Chapter Fourteen
This time my nightmare was different. It started the same as it had been that horrific night. The sights, the smells. Real fear gripped me, and for several beats of my heart it was happening all over again. Except, I could breathe. I was steadier this time. I didn’t feel smothered, choked to death…I was strong.
When the villain of my nightmare looked at me, the words he spoke didn’t steal my soul. They still left me reeling, but I was no longer frightened and alone.
Stronger.
I woke gasping, sucking in as much air as I could. Yet, I wasn’t shaking or scared. Everything around me was unfamiliar and out of focus. I blinked away the fog of the dream and a framed photograph of a familiar car in a wheel stand came into focus.
I immediately recognized the car and the room. I felt tougher than I had before because I was in Jordan’s room, in his bed, wrapped in sheets that still smelled of him. Jordan gave me strength, he bolstered everyone’s strength.
Alone in his bed, I slid farther down in the sheets. I inhaled the scent of him, buried my face into his pillow that had grown cool in his absence, and anchored myself to reality. I’d fallen asleep in his arms, sought sanctuary in his embrace. That was real.
I’d slept with a knowledge that I hadn’t had before. Born from a place without fear. Caleb only haunted me and hurt me because I let him. I’d come home to free myself, not to hide, but to remember who I was. Jordan had helped me remember, made it okay for me to feel again.
The words Caleb said, the pain he’d caused, couldn’t hurt me anymore. If I stopped living, I’d only have all the bad things. Part of finding myself again was remembering to live. To let good things replace the bad.
I slid from the bed and went in search of Jordan. I found him across the hall, in a bedroom that he’d turned into a home gym. He lay on a weight bench, pressing a bar up and down over his chest in a slow, deliberate rhythm.
“Aren’t you supposed to have someone spot you when you do that?” The words rolled out of my mouth in a husky voice, heavy with sleep.
He spoke through winded pauses and never looked up. “You gonna…spot me…Rae?”
I sat hard on his stomach, forcing him to look at me. What little breath he had left came out in a whoosh. He still pushed on through his set. “Consider yourself spotted,” I teased.
Jordan had intended for me to stay with him, so that I would trust him. He’d been right on the money. I trusted him implicitly. There was never any doubt.
I’d been panicked before. Not anymore. I needed to feel alive. I needed Jordan.
He racked the barbell and sat up quickly. As if I weighed nothing, he spun me around so that I straddled him.
I let out a startled laugh. I was living.
My mouth went dry at the blatant desire that shone in his eyes. I moistened my lips with my tongue and held my breath.
A thin sheen of sweat coated his brow and seeped through his shirt, making it obvious he’d been in here for a while. This was a guy who could have any girl in Arkadia. This was the man I’d wanted as long as I could remember.
Positive that I wouldn’t panic, I slowly let out the breath I’d been holding and reached for his shoulders.
He wanted me. I could see the desire in the breathless parting of his lips. Straddling him like I was, I could feel the blatant evidence pressed against me.
I wanted him, more than I ever had.
When he kissed me, his large hands gripped my thighs. I was alive with that kiss, tingles of arousal shooting out all over me. His tongue slid like satin against mine. His lips and tongue moved lazily as my body undulated against him in response.
His moan vibrated against my lips. I’d never imagined a moan could be so sexy. But, from him, it was. I wanted beyond anything to make him do it again.
Jordan pulled away and left me breathless, my lips swollen. I throbbed from my chest all the way down to where his swollen cock was pressed against me.
“Much better,” he murmured almost sleepily, his thumb trailing tenderly down my cheek and across my mouth.
Confused and reeling, I traced the path his thumb had taken. “What is?”
“You were pale last night, now you aren’t.” His voice was lazy and his eyes heavy lidded. I wasn’t fooled, not as his hands began to explore up my sides, beneath the oversized t-shirt.
“I don’t see how I could be.” I could feel the red heat in my cheeks and across my chest.
His smile was sly and slow to come as he pushed up my shirt. “What color are you everywhere else?”
His touch on my skin made it impossible to answer him. Heat that simmered up from the most feminine part of me made it impossible to think.
I needed his touch too much to run this time or ever again.
“My God—” His voice was so hoarse with desire it thrilled me. “You’re beautiful.” Calloused, work worn hands slid across my ribs, moving higher beneath the shirt, reminding me of all the times I’d imagined this moment.
He leaned in, his hips moving with promise beneath me. It was a promise I would hold him to if only he’d hurry. When his lips brushed my neck a shiver ran across my skin. The same urgent desire that stole my voice made me wriggle against him. I earned a deep rumble of appreciation for the movements.
“Rae…” His hands sought purchase at my breasts and his lips moved down my neck.
I knew where those hot, compelling lips were going. I wrapped my hands around the back of his neck and urged him onward. I wanted it, I wanted his lips on me, I wanted him. I had always wanted Jordan.
When his mouth found a taut nipple, I cried out with pleasure.
My hands fell to his shoulders and my body moved against the onslaught of sensations. I needed more, I needed whatever it was he was holding back.
He took his time.
“Jordan!” I gasped when he sucked hard on my nipple. My body liquid with yearning. Still, he teased, his hands molding on my hips now, holding me in place as I tried to rock against him. “Please…”
“So beautiful,” he murmured against my skin. “I’ve wanted you for so long.”
I closed my eyes at those words. To hear him say that was a rush of a different kind. I’d hear that muffled whisper for the rest of my life.
Easily, he flipped me over. My legs dangled on either side of the padded bench. He hovered above me, his eyes darker than I thought possible. Arousal and desire creased his face as his hungry gaze swept over me.
For a moment, he hesitated, held himself back for me. He held himself above me, giving me time to run away again.
I wasn’t going anywhere. I waited, exposed to him, with my heart thumping wildly in my chest. I burned for him to touch me.
In a way, he was seeing me for the first time.
Then, he dipped a thumb down to brush against my panties grown damp with my desire.
I gasped and arched. “Jordan!”
Still he waited and watched. “I can’t help myself, when you come in here wearing my shirt, smelling like me, all sleepy and sexy.” His eyes slid down the length of me. His thumb stroked the core of my desire again and I bucked beneath him.
“Then you do that move, Raelynn.” His lips curved. “Do it again for me.”
This time when he stroked me, he didn’t stop with once. The entire world spun and I had to cling to him. His thumb pushed me farther toward oblivion.
“Jordan…please…” I begged. It didn’t matter that I wanted him to touch me, because I wanted him inside me so much more.
I grabbed his face and pulled his lips to mine. I kissed him hard before wrapping my trembling legs around him.
“Rae…” He pulled his lips from mine and held himself so very still. I had the control, all of it. He’d meant what he’d said about making me trust him.
“Everything, Jordan, I want everything,” I breathed.
My clothes were gone before I had a chance to catch my breath, scattered beside the weight bench. He took me like that, in a motion as swift and perfect as he’d taken my clothes. I had no chance to second-guess myself, to feel anything other than the sensation of him parting me, sliding inside me.
Jordan didn’t hold himself back, not then.
It had never been that way, never had I imagined it could have been. I broke in a fast, chaotic explosion of pure feeling with his first stroke.
I clung to him and whimpered as he brought that in me again and again. I forgot that I lay wrapped around him on a weight bench. I forgot anything and everything, except Jordan inside me.
When at last sated, he rested his forehead against mine, kissing me even as he fought for breath, I knew everything I had ever known about sex had been wrong. Any fantasy I’d ever had hadn’t given Jordan enough credit. As big as he was, he’d been gentle. As demanding as he was, he’d sought only to please me.
He’d done all of that while holding himself above me on a weight bench that had not been made for what we used it for.
“I bet you’re even better at it in bed.” I giggled as I fought to catch my breath.
His laugh vibrated right through me. I hoped that it would always be this way between us.
“You have no idea.” He nipped my bottom lip.
“Show me.”
And he did, carrying me to the bedroom and showing me, over and over again, until I found myself completely exhausted and sprawled across his bare chest.
“Broken, beat, and scarred.” I ran my fingers across the black ink that spanned his chest. Beneath the first letters a long thin scar ran. I had a vague memory about surgery on his shoulder when he’d first moved here, him riding a bike with a sling at one point.
“Metallica?” My brother had listened to enough metal in my lifetime for me to recognize it.
“Yeah.” His eyes follow my fingers as they traced over scars.
“Maybe you should revisit the Tonto phase. Did you really like the long hair?” It was a funny memory, one that left my heart happy. Before there were race cars, there’d been heavy metal music.
“Nah, just Aiden. The rest of us were down for the sound.” He brushed the hair from my face as I traced the thick scar. “I wrenched it out of the socket, shredded it inside. Took two surgeries to fix it.”
I flinched. “How old were you?”
“Eleven, it happened the day I moved here.” I knew there was more but trusted he’d tell me in his own time. He surprised me by telling me then. “When my mom dropped me off here, I held onto the car as she drove away. I wanted to stop her from leaving, she dragged me three houses down before it hurt so bad I had to let go. I don’t think she ever looked back to see me holding on.”
I hadn’t seen that, I wondered if Aiden knew. If my parents had known, they wouldn’t have said a word. It made sense now why my mom had instantly taken to the wild, cocky kid next door.
“I hated myself for wanting her to stay.” A child’s forgotten shame tainted his voice.
“You were a kid. All kids want their mom.” I tried to keep the anger at bay. What type of parent would hurt their child that badly, what sort of parent would just drop him off and drive away without ever looking back?
“Not all mothers are like yours, Rae.” He nuzzled my hair. “The best thing she ever did for me was leave me with the old man. I should have been happy she was gone. After a while, all I could feel was relief.”
My heart broke for the little boy he’d been. In that heartbreak, I found a connection to Jordan I’d never had before. “You weren’t my first,” I whispered and heat rushed to my cheeks. “You should have been, but you weren’t.”
His fingers drew lazy circles on my back, but he kept his peace.
When after a few minutes, he didn’t say a word, I continued. “I wanted it to be you.” I gave a nervous laugh as I snuggled my face closer against his bare chest. “Even when I was dating Hunter I didn’t…because I wanted my first to be y—”
“It should have been me.” When I look up, he gave me a lazy grin. “So, we’re just going to pretend it was. It’ll keep me from wanting to knock someone’s teeth out.”
He was mock serious, but there was a glint in his eye that had me holding my tongue and my secrets. He’d protect me, he’d keep me safe, but at what cost?
“What is it, Rae?” All humor had left his face.
I chewed my bottom lip and pushed up from his chest. “Secrets.”
I slipped from the bed and started pulling on my clothes from the night before.
“Well, they weren’t in a pile on your floor, but close enough.” His grin was as cocky as it was confident.
I swatted at him with my shirt. “I need to eat.”
****
We rode with the windows down, the sounds of the engine drowning out any self-doubt. I was free here as I played with the air that rushed by with my hand out the window. For us, freedom was Jordan accelerating through town in the restored truck.
Never once was I worried that he would lose control. Even when he drove fast, always too fast. That was as far as his rebellion went, that desire for speed. In everything else he was so careful, even with me. I needed the speed then, I needed the freedom of his rebellion and Jordan always seemed to know what I needed.
I slid across the seat and pressed my lips to his cheek.
“What was that for?” he asked as he slowed for a stop sign.
“For being you.” I settled in beside him. I stayed pressed against his side, enjoying the warmth of his large body beside me, until he pulled into a practically deserted barbeque restaurant outside of town. I’d been there before, a time or two, as it was one of Breanna’s favorite places.
“Feeling better?” he asked as I put the last bone from my ribs down on the mostly cleared plate.
“Oh yeah.” I wasn’t sure if I’d needed the food or the ride more. I felt as if I could climb a mountain. Or Jordan.
“Good.” Though, from the way he looked past me as he said it, I didn’t think he heard me.
Jordan was far away, as he had been through most of the meal. My sister would just needle him until she found out what he was thinking. She’d never been one to beat around the bush.
I wasn’t Breanna and I had my own secrets to keep.
I fingered the charm on the chain around my neck, that Jordan had salvaged from the yard. I contemplated all my own secrets and how I’d overcome the scars left behind.
“Broken…” He swallowed thickly. “Because my father did his best to break me, even when I was little. He’d smack me around, yell a lot, flick his cigarettes at me. As I got bigger, it got worse. When he got high, he’d rough Mom up pretty good.”
He pushed his plate away. “I hated that the most, watching him go after someone so much weaker than himself.”
“You were a child.” It was a sickening, putrid feeling that settled in my stomach. That anyone would hurt a child, their own child, was unfathomable to me. I was pained for his grandfather who had to know at some point what his grandson and daughter were enduring.
He laughed without humor. “As I got older, I wanted to hurt him, but he skipped out before I had the chance—Don’t look at me like that Rae, don’t pity me.”
Instead, I studied the scarred glass top of the table. I didn’t pity him, I could never pity him.
“I’m not that kid anymore,” he said quietly.
There was the loud clang and rattle of dishes being washed and tables being cleared. “Beat?” I asked even though I was pretty sure I could guess the answer.
“That one is for the years after he left, those were the worst. I could read him, I knew him. But, my mom had a steady stream of others that I couldn’t read. I can’t tell you how many nights I spent with the dresser pushed against my bedroom door to keep it closed and keep them out, or the nights at the shelter, or cold ones sleeping in the car.”
The bells on the door jangled as people came in and out. I didn’t see them, I saw the boy he’d been when I’d met him. The twinkle in his eye and the quick grin I’d fallen in love with. What Caleb had done to me didn’t even begin to compare to what Jordan had overcome.
I’d never known. I hated that. I was just a kid, I couldn’t have done anything to make it better. I wished I had possessed that kind of power.
“Before he died, the old man told me he paid her. He bought his own grandchild from his daughter. That’s why she didn’t look back. She had her money, she was gone.”
My soul cried for the man who watched his daughter treat her child with so little concern. Rather than risk looking at Jordan, letting him see the Casey anger welling in my eyes, I picked at the cracked red vinyl of the booth I sat in.
I remembered the fearless boy on the bicycle calling to my brother from across the street. The dark skin and the bright smile. How he’d skipped his awkward stage and slammed right through puberty to the man I found myself loving. The way he loved his friends like family and the way he chased adrenaline with each race.
He was a man who responded to a threat with his fists, not his words. A man who’d made love to me more than once and held me after with the gentlest of hands.
There was no weakness when I thought of him. When I sought his face across the table, there was nothing weak. The wounded boy and the boy from my memories stared back at me. I respected the man who’d grown from both.
More, I loved him.
I smiled slowly as relief filled his eyes. “Money well spent.” I squeezed his hand.
He gave a nonchalant shrug. “I paid her too, when he was dying.”
I had to shut my mouth quickly, to keep it from falling open. “For what?”
“To leave and never come back. I wanted his last days to be happy, to be good.”
This time I had to look away and brush the errant tear from my cheek. “It’s not pity,” I whispered and held a hand up. “I miss him.” I did, I missed Mr. Slater. The old man with his skin like worn leather and a deep rumbling laugh, so much like Jordan’s. The man who had crafted the man that sat across from me. “I remember when you’d all leave me at home, go off and do teenage boy things, I’d walk with him. Up and down the road, time and time again as the sun set. He’d listen as I complained and whined and do it with a laugh.”
“Yeah.” He discreetly paid the tab. “He was pretty great.”
I caught his gaze and held it. “So are you.”
Outside the day had grown warm and the sun high. I was lighter, not because I spent the night with Jordan. Because of what I’d learned about him. He’d trusted me enough to tell me his secrets, that wasn’t lost on me.
He slid on his shades as he held open the driver’s door for me. “For the record, I imagined every other woman was you.”
Special, indeed.