as her lips touched mine, she came apart. I kissed her through it, holding her up as her world tilted.

When she finally came back to earth, I tried to remember where I was. My cock was pressed tight against her ass. I shoved my track pants down to my knees and let her feel how hard I was against her lower back.

“Get a condom,” she said.

I reached into the kitchen drawer. I knew my friends had left some in the junk drawer the last time he was here. When I’d found them, I’d tossed them into the drawer. I pulled one out and rolled it quickly down my length and then I grabbed a handful of Jamie’s hair, tugging her head back as I kicked her legs open wider. Holding her hips, I tilted her bottom up, and then I surged inside. She was tight and slick, even with the condom. I pulled her hair, holding her head back as I pumped in and out.

“I don’t think you’ll break,” I whispered against her ear, trying to hold off my orgasm. I reached in front of her and cupped both her breasts in my hands. Her tits filled my hands perfectly, her nipples falling between my thumbs and forefingers of each hand. I tugged hard and she clenched tighter.

She liked a little pain. I should have suspected this about her. Yet, still, I didn’t know how much she could take. I felt sure that the pain pushed her past the uncertainty. It pushed past her scars and the old wounds. I tugged and yanked, elongating her nipples in long sweeps of my fingers, pinching them hard as I released. Then I did it all over again.

She cried out, and I felt a gush of warmth against the base of my cock. I knew she was coming, and I pushed my way through it. Marginally, she relaxed, and I pushed her forward so she was bent over the counter. She cried out as I slammed inside her over and over. I knew she was getting a bite of pain along with the pleasure, and I also knew she liked it.

I held off as long as I could, and then I came inside the condom, inside Jamie. She remained leaning over the counter, trying to catch her breath. I kissed between her shoulder blades, my lips as tender as her skin. “Are you okay?” I asked.

She nodded, but the only sound she made was a tiny mewling noise.

I laughed and pulled out, going to dispose of the condom. She was shaking out her jeans when I came back into the room.

“Don’t go yet,” I said. I took them from her and motioned her toward my twin bed. “I want to take another look at those scars. And then I want you to tell me about them.” I made my voice as forceful as I could, even though I trembled inside.

“And if I can’t?” She stared at me.

I shrugged. “Tell me what you can.”

By the time I’d kissed them all over and over, I wanted to throw up, just because of the story she told me.

“That feels really good,” she said, as I traced the longest and deepest scar with my lips.

“Good.” I wanted to replace all the bad memories with thoughts of me. When she thought of the scars on her back and her arms, I wanted her to think of me, rather than of anything that happened in the past.

I stroked her back, and watched her closely as she fell asleep. She looked so calm and trusting, the opposite of how she normally looked. My eyes grew heavy, and I followed her into sleep.

When I woke up, Jamie was gone, leaving behind nothing but the memory of the afternoon with her.