“I did that,” she reached over and grabbed the bottle from him. “Because you’re being an asshole.”
Derek looked at her for a moment before he responded to her accusation. “I’m sorry.” He sank in his chair and rested his head in his hands.
Derek shook his head from side to side. “Derek, what’s wrong? What happened in the kitchen earlier. You know they were just teasing you, right? They didn’t mean to upset you.”
His head was still hanging down. “I know. I do, it’s just that whenever I get accused of being too nice it pisses me off.” He jerked his head up and looked at her. “I mean, what the hell is wrong with being a nice guy? I can think of worse damn things to be. And so what if I’m nice. It’s not like I treat people like shit. That should be a good quality, instead it’s like a freaking cross I have to bear.”
Ann listened to him vent. She wondered if his pain had anything to do with the girl, Sandi, that Frances and Leo had mentioned. She weighed her options on whether or not she should bring her up. But Derek had been so good to her. He had become a true friend to her. Maybe she could be the same for him.
“Derek, is this about Sandi?”
A tornado couldn’t whip around as fast as his head did at her question. “Who told you about Sandi?”
“No one, really. I just sort of overheard Frances and Leo saying that, well, maybe whatever happened with her has to do with why you get so sensitive about the whole being nice thing.” She shouldn’t have ratted out Frances and Leo, but the only thing she was worried about right now was Derek.
“They talk about me? About that? Oh great. I’m not pathetic enough right. Jesus!” Derek flung himself in his chair for the second time.
“It’s not what you think. They like you and care about you. I think they’re actually worried about you.”
Derek didn’t look at her or say anything. He just motioned with his hands for her to sit in the chair across from him.
Ann sat down and waited for him to break the silence. She had a feeling he just needed time before he said whatever was consuming his thoughts at that moment.
“We were engaged.”
That was all he said, just three little words. But the pain that she heard in his voice spoke volumes of what those words meant. Clearly he had been hurt.
“What happened?”
“I still don’t know. I swear it’s so freaking confusing. It’s been a year and I still can’t forget it.” He didn’t say what he really wanted to, and that was that after one year he still wasn’t over it, or over her. He still loved her.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
He laughed, an agonized sound. “What’s there to talk about? I can’t make heads or tails of what went wrong. All I know is one night changed our lives forever. And the Sandi that I knew and loved was gone.”
Okay, so that made absolutely no sense. “Derek, I’m not saying you have to talk about it. But if you feel like it, I’m here, and I’m a good listener.”
He looked at her as he leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest. Apparently he was deciding whether or not to talk about it because she could see him pondering what to do. He rocked back in his chair a couple of times before he finally said something.
“I met her about five years ago. She was the Gallagher’s niece. Remember, they were here last…Tuesday. The guy with the funny-looking toupee. Anyway, she had come out to visit one summer with her family. She just turned twenty, still so young and sweet, naïve I guess you could say. Anyway, I met her at the Roadhouse. I was helping Quinn out. His door guy called in sick, so I was working for him. It was Friday night and busy as all hell. I was so busy checking ID’s that I barely noticed her. I glanced at her ID and was all set to let her go inside, but when I handed it back to her our fingers touched and,” he rolled his eyes, “this is gonna sound really corny, but there was like a spark between us. At that one moment when our fingers touched, I felt like I had been electrocuted, but in a good way. You know?”
Boy did she. Being with Quinn was like constant overload to her senses. She knew exactly what it meant to feel your skin heat and sizzle with desire and urgent need for someone. But instead of telling him all of that, she just nodded in agreement.
“Anyway, that’s when I really looked at her.” He started to laugh. “The little sneak had stolen her sister’s ID, which granted they did look a lot alike, but I could tell they weren’t the same person. Of course I told her she couldn’t go in, and I took her sister’s ID, told her that her sister would have to come pick it up.”
Derek shrugged, “It’s policy. We can’t very well give her back the ID she’s trying to use to get into bars. So, I guess I sort of embarrassed her, what with me doing it in front of all the people that were crowded around outside. She decided to wait around until I left that night. She was that pissed. She waited for over six hours until I came stumbling out to my truck, dead tired from a long day.”
He expelled a huge breath before continuing, “I get out there, start to unlock my door and I feel someone slapping me in the back, not just a little slap either. More like the kind when two girls are really going at it, you know like in a cat fight. I mean she wasn’t using her fists, but they sure felt like punches. I turned around to see what in the hell was happening, because that’s what I thought, I was like what the hell? Anyway, I see this pretty little blonde-haired blue-eyed princess glaring at me, but behind that glare I could tell that she had been crying. I gotta tell you, it about broke my heart to see tears in those pretty little eyes.”
Ann was on the edge of her seat with his story, waiting anxiously to hear what happened next. She had to ask him to continue because for a moment he got lost in the memories.
“Sorry. I should have cursed, yelled or something, because damn, her slaps really hurt. Instead I grabbed her and held her close. And before you even ask, I have no freaking idea why I did it. It was the strangest thing. She was beating the crap out of me. For all I knew, she was a little delinquent, because, you know, she was trying to sneak in bars and all. But her tears, oh God, her tears were like a knife cutting through my heart. I just had an overwhelming feeling to hold her and comfort her. And the funny thing is, she didn’t push me away. She just held onto me and cried.”
“So why was she so upset? I mean you embarrassed her, but to be that upset? Isn’t that a bit extreme?”
“Yeah, I guess. I mean, apparently there were a group of local kids that she had met earlier that day at the Stop-N-Go. She didn’t have any friends in town, and she was going to be here for three months, so she tried to become their friend. Only these kids just wanted to mess with her. They knew she was underage, and they also knew there was no way that she’d get into the Roadhouse. So, they told her that if she wanted to hang out with them, she had to find a way to get in. But, rather than me let her in, I took her ID, made some sort of comment about her being a little girl, and sent her on her way. I guess they razzed her pretty bad. So yeah, it might seem extreme to get that upset. But at the time I understood. I mean she was still so young, she had no friends and absolutely no one to talk to. By the way, I neglected to mention that her parents had the personality of a wet mop and pretty much treated her like she was a nuisance. So, she needed a friend and I took away her only hope of making any.”
Ann listened to Derek and tried to put herself in the girl’s shoes. Maybe it might have been a little humiliating, she thought. “So, then what happened?
“It took some doing, but I calmed her down a little bit and we talked. We both sat on the tailgate of my truck, and we talked until the sun came up. It was actually kind of nice. I’d never stayed out with a girl all night before and just talked. Somehow in the hours that passed, I ended up holding her hand. I’m not really sure who had initiated it, but it was nice. I followed her home, expecting to have to deal with her father. You know, your twenty year old daughter is out all night and she comes home in the morning with an older guy following her. I guess I figu
red there’d be hell to pay. But nothing even remotely close to that happened. Her parents were just coming out of the house when we pulled up. They just looked at her and told her that they hadn’t realized she wasn’t home. Then they said that she would have to find herself something to eat because they were going out to get something. Then they just left. No worries or concern over where she was, or the strange man that was with her. It was kind of sad.”
“And embarrassing. Seeing as how you were there to witness it,” Ann added.
“Yeah, it was. I could see it on her face, too. Only being with her a few hours and I could tell just by looking at her what she was feeling. So, I considered my options. One, I could say goodbye and leave. Or two, I could get out of my truck and give her a hug and ask her to breakfast.”
“Well, what’d you decide?”
Quinn just gave her a ‘oh please’ look. “What do you think that I did?”
She grinned. In the short time that she knew, Derek he was gallant if nothing else. He didn’t like it when women were upset about anything. “You took her to breakfast.”
He nodded. “I did. I took her to breakfast and afterwards, when I brought her home, I kissed her. It wasn’t sexual or passionate. It was just a simple little kiss. But I got to tell you, that little kiss packed one hell of a punch. Because at that very moment I was hooked. She was just so damn sweet. So pretty, she was every fantasy a man has when he pictures his future wife.”
Ann raised her eyebrows at that. “You knew that day that you wanted to marry her?”
“Hell yeah I did. She was amazing. I’m not saying that I actually fell in love with her then. But I was pretty damn close. Sort of like teetering on the edge, so to speak. Anyway, we spent the next several weeks dating. You know, getting to know each other. It was different with her. Every other woman I had dated I was sleeping with by the second date. But Sandi was different. And it was more than a little obvious that she was a virgin. I didn’t want to rush her. Lord knows we had plenty of opportunities. She stayed at my house all the time. Her parents never cared where she was. But, I usually just ended up holding her and cuddling with her.”
Derek laughed. “It’s kind of funny when you think about it. I mean, I slept with her before I ever slept with her. Sorry, bad joke. Anyway, one day I came home from work and she was already at my place. She had candles and flowers everywhere, not that I needed them of course, but she did. She went to great lengths to make sure that her first time, our first time together, was perfect. And it was, you know. It was more than perfect. If I hadn’t already been in love with her then, that night sealed the deal. I was hers, completely, from that moment on.”
Ann closed her eyes and tried to hide the emotions swirling inside of her. While her and Quinn’s first time together hadn’t been romantic with flowers and candles, there was still something deep inside that happened to her, making her feel so at peace and content. So she knew exactly what Derek meant when he said it was perfect.
“So, to speed things up a bit to my devastating heartbreak, we moved in together, did everything together. We were absolutely inseparable, and it wasn’t a bad thing. It was great actually. She got a job working at that hotel you were staying at and she was happy. We were happy. Until a little over a year ago. Then everything changed.”
Ann reached her hand across the desk to take Derek’s in hers. The happiness that was in his eyes only minutes ago had vanished. He was upset again and hurting. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”
Derek squeezed her hand and shook his head. “No. It’s good for me to talk about it. And truth be told, you’re easy to talk to. You don’t mind hearing it?”
“No, I’m honored that you would trust me enough to talk about it with me.”
“Okay, her sister, you know the one whose ID she had stolen? She was getting married. We were both going, but the weekend before the wedding, she flew to Denver for the bachelorette party. It was no big deal. I loved her and trusted her. We actually just got engaged about a month before, so I had no reason to think that I should be worried. But I was wrong.”
Ann waited. Whatever he was about to tell her was killing him. She could see the pain reflected in his eyes.
Derek looked up at her and then away. “They went to an All Male Revue. I mean, I knew she was going. I didn’t care, heck I’d gone to bachelor parties that had ended up in strip clubs so I didn’t see anything wrong with it. But apparently this one guy, a dancer was hitting on her pretty bad. She did the right thing. Told him she was engaged and that she was taken. So I should have been happy, right?”
“Right. Why do I get the impression that you weren’t, though?”
“When I got out there to the wedding I overheard some of the bridesmaids talking at the reception. Talking about how this guy had been hounding her all week. Apparently, Sandi had met him a couple of times for drinks. Oh damn, was I pissed. I confronted her later that night at the hotel. She admitted to meeting him twice. But she swore that nothing happened. She swore that she only went there to insist that he leave her alone. She claimed she told him that she was engaged and she wasn’t free to see other men.”
Ann wondered if he realized what he’d said.
“I know, that’s what I thought, too. Not once while she was telling me how innocent their meetings were did she tell me that she didn’t want to see him. She kept saying that she was already taken, so she wasn’t free to see him. Like I was standing in her way or something. Needless to say, I was pissed off.”
Ann started to speak, but he quickly cut her off.
“No, wait for it, it gets better. So, we have a huge fight and I fly back home by myself. A week later she comes crawling back to me. Saying that she’s sorry and that I’m what she really wants. Not him. I should have been ecstatic, but I knew there was something she wasn’t telling me. And I also knew that she could never look me in the face and lie to me. So I asked her what it was, and I got to tell you a part of me wishes I hadn’t. Because at that moment my heart literally stopped beating. I stood there and listened while she told me she slept with him.”
“Oh, Derek. I’m so sorry.”
He shook his head. “Don’t be. She’s the one that did it. I, being the dumbass that I am, was willing to give her another chance. And despite the fact that I was angry, jealous and pissed off as all hell, things were going okay for about a month. But I could sense something was off. She changed, if only a little, but I could tell. I told myself it was just guilt that she was feeling. But when I came home one day I learned just how stupid that was.”
Derek’s eyes welled up with tears. He couldn’t fight the emotions that overcame him with the memory of that day. “I walked in my house, expecting to sit down to dinner with her. I guess I was earlier than usual or she had lost track of time, because the second I walked in the house I heard them.”
Derek ran his fingers through his hair and groaned in frustration. “I planned to just walk down the hall and walk in on them, if nothing else then for the pure satisfaction of seeing the look on her face when I caught her. But I stopped right outside the door. She was screaming, shouting really, telling him to fuck her harder, fuck her like she loves it, like Derek couldn’t. She actually said those words. That I couldn’t fuck her like she wanted. I heard a slap, peeked in the door and saw that she was getting spanked with a flogger.”
Derek saw the confused look on her face. “It’s like a small rubber whip. Fuck, Ann. You have no idea what it felt like to know that not only she had gone to another man, but that she didn’t think I could do those things for her.”
Derek saw that she was once again confused. “See I have a bit of an unusual appetite when it comes to my sexual preferences. But with her, I always held back. I guess I thought she was too special to subject her to any of my deepest, darkest desires. And I can see from the look on your face that I’ve made you uncomfortable.”
“No. No, I’m just surprised. So, if she, um, needed that and you wante
d it too, why couldn’t you work things out?”
“Because I didn’t go in right away. I stayed outside the room and listened and watched. I don’t know why, but I felt like I had to. And unfortunately, I’m glad that I did. Because she kept talking. She kept telling him things, intimate things about us. She told him how I was too nice to her, how she wanted me to force her to do things like he did. She also told him that it never felt as good as it did when he was fucking her. That was the last straw; I stormed in the bedroom and kicked the asshole out of our house.”
“That must have been horrible for you,” Ann told him sincerely.
“It was. It was the worst pain I’d ever felt in my life. She actually turned to someone else because she thought I was too good to her. I mean shit, Ann. I fucking loved her so much I thought I would die from it. I never wanted to subject her to the kind of kinky things I was into. Sorry. I don’t know what else to call it.”
“That’s okay. What would you call it?” Why she asked, she had no idea. But curiosity had gotten the better of her. Because despite the pain of his story, she couldn’t help but feel some sort of connection to it. She herself was constantly worried that she wouldn’t be enough to make Quinn happy. That eventually he would tire of her. When she was with him, he made her feel like the most precious woman on the planet, it was because of this that caused her to worry. Why and how could she be so lucky to have such a wonderful man in her life? It was that constant question that nagged at her relentlessly, convincing her that it was only a matter of time until he got bored and moved on.
“Have you ever heard of BDSM?”
Ann swallowed a lump in her suddenly dry throat. “Yeah, I’ve heard of it but I don’t really know much about it.”
“Well, it’s not really appropriate for me to explain it to you, but suffice it to say that before Sandi, I was heavily into it. I sort of gave it up for her.” He laughed. “Ironic, huh? I mean I give it up for her, and it’s what she really wants. Anyhow, there was a lot of yelling and screaming. I actually considered giving her one more chance. I know. It was stupid to consider, seeing as how she cheated on me at least twice. But I loved her. I didn’t want to imagine my life without her. She was actually the one that ended things. She said that she didn’t believe me about my lifestyle before her. She said I was just using it as a ploy to get her back. That pissed me off. I mean the Sandi that I fell in love with would have never acted so cold to me. But this new woman acted like I should and would do whatever I could to get her back. It was sort of demeaning. Bottom line is that she said I was too nice of a guy to fuck her hard like she wanted.”
Intimate Persuasions Page 8
