CHAPTER NINE
Zoe
“Truth or dare.”
Startled, I just stared up at him. Then realized that for some reason, he was playing the game. “Truth.”
He grinned, those blue eyes shining. “Mustard or ketchup?”
I grinned too, understanding where this was going. After such a tense few minutes, he was lightening the mood. Plus, we both just said that we wanted to know the other better. What better way than with this game? “Ketchup mixed with mustard and mayo.”
There. If that didn’t run him off, nothing would.
His grin only grew wider. “Me too.” His hand fell away, and he reached for both plates. “Want to pour the coffee?”
“Truth or dare.”
He lifted a brow. “Truth.”
“Black or with sugar and cream?”
The little gap in his front teeth appeared. “Black.”
I wrinkled my nose. “Figures. Do you beat your hairy chest at night too?”
He looked offended. “Hey, I’m hairy, but not Chewbacca hairy.”
Laughing, I raised a hand to his face and stroked his beard. “You sure? Truth or dare.”
He narrowed his eyes. “It’s officially my turn, but I’ll let you cheat this time, so… dare.”
I was expecting another “truth,” so the “dare” surprised me. I knew what I wanted, but I also knew I was stepping into dangerous territory. For some reason, I didn’t much care.
“I dare you to show me your non-hairy chest. I don’t believe you, Chewy.”
He barked out a laugh and set the plates on the counter. Very slowly, he pulled his shirt up, but didn’t take it off. Oh. Good. God.
He was right. He did have hair on his chest, but it was more like a smattering than a bush. My eyes fell down his body, past the sexy outline of his abs and to his bellybutton, where a new trail of hair began. The trail was cut off by the gray sweats he wore low on his hips. The sweats that covered… oh heaven, a bulge. A big bulge.
I’ll make you feel real good.
Hating where my mind had gone, I turned away too abruptly, too sharply. I was forced to catch myself on the counter to stop from falling like a downed gazelle to the floor. Still unsteady, I opened the cabinet for the coffee mugs I’d seen earlier, pulling two down.
He dropped the shirt, his hands outstretched like he might have to catch me at any moment. “You okay?”
I laughed, but it was shaky even to my ears. “Yes. Just a little dizzy. When does that go away?”
“Depends. It could be a couple days or a couple weeks. Without a brain scan it’s difficult to know the extent of the injury.”
Opening the fridge, I pulled out the milk, then found the sugar in a bowl in another cabinet. “You seem to know quite a lot about medical stuff.” I could feel the frantic movements of my hands but couldn’t seem to slow them from their jerky pace.
His palms came down on my shoulders before sliding down my arms to hold my wrists. “Pre-med in college. Hated it. Why are you shaking?”
I tried to pull away, mad at myself for not controlling my emotions. “It’s nothing.” I tried to smile but knew it fell flat. “I’m fine.”
“Stop.” Exhaling, I did as he said and let him take the sugar and milk away, setting them on the counter. “I’m sorry, Zoe. I’m being too forward with you. Too familiar. I keep forgetting we’re strangers. Forgetting how vulnerable you are.”
I didn’t feel vulnerable. Confused maybe, but not vulnerable. Not with him. It was just the images that wanted to flash through my mind when I didn’t expect them to. Images of that night. Those men. How they’d laughed when the first one forced himself into me. “You’re wet,” he’d hissed in my ear. “See how much you want this? You’re a natural. Just like your mother.”
I shuddered, and Gray took both my hands in his, rubbing them like he was trying to rub away the cold. What he didn’t understand was that I wasn’t cold. I was hot. Burning with anger. Yes, anger at those men, but also at myself. You’re wet. Did that mean I wanted them to do what they did? Did a part of me, the deep, dark part of me that was just like my mother, want them inside my body? Did I want them to make me feel good?
The questions haunted me, crept into my dreams. Was I like her after all?
You’re wet.
That was why I didn’t go to the police. That was why I didn’t tell Leslie or anyone else. That was why I couldn’t eat and my ulcers got worse, and why I ran away to the mountains. Away from myself.
“Hey…” He tipped my chin up until I was looking at him. “What just happened?”
His eyes were so beautiful, so kind. So concerned. His eyes held the promise of all eternity as well as my total damnation in their depths. I wanted him to make me forget. To give me new memories to hold onto as I navigated the rest of my life.
Somehow, none of the evil voices from the past mattered now, because all that mattered was how he was looking at me. Not with lust. Not exactly anyway. Lust was there, but something more important as well. Longing. Need. And he felt so familiar to me, like I had known him for more than a day.
“Truth or dare.”
He grinned, the little gap showing for an instant as his eyes wandered over my face. “Dare.”
I reached up and touched my clover. Own luck. Own love. Own life. Own legacy.
With a heart pounding so hard I felt the rush of blood throbbing in my temples, I said, “I dare you to kiss me.”
At my soft words, his pupils bloomed, his jaw tightened. He let go of my chin, but instead of stepping away from me like I thought he would, he released the knot on top of my head, then combed the strands with his fingers.
I wanted to crawl up his chest and close my lips over his. I couldn’t remember needing human touch this intently. This freely. On my own terms. But, good heavens, I needed it now.
As if in slow motion, he took my mouth, slicing his lips across mine in a kiss of urgent need and desire. Our tongues danced, entwined, as his hands fisted in my hair. He pulled, and… oh, a liquid deliciousness spread through my body. He pulled again, and I was lost, my hands curling into his shirt.
“So sweet,” he murmured against my lips before tugging at the bottom one with his teeth. His words were like a balm for my tortured spirit, a beacon of light to chase away the shadows of my memories.
For a while.
His hands fell from my hair and ran down my back before cupping my ass, lifting me harder against him. I felt his erection against my belly and pressed into it harder. I was scared, my heart beating like a wild drum, but I wanted this so badly that nothing else mattered.
“Make love to me.”
There. I said it. Said what I wanted, what I needed, and the words seemed to unleash some built-up dam inside him.
He lifted me until I could wrap my legs around his waist, lips never parting with his. Then we were moving, through the door of his bedroom, and I was on his bed, his weight pressing me into the mattress.
He raised his head, but I pulled it back, crushing his lips onto mine. Our kiss softened and then deepened again, tongues licking into each other’s mouths, tracing the other’s lips. I lifted and ground my pelvis into his, needing pressure between my legs.
Because he seemed to always sense what I needed, he pressed his thigh between my legs, then higher, giving me the pressure I craved. His hands worked on the robe, pushing it away from my shoulders. The t-shirt was next, sliding up my body and over my head before being tossed onto the floor.
“So incredibly beautiful. So soft.” The calluses on his palms moved from my face to my throat, and lower, their roughness enhancing everything I was feeling. “Mine. My goddess.”
It was true. I felt like a goddess in his arms. I touched him too, pulling his shirt up and over his head so I could feel his skin as I ground my sex into his thigh, using him to fulfill my needs, and he let me.
“Please.”
I wasn’t even sure what I was begging for as he kissed down my throat. Then lower. His tongue licked at my skin, lips kissing my breasts, fingers pulling hard on the puckered flesh of my nipple. His mouth opened, capturing the sensitive tip between his teeth. His teeth grazed, his mouth suckled on me, softly, slowly, so intimately. The rasping of his teeth, the warmth and wetness of his mouth, the flickering of his tongue all combined into a whirlpool of sensations that threatened to drown me, pulling me into the place I’d only written of.
My longing for him increased, his tenderness and strength fanning the flame building inside of me, a light I didn’t know was there.
“I need you. Please. Inside of me.”
It sounded wanton of me to beg, but I didn’t care. Not with him. With Gray, everything I did felt right.
He growled. “I’ll be inside you.” He crawled back up to my mouth, his hand in my hair again. Pain radiated from the wound on my head, but I didn’t stop him. Staring down into my eyes, he continued, his voice a seductive grumble, “My fingers will be inside you. My tongue will be inside you.” He thrust his erection into my hip. “My cock will live inside you.”
His words were as seductive as the hand moving down my belly. Our mouths connected again as his hand began a slow exploration down my body. Stomach, hip, thighs, his fingers skimming over the flannel of the sleeping shorts before slipping underneath the waistband.
I whimpered as his hand cupped my sex, his thumb circling my clitoris, causing me to arch into him. “So hot.” He groaned against my ear when a finger slipped inside me. “So wet.”
I stiffened.
His finger curled inside me, but it was like all the passion, all the life inside me drained from my system with those two words.
He didn’t seem to notice as his mouth found my breast again, a second finger being added to the first.
This is now, I told myself, trying to stay present. This is Gray. Not them. This is now. I’m safe. I’ve never been safer than right here.
A tear slid down my temple as I tried so desperately to escape the past, tried so hard to believe what I was telling myself.
I found my four-leaf clover with my fingers.
Own luck. Own love. Own life. Own legacy.
But I was trapped in the self-imposed prison of my mind. In that dark place, it wasn’t Gray’s fingers and mouth. It was… theirs.
That’s when he noticed.
Lifting his head, he looked down at me, confusion and concern on his face. “What’s wrong? Did I hurt you?”
More tears came, and I hated them. I hated feeling weak. I hated being out of control. But I was… and god help me, I couldn’t stop from shaking.
He slipped his hand from my shorts, sat up, pushed off the bed. “I’m so sorry.”
I tried to tell him it wasn’t him, that it was me. That I was trapped in that place. Trapped in my mind. But I couldn’t tell him. My tongue was as numb as my heart.
Climbing back on the bed, he stuffed my arms into my robe, closed it, tied the belt. He pulled my head to his chest while also pulling a blanket over me.
“Zoe. God. I’m so sorry. I thought… I didn’t…”
I was shaking my head no. I was digging my fingers into his skin, trying to keep him from moving away from me again.
Shame was a prison. Guilt the guard. My deep self-loathing the hook which held the key to freedom. As much as I tried to reach through the bars and take the keys in my hand, it seemed that only my fingertips could graze them, teasing me with hope. Eluding me constantly.
“I’m s-s-sorry.” My teeth were still chattering, and I sounded pathetic even to my own ears, but he needed to know this wasn’t his fault.
So wet.
“Shhhh… you have nothing to be sorry for, Zoe. It’s my fault. I’m the one who’s sorry.”
He tried to pull away, but I clung to him, my nails biting into him. “Don’t go.”
I felt his indecision. Felt his heart pounding under my fingers. Felt him move, but only to settle us on the bed, pulling the cover over us both.
“Shhhh…”
His voice was so very soothing, the lips kissing my hair so tender.
“Shhhh…”
The calluses on his palm scraped over my skin as he linked his fingers with mine.
“Shhhh…”
Suddenly exhausted, I closed my eyes, but this time, as the darkness closed over me, the abyss didn’t seem so very, very deep.
***
The light was still pouring into the room when I woke, and I wasn’t certain how long I’d slept. Gray was gone, although the pillow still bore the indentation of his head. I pulled it closer to my face and breathed in his scent before rolling off the king-sized bed. Standing, I gave my fuzzy head a few moments to clear before taking the first step, determined not to make a fool out of myself again.
I wrote about damsels in distress, but I didn’t like being one. It felt weak. Embarrassing. Like the woman I so very much wanted to be was outside my reach.
My body burned. It was as if I could still feel the blaze of heat his tongue had left on my skin. With each step, I felt where his fingers had been. Where, had I not pathetically freaked out, maybe his tongue would have followed. His cock.
It would have been so good, I knew. When I wrote about sex, it wasn’t the act of sex that I focused on. That part was easy. Insert penis. Pump a few times. Eyes roll back. Come. Any person with a computer could write about the act of sex, even if they’d never done it themselves. Books, and certainly movies, or a dive into the dark side of the internet would provide all the visual evidence one would need to understand physical intercourse.
I wrote about the emotions I hoped to one day feel. I wrote of the connection, the joining, the words and breaths exchanged as two separate people became one. I wrote of the exploration, the give and take. The power. The submission. The carnal rawness that I intuitively knew was present, even though I’d never felt that myself.
Until Gray.
The times I’d touched myself were evidence to the pleasure sex could provide. I didn’t do it often, afraid I’d turn into a sex addict. Just like my mom.
Most of my life had been spent putting a great deal of energy into being different than her. And now I was afraid I had gone so far onto the frigid side that I couldn’t find my way back to normal.
Taking careful steps to the bathroom, I placed my ear to the door when I heard something on the other side. The shower. Gray was in there. Naked. Standing under the stream of water, doing… what?
Wondering what the hell was wrong with the woman he rescued? Surely he thought I must be bipolar — just like my mom — to have asked him to make love to me in one breath while freaking out with the next.
I owed him an explanation. No. I didn’t owe him one. I wanted to give him an explanation. I’d never once wanted to talk about that night, but for some reason, I wanted to talk about it now.
My fingers were trembling when I placed my hands on the doorknob.
Own luck. Own love. Own life. Own legacy.
With the blood pounding in my ears, I pushed the door open.