Brittany lay in bed, the covers thrown over her head. Heavy silence surrounded her as depthless as the complete darkness of the room.
Thoughts and images crowded her mind like a congested highway at rush hour. Her memories breathed life into those photos and she imagined him in the room with her. She swore his eyes mocked her and she shivered at the thought of his wide mouth. That mouth had spat such cruel words.
He’d called her faithless and amoral, Trey’s whore. But Trey had been twenty-two years old at the time, a grown man by the law’s standards and he had looked at her as just a kid.
Where Trey was brain and brawn, he had been cute and sweet and quiet. Beneath that veneer lurked a monster who’d hurled senseless accusations at her. She still wasn’t sure why he called her faithless. He’d accused her of having sex with Trey and punished her for lacking the purity and moral fortitude he’d assumed she had.
She shrank farther beneath the covers, grateful for the darkness. The darkness made her invisible, the black void swallowing her pain and humiliation. In the darkness, no one could find her to hurt her. The photos couldn’t leer at her.
A shiver passed through her. But her insides had been frozen into emotional stillness long ago. She’d never feel warm or safe again.
Light footsteps treaded over the concrete floor painted an ugly olive green. She tensed.
“Hey, Brit.”
The exact words when she’d opened the door for him that long ago night. She swallowed, sheer fright sweeping away her ability to reason.
Without warning, her covers were pulled back and the outline of a hard male body loomed over her. A scream caught in her throat, her entire body shaking. This time, she’d fight him harder. She flew at him, raking her nails across wherever she felt exposed flesh. Hands gripped her and she jerked up her knee. The last time, she hadn’t thought to do that.
“Goddamn it!”
He didn’t budge so she attempted to knee him again. Even in the darkness, he anticipated her moves.
He was so strong. But Bryson and Trey had always been weightlifting fanatics, which explained his rock solid body.
“Let me go!” she demanded, still struggling against his hold. He wasn’t listening now just as he hadn’t listened then.
“It’s Trey. Stop fighting me.”
“Liar,” she accused. Trey wouldn’t be holding her in such a brutal grip. With renewed vigor, she fought him. She lifted her knee again and found her target, and he cursed then grunted, his grip lessening, though he still held her.
“Damn it,” he growled, pushing her back onto the bed and landing on top of her, subduing her.
“Please.”
“Brittany.” Danger and barely controlled anger laced the low volume of the voice. “Baby girl.”
Baby girl. Only Trey called her baby girl. She squinted against the darkness, studied his body using the faint glimmer of light from the hallway behind him. The outline of sculpted biceps. The hint of dark, satiny skin. The scent of clean, warm male and understated cologne.
Trey.
Trey lay atop her, holding her hands down but without a menacing death grip. Trey held her. No one else.
“You woke me up,” she said in a hoarse voice, the black hole inside her freeing her from its grip.
He released her arms but their bodies remained pressed together.
“It must have been a helluva nightmare.” He sounded bland enough but tension bunched his muscles and radiated from his entire body.
She squirmed beneath him and his manhood stirred, flaring to life, hard and heavy against her.
“What the hell were you dreaming about?”
She didn’t answer him, but her body responded to his. Her hips arched into his and he groaned. An ache began low in her belly. She couldn’t think with Trey’s body covering hers. He rocked his erection against her, rubbed his knuckles along her jaw and mouth.
“Fuck!” he snarled.
She missed Trey’s warmth and the safety of his arms the moment he shifted off her. He turned her emotions inside out and every defense she’d built up crumbled. He made her feel desire and desired. Her body responded to his in ways she’d just begun to understand before her innocence had been destroyed.
“Who were you dreaming about?”
Trey’s tender, searching look nearly undid her. He glided his fingers through her hair, his touch grazing the rim of her ear. Her breaths sharpened; her heart rate increased. For a moment, she thought he might kiss her, and her lips parted in invitation and anticipation.
“Who were you dreaming of?”
“I don’t remember,” she lied. “One moment I was sleeping and the next I was opening my eyes to see the outline of a man looming over me.”
The mattress dipped and then sprang up again as Trey stood. He must have thought her behavior insane. Instead of leaving her, he flicked on the overhead light.
The sudden glare momentarily blinded her, hurting her eyes. She blinked. “Turn it back off.” She propped herself up on her elbows.
Of course he ignored her, all the better to probe her soul.
Her eyes readjusted to the light and she found Trey staring at her. Studying her. Analyzing her.
“Go away,” she told him, unable to bear his scrutiny, afraid he’d see too much.
“Come and eat,” he countered. “I’ve cooked us dinner.”
Trey possessed culinary skills? “You cook?”
“I’m a bachelor, baby girl,” he said with a wry grin. “If I didn’t cook, I’d either starve or use half my salary eating in restaurants three times a day seven days a week.”
“I’m not hungry.” Her stomach was in knots.
“It’s almost five o’clock, Brit, and you’ve been in here for hours. You haven’t once come out for so much as a drink of water.”
So she’d been locked away in her hell for almost four hours, had she? This wasn’t the way her visit with Bryson was supposed to be. She’d wanted time with her brother but Trey’s presence distracted her. She couldn’t forget what had happened between them, even though he’d dismissed how he touched her and licked her and fondled her. She’d found the courage to offer herself to him and he’d rejected her. Anger surged in her, anger she didn’t know what to do with. She should shove him away, but beyond her anger, curiosity about what his naked body looked like was driving her insane.
“I’ll be leaving in an hour to get to the station.”
“I-I see,” she answered, unsteady, unsure. Afraid. She’d be alone in the apartment, stuck in this bedroom.
Trey hunkered in front of her. Eye-level with her, he took her freezing hands into his. “We need to talk, sweetheart.”
The happy girl she’d once been was clawing for freedom, fighting to be released to fly again. The woman she’d become wondered how she could feel such deep, abiding fear and overwhelming desire all at once. “We have nothing to talk about,” she whispered. “You made your position quite clear to me the day after you left my dorm room.”
Rising to his feet, Trey pulled her to hers at the same time. He encircled her in his arms, keeping enough distance between them to allow her to look up at him.
“Yes I did. And I’m sorry I hurt you. I shouldn’t have accepted your invitation.” He stared into her eyes, holding her gaze, his face shuttered, his inner thoughts well hidden. “You have every right to be angry with me.”
She should’ve been furious. But she’d tucked away her anger and shock and sense of betrayal a long time ago. If she released any of those emotions, she’d fall apart. She was so close to the edge now. After holding herself together all this time, everything was on the verge of imploding.
“I’ll eat with you,” she agreed, snatching her hands away, “as long as we don’t talk about the mistake we made seven months ago. I just want to forget it and pretend it never happened.”
He looked as if he might argue but apparently thought better of it and snapped his mouth shut. With a terse nod, he indicated the door with his hand. “After you.”
“No, I’m fine following you.”
His look challenged her a moment longer, the latent danger of his stance hinting at how little he believed her blasé façade. She didn’t like the half smile creasing one side of Trey’s face as he turned and led the way out.
Trey prepared two plates of food—oven-baked barbeque ribs, baked beans, and Brussels sprouts—in silence. Not knowing Trey’s thoughts was worse than a barrage of questions. He set her plate in front of her then sat down with his. Taking her hand, he said grace and then dug in as if he were ravenous.
She picked up one of the ribs and found it sticky with barbeque sauce. Her mouth watered, so she took a delicate bite into the tender meat, which was bursting with delicious flavor. Even when she ate, she felt like two different people. Part of her was hungry and the other part of her was too nauseated to eat. She forced herself to take another bite, aware of Trey’s silent scrutiny, aware of him. She and Trey had always had things to talk about. She’d been the one to shut down and pull away, had pretended she didn’t care that Trey and Bryson had moved hours away. Her desire to attend college closer to where they lived had been a major factor in her decision to leave her mother’s house.
Trey was chewing, contented, watching her. She didn’t know how to open the lines of communication, though. At one time, conversation had been as easy to her as breathing, but everything from her social skills to her coping skills had been lost.
She set the meat down and pushed her plate away. “Is there anything to drink?”
His undivided attention on her, Trey swallowed the food. “Orange juice. Lemonade. Beer. Wine. Look in the fridge. Everything’s there.”
Relieved to have a task, Brittany popped up and hurried to the cabinet, opening several before she found one containing plastic cups. “You don’t have glasses?”
“Cups get the job done as well as glasses.”
“You drink wine out of cups?” she asked, appalled.
A slow grin curved Trey’s lips. He licked the greasy sauce from his lips before swiping a napkin across his mouth. “Why bother with glasses when we can just swill from the bottle?” he asked, throwing the napkin aside, standing, and advancing toward her.
She turned away and pulled down two plastic cups. “May I get you anything?”
Trey’s body brushed hers. “Whatever you’re having,” he whispered against her ear.
Desire tightened her core and she wanted to wrap her arms around his neck. She didn’t. Instead she sidled away from him.
Her hands shaking, she poured two glasses of lemonade. Liquid sloshed across her hands and she felt Trey’s eyes boring into her back, following her every move. Ignoring him, she marched back to the table and set the lemonade she’d poured for him next to his empty plate before returning to her seat.
A muscle ticked in Trey’s jaw and his fists were balled at his side. “Who was he?” Hostility sharpened the words.
She jerked in surprise. “Who was who?”
Trey stalked forward. Turning the chair around, he sat, his fingers gripping the wood. “Your first lover. Who was he?”
“I can’t see what business that is of yours,” she hissed, irritated.
“Who was he?” he pressed again, resentment written all over his face.
“You were my first lover,” she snapped. The other man hadn’t been her lover. He’d been her violator.
Without responding, he tasted his lemonade, frowned and then pushed to his feet. He went to a drawer and she noted the utensils inside. Trey grabbed a spoon then reached for the dull tin canister marked with the word “sugar” on the counter next to the sink.
Squirming in her seat, she recalled the feeling of his weight upon her, her body open and ready for him. She yearned to explore his naked flesh, feel the heat of his skin beneath her hands. Without warning, he turned and she looked away, guilty heat searing her neck. Trey was a feast for the eyes. His wide chest stretched his white T-shirt. His jeans outlined the bulge in his pants, revealing how her nearness affected him.
He sat back down, stirring his lemonade as vigorously as an electric blender. “You weren’t a virgin,” he pointed out, setting the spoon aside. His voice was casual but his demeanor was intimidating. Not in a violent way—more like how a police officer might question a witness…or a suspect. She expected him to say something cop-ish, such as, “just the facts, please, ma’am”.
“I couldn’t have been your first lover,” he added.
She gaped. “How would you know? We didn’t have sex.”
Tapping his long fingers on the table, Trey remained silent. Brittany noted even his hands were massive. His fingers were thick but not fat, their shape a result of his weightlifting. As she stewed in her thoughts and his insinuations, he watched her. Raising her chin, she folded her arms, refusing to respond. Her defiance felt good, gave her a sense of herself.
“My fingers touched you everywhere,” he reminded her in a low, intense voice. “I felt deep inside your body. I know you weren’t a virgin. So who was he?”
An undertone of jealousy laced his interrogation. But he hadn’t a reason or a right to be jealous. He kept a stable of women at his beck and call and never committed to anyone.
“I’m waiting.”
“I hope you have hours to kill then, because you’re going to be waiting a while.”
He leaned forward, solid muscle and warm male. “It’s like this. Don’t tell me who your first lover was. But if I ever find out the dude took what you weren’t willing to give—”
She sucked in a sharp breath, the sound interrupting his words, her whole body stiffening.
With his folded arms resting on the table, Trey leveled a cemetery-like smile at her. “If I ever, ever find out, he—whoever he is—forced you, he’s a dead man,” he swore, his voice as cold as his smile, no longer the cop but the one person who’d always been there for her.
He grabbed his paper plate and shot to his feet. After throwing his fork in the sink and dumping his paper plate and rib bones in the trashcan, he sauntered out of the room, his ominous promise hanging in the air.