by Diana Gardin
We walked up to her apartment hand in hand, and I swear nothing ever felt as good as the weight of her hand in mine.
Paige
We sat down side by side on the couch. I had placed two tall glasses of water in front of us, and Clay leaned forward to pick his up. He glanced over at me as he took a sip. He ran a hand through the short brown curls and I flashed back to running my fingers through those locks.
“I’m sorry,” I blurted. “I never should have let you go that day you came to check on me. There’s so much going on inside my head, I wasn’t sure if I could share it with you. It’s not a trust thing, it’s…it hurts to talk about it. Any of it. But I know that if I want to have you in my life, you deserve to know everything. I’d never purposefully send you away, because I want you with me. I’ve realized that I may have destroyed the something beautiful we were building, and the thought scares me more than my past does.”
He studied me a minute, just looking at my face. Then he reached out and touched my cheek, rubbing it softly with the back of his hand.
“I shouldn’t have walked out on you, Paige. I was frustrated. We have time; I was being impatient. I realize that now. I’ve been going crazy without you. The only reason I haven’t called is because I thought you didn’t want me to. I’m new at this whole relationship thing. If you aren’t ready to tell me everything now, then you’re just not. I don’t want to rush you.”
I leaned into his side and closed my eyes. Having him here next to me felt so good that I wanted to hit the PAUSE button, save the snapshot of this moment for later.
He used both hands to cup my face. “Seeing you tonight made me realize that I don’t want to be without you. I don’t want you dancing at some club unless I’m the guy dancing behind you. I’ve just been going through the motions this month, not really living. You’re for me, so I’m going to do whatever it takes to stay with you.”
“Are you…are you saying you want to try this thing?” I whispered, leaning my forehead against his.
“Yeah,” he murmured. “I want to do this thing. Can I kiss you now?”
“Please.”
He puckered his lips, and his mouth meeting mine wasn’t subtle. He let me know with that kiss that he wanted this, wanted me. He conveyed with the urgency of his lips moving against mine, with the tenderness I felt when his tongue gently tangled with mine, that he was here because there was nowhere else he’d rather be.
I pulled back, breathless.
“Let’s play a game,” I suggested.
“Oh, this sounds dirty,” he answered, rubbing his hands together. “I like it.”
I hit him playfully on the arm. I momentarily lost my train of thought when my fist connected with solid muscle beneath his button down. When I caught back up, I shook my head.
“Not that kind of game!”
He leaned forward, nuzzling my neck. “No?”
“Well…”
“What kind of game?”
He laid a line of kisses up my neck and back down again.
“Um,” I answered, distracted.
He pulled back to look at me. “Well?”
“Well, we have some talking to do, right? Why not make it fun and not so full of pressure?”
“I like that idea, too,” he said. “I meant what I said, though. You have no pressure from me. I’ll be ready when you are.”
“Okay,” I answered. “So here’s what we’ll do. I will ask you one thing I haven’t learned about you yet, a burning question. You can either answer it, or remove an article of clothing. And then it will be your turn to ask something of me.”
“So this is a dirty game!” he grinned triumphantly.
“Well, it wasn’t supposed to be. I just changed the rules at the last minute. You make me want more of you.”
A pleased smile brightened his face. “I do?”
“You do,” I nodded firmly.
“Let the game begin.”
Nineteen
Clay
We faced off inches away from each other, sitting cross-legged on the floor. I wasn’t quite sure how one of us would win this game, but I really didn’t care. This would be fun. I would get to see more of Paige’s sexy-soft skin, and learn about her past at the same time.
Win-win.
“You can go first,” she said. She leaned forward until her elbows were touching her knees and focused on me.
“Thanks. I already know my first question. I’m starting off easy on you, okay? But even if you answer the question, you can still feel free to strip a little.”
She shook her head at me, a chaste smile on her lips. “Nuh-uh. I’m sticking to the rules.”
“We’ll see. Okay, first question. How long have you and Gillian been friends? She’s like your guard dog sometimes. She scares me. If you tell her I said that, I’ll deny it.”
She laughed, and it was like those wooden chimes people hang on their porches in the summertime. Beautifully musical and haunting at the same time.
“We met in third grade. That was when her family first moved to Simpsonville. Actually, she was a guard dog even then. Some older girl was picking on me on the playground. Gillian pulled her hair and made her scream. That girl never messed with me again, and Gillian and I have barely spent a day apart since.”
“That story sounds exactly like Gillian,” I answered. “So you two are like a package deal? I get you, I have to take Gill too?”
“Absolutely,” she answered. “My turn?”
“Your turn.”
She furrowed her brow, which let me know how hard she was rifling through her brain to come up with an appropriate question. I leaned forward and kissed her forehead where those little wrinkles crinkled together.
She shot me a surprised smile, and I shrugged.
“When your face looks that adorable, I’m going to have to kiss it.”
“Um, okay. I got one,” she said. “What’s your favorite food?”
“Really? All the questions in the world, and you want to know my favorite food?”
“We have all night,” she pointed out.
“True. My favorite food is pizza. Boring, I know. I have very simple tastes.”
“I like pizza too,” she said. “See? This game shows us what a good match we are.”
“I didn’t need a game to tell me that.”
It wasn’t a line. I truly did just know that Paige was supposed to be in my life. All roads led straight to her, in a crooked, long, winding route.
She beamed at me. I would never get sick of making her smile.
“Next question. What do you want to be when you grow up?”
“I haven’t declared a major yet,” she answered. “But lately I’ve been feeling that I’d like to do something with Psychology. Maybe help people who have been through a trauma.”
Hmmm. That told me a lot. I already knew she had been through something painful, both physically and emotionally. I was hoping tonight was the night she’d tell me about it. I wasn’t going to push, though. I promised her patience, and that was what I was going to give her.
Instead, I nodded. “That sounds like you. Can I just say something?”
“Of course you can.”
“All of these clothes we’re wearing are really distracting. Maybe we should do a bonus article removal. Just to keep us motivated.”
She burst out laughing, like the kind of belly laugh that girls usually don’t do unless they’re really confortable with someone. She covered her mouth with both hands, like she hadn’t meant to do it. I was grinning like a fool, but I couldn’t kill the smile plastered to my face.
“You’re ridiculous,” she scolded.
I pictured her scolding me like that in a sexy teacher outfit. The thought made me ten kinds of excited, and I wished I could pull her onto my lap right now so she could feel it.
I shrugged. “I’m a guy.”
Her full lips curved into a sexy smile. “I’ve noticed.”
She reached down to the skin-tig
ht jeans she was wearing and undid the button. My eyes zoomed in on her hands as they worked to pull down the zipper. My hands twitched, I wanted to help her so badly.
“One article,” she whispered.
I nodded and swallowed hard.
She slid the jeans down her legs, following their progression with her eyes. I followed the trail her eyes were blazing, and I froze.
The tops of her thighs were riddled with scars. The skin there was glossier than the rest, stretched tightly the muscle. Her eyes rose to meet mine, and her cheeks flushed a deep scarlet.
I read the question in her eyes, the determined challenge. She thought I was going to be turned off.
The realization sent me straight over to stand directly in front of her. I held her eyes with mine, and I wanted her to see that I was here to stay. No amount of scarring on her skin could make her any less beautiful to me. Not any less sexy, either.
I opened my mouth to tell her so, and she covered my lips with a finger. Then she tugged my hands and we settled back on the floor.
“It’s my turn to ask a question,” she said softly.
Paige
My stomach was clenched into a tight fist of anxiety. I was completely comfortable in my skin with Clay, but I still couldn’t be sure he wouldn’t walk out after tonight. I was giving him his chance to run, if that was what he chose to do.
“What do you want to be when you grow up?” I asked.
He swallowed. I wished I knew what he was thinking as I watched his Adam’s apple bob. He worked his mouth a few times before he answered.
“I’m majoring in architecture,” he finally said, his voice lower than normal. “When I was nine, my dad took me to Washington, D.C. for the first time. The buildings there, along with the history that went along with them…it made me want to use my mind to create something like that one day. I decided then that I wanted to design buildings for a living.”
I nodded, never dropping his gaze. I was glad to have this piece of information about him; it explained a lot, knowing what he wanted to do with the rest of his life.
“Can I ask now?” he said.
I nodded again, waiting. Praying.
“When you took off your jeans, did you think I was going to get up and leave?”
I rocked back on my heels. That was not the question I’d been expecting. But I knew I had to be honest with him. That’s what tonight was all about.
Honesty.
“Yes,” I admitted.
He reached up to stoke my hair. He pushed back the piece that hung over my imperfect face. He touched me there, his fingertips brushing softly against the sensitive skin.
Resolution gleamed in his cerulean eyes, and at first I didn’t understand what it meant.
“I’m not going anywhere. I will tell you that every single day, every single hour if I need to. Until you believe it. You’re gorgeous. The sexiest siren of a woman I’ve ever had the pleasure of being with. I mean it, Paige.”
I stared at him, the fact that I was lucky enough to be with someone who said things like that to me not lost on me. It would never get old.
“My turn,” I whispered. “Would you like to know how I got these scars?”
“More than anything,” he said, his voice thick with emotion.
Twenty
Paige
“They’re not really scars,” I said. “They’re burns.”
I stood up again, pulling the hem of my shirt up with me. I pulled the top over my head and let it drop to the floor beside me. Standing in front of Clay in my bra and underwear, he was able to see me fully, in the light.
He could see where I’d been burned: my legs, my stomach, my chest, my back. After months of reconstructive skin graft surgeries, the skin was nowhere near the ruinous mess it had been. But it was still affected. It was still obviously different than normal skin.
I took a deep breath and looked at Clay.
“They’re burns,” I repeated in a clear voice.
He stood in front of me and ran his hands up the sides of my thighs and over my panties. I shivered as his hands encircled my waist totally, enclosing me literally in the palms of his hands.
He paused there, his thumbs rubbing small circles on my skin. I shivered again, and he pulled me closer. Leaning down, he kissed my shoulder.
“You. Are. Stunning,” he whispered into my ear.
Each word was a hammer, pounding away at my insecurity. He pulled back and my eyes never left his as he gazed into them.
My heart broke, beautifully, when I saw the emotion puddle up in them.
“Still the softest skin, the most beautiful person these hands have ever touched,” he whispered fiercely, holding my gaze. “Nothing changed, Paige. Nothing.”
I couldn’t help it then. I pressed my lips to his so fervently I thought I might knock him over. He held me steady as I kissed him, never easing the strength with which he held me.
When I pulled back, my cheeks were wet with tears. Mine or his, I wasn’t sure.
“You’re seriously not repulsed?” I asked softly.
“No,” he said simply. “I want you more than ever.”
I nodded, wondering what had taken me so long to show him the real me.
“Paige?” he asked quietly.
“What?” I said, still distracted by the fact he hadn’t gone running for the hills.
“What happened to you?”
I looked back at him, startled. That was right. I’d have to explain now. The hard part wasn’t over.
Suddenly, he picked me up and cradled me in his arms. I squeaked, startled by the abrupt movement.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“I’m done with this game,” he said. “I want to be able to cuddle up with you as you tell me your story. I know how hard it is for you.”
He carried me to the couch and sat down, quickly unbuttoning his shirt and pulling it off. Then he pulled me down into his lap.
He read the question in my eyes.
“So I can feel your skin against mine.”
I nodded slowly, just taking him all in. I leaned my head against his shoulder and took a deep breath.
“My house caught on fire,” I began. “And I’m the one who set it.”
Clay
I tried to keep my face neutral as I listened. I didn’t want Paige to think I was forming any opinions. But I was shocked when she said she’d set a fire. More than shocked.
“What do you mean, you set it? Paige, I know you. You wouldn’t set fire to anything.”
“I guess I shouldn’t say I set it. But it was my fault. I just got the cause report a few weeks ago, the day Gillian called you over. That’s why I was so freaked out. I found out that the fire I lost everything in a little over a year ago was caused by a candle left burning on a bed. My bed, in my room.”
I sucked in a breath. No wonder she’d been so distraught that day. I felt like shit when I realized I’d walked out on her and she’d been suffering through this alone.
“But it was an accident, Paige. You couldn’t have known—“
“You can’t do that,” she interrupted. “Please don’t let me off the hook that easily. You don’t know everything yet.”
I nodded, rubbing a hand up and down her back. I’d keep quiet while she got this off her chest, if that was what she wanted. But then I was going to comfort her, dammit. She shouldn’t be blaming herself for an accidental fire.
Was her family letting her go through this alone? Why did the report come to her? Her parents should have gotten it, and then shared the information with Paige in a way that would make her feel blameless.
“I can’t really remember that night. So I don’t even know how I came to leave a candle burning on my bed. But I must have. I loved candles; I had them all over my room. I lit them all the time. So it must have been me.”
I considered that for a moment. There wasn’t a single candle in her room now. I didn’t think anything of it before, but it was odd. Girls always lov
ed candles.
A tear rolled slowly down her cheek, leaving a dark trail of mascara in its wake. I wiped it away with a thumb. My heart was starting to crack a little, but I clamped my mouth shut and just listened.
“Clay,” she said. “I lost everything that night. My whole family died in the fire.”
