“Is it rude to want to kiss you right now?” he asked, his blue eyes burning.
All I could do was shake my head no, and I was on my feet, Dan standing in front of me, tracing his fingers along my jaw line and nearly searing my lips off with a hot kiss that tasted of wine and chocolate and faintly, oh so faintly, of blood from that magnificent steak.
“Do you still want me to take you home?” he asked me, his voice low, practically rumbling in his chest.
“Yes,” I whispered.
He exhaled heavily and stepped away. I felt physically weak, like I was going to crumple to the floor of this fancy restaurant at any moment.
“I’m still…soaking all of this in,” I tried to explain, as Dan reached into his wallet, taking out enough hundred-dollar bills to make my eyes bulge out of my head. “If you don’t remember, I used to live in a car. I just had the best meal of my life, and it’s only our first date.”
Dan turned to me and smiled, gently taking me by the chin and kissing me much lighter this time, much sweeter.
“I get it, Beauty,” he said. “You’re not ready. We’ll take it slow. I just don’t like not getting to do what I want. I don’t like being told no.”
He nodded at the waiter and concierge as we walked toward the door, and his nice car was just pulling up without Dan having to so much as show the valet the ticket. It was as if everyone had been holding their breaths and watching Dan since the moment he paid our way in here. Money wielded much more influence than I realized. Money made people pay close attention.
We were driving back toward my apartment in vaguely uncomfortable silence when I cleared my throat.
“Sometimes, you have to accept someone telling you no,” I said, looking down at my hands. “Count this as one of my lessons in manners. People say no to you sometimes, and you just have to deal with it.”
“Doesn’t mean I have to like it,” Dan said, glancing at me. He was stunningly sober for the amount we’d had to drink, still driving just as fast as he had been on the way to the restaurant.
“Well, no, you don’t have to like it,” I allowed. “But you also shouldn’t let the person telling you ‘no’ see that you don’t like it. Everyone has a right to do—or not do — whatever they want.”
“You’re right,” he sighed. “You’re always right, Beauty. I just really want…I really want to spend time with you. I’m spoiled. I’m used to getting what I want, when I want it.”
“We’re going to spend time together,” I assured him. “I just…I’m broken inside, Dan.” I swallowed hard. I’d never talked with someone as honestly as I was talking to him in this moment. I didn’t talk to anyone about my feelings, about the extent of damage that still festered within me.
“Broken how?”
“I lived in a car for more than a year of my life,” I said. “I was basically a transient. I forgot what it was to be civilized. I had to forget it so I could survive. I worked anywhere, did anything…you saw me.”
“I did see you,” he said, staring at the road in front of us. I wasn’t sure what he was actually seeing was the road or not, though. He was probably seeing me, grinding up against him at that club again. It made my mouth dry to imagine it, that he said he was going to fantasize about me when he relieved himself of his attraction that night.
I wondered if he’d do the same thing tonight.
“You’re going to have to be patient with me,” I said. “I’ve been through…a lot. I want to spend time with you, Dan, but I just really need us to take it slow. I’m pretty much a lost little girl when it comes to things like this.”
“You didn’t look like a lost little girl that night in the bar,” he said, his voice dark. “Well, you did, in a way. But the kind of lost that I really like.”
Another shiver trilled up my spine.
“I’m not that girl in the bar anymore,” I said. “I’m trying something different now. And that’s why I need your help. If you’re the teacher, I’m the student who needs your lessons the most.”
“Your proposal for role play isn’t really helping me right now, Beauty.”
I looked over at him and then all but gasped at the tent in his pants. I hadn’t so much as touched him, and he appeared to be painfully erect. The thought that I could have such a strong effect on a person just from talking to him…that was powerful. I hadn’t even taken an article of clothing off.
Dan pulled up to my apartment building and put the car in neutral, the engine idling, waiting for me to tell him what I wanted to do.
God, I was conflicted. I wanted him, but I didn’t want him. I was still uncomfortably full from our meal—as well as uncomfortable over the money Dan was willing to spend on me. I was afraid of his eagerness, afraid that if I bared myself to much, if I gave too much of myself to him, if I showed him my most vulnerable parts, he would see the ugliness that was within me and recoil.
I needed Dan, but I needed him at arm’s length, for now.
“I had a really, really amazing date with you,” I said softly. “I hope you can understand why I’m not ready for anything else right now.”
“Do you think there’s a chance that you might want…something else in the future?” he asked, looking at me, his blue eyes downright inky in the dark.
“I think there’s a really good fucking chance, yes,” I said, and he laughed.
“I will take that,” he said. “I will take that really good fucking chance.”
“I’m sorry you picked someone who doesn’t function right,” I said. “I’m sorry that I can’t be that girl for you, the girl who takes you up to her room tonight.”
“Beauty, if you were that girl, I have to confess that maybe I’d be a little disappointed.” Dan rubbed his thumb over my cheek and everything was somehow immediately better. He didn’t hate me for demurring. Everything was all right.
I kissed him, and he deepened it, his tongue a memory of sweet wine and chocolate.
“I’ll be thinking about you tonight,” he said, capturing my hand and guiding it to his lap. Away from prying eyes—relatively, anyway, with the sidewalks bare of pedestrians in front of my building—I felt his thick attraction toward me through his pants. He was well endowed—set up for success physically and monetarily. Dan was a lucky man, and I was a lucky girl for crossing paths with him.
“I’d kind of hoped you would be,” I confessed, my voice shaking with desire. It would be so easy to cave in, to just invite him up, and to let myself go. All I wanted to do was to forget, to feel good and forget. And yet I couldn’t.
Dan gave a long groan, and I jerked my hand away.
“You’d better get going,” he warned. “I want you too bad.”
I was practically panting; he had to recognize that the feeling was mutual.
“Do you need to use my bathroom before you go?” I asked, my voice trembling uncontrollably. “Or some water? Do you want some water? A mint? Just in case?”
“If I go up to your apartment right now, Beauty, I will fuck you,” he said, his voice raw. “That is a promise and a warning. If that’s what you want to do, then by all means. Let’s go up. But if you want to take it slow, it’s best that you go up alone.”
Fuck me. I opened my mouth to tell him my decision but snapped it shut again. No. I could do this. I had to be strong. I wouldn’t know what to do with myself if we had sex right now. It would be too much, too soon, and it would be too hard to face myself tomorrow morning. There had been just too many feelings to handle in the past twenty-four hours. Having sex with Dan would be a wonderful distraction, but it would also open a can of worms I didn’t think I would know how to close again.
“Text me when you get home, so I know you made it safe,” I said, not daring to give him even one more kiss, afraid I’d give way to my weakening resolve.
“I’m fine,” he said, giving me a tight smile. “Though it’ll be a miracle to make it without blowing a load in my pants.”
I grimaced. “Impolite.”
&n
bsp; “But the truth,” he said. “Beauty. It was a distinct pleasure. I’m sorry that I’m a caveman. I wish I was better at controlling myself. I see something I want and I just go after it until I have it. Women—they want to be with me. They throw themselves at me, when they realize what I can give them. What I can do for them. You’re going to have to be a patient teacher with me, too. I don’t think I can change overnight.”
“I understand that,” I said, opening the door and stepping out. “We’ll both be patient teachers—and diligent students.”
“Again with the role play,” Dan said, shaking his head, rubbing a hand through his beard, distressed. “You really know how to fuck with a guy’s brain, Beauty.”
“I’m not trying to fuck with your head,” I said, flustered. “Sorry! Goddammit!”
I slammed the car door shut and spun around, intent on hiding away in my apartment, when I heard the window roll down.
“Beauty!”
I turned, bent down to make eye contact.
“I really did have a good time tonight,” he said.
“So did I.”
“Let’s do it again as soon as possible.”
I smiled. “You have my number.”
“Good night.”
“Good night.”
It was all I could do to get up to my apartment before I threw myself on my bed, facedown, smiling against my pillow. Dan had been completely… unexpected. He was volatile, perhaps, but passionate, endearing, and definitely entertaining.
The fact that he was so attracted to me was an added bonus. It did a lot for my self-confidence.
It showed me that, after everything, maybe there was going to be a light at the end of the tunnel. Maybe I didn’t deserve it. But it was there all the same.
I thought about Dan’s hot mouth on my own, thought about the way his cock had felt beneath his expensive pants, the way he’d groaned, how he’d certainly be thinking about me tonight, when he got home.
I felt something that I hadn’t felt in a long time, an urge for something that was beyond filling a void. It was honest to God attraction toward Dan. I desired him, and I wanted to…do something about it.
I’d cloistered myself from the finer pleasures in life during my time on the road. That wasn’t to say that I didn’t…feel things. I could see a hot guy walking down the street and appreciate the way he looked. But I didn’t go back to the car and touch myself to him later that night.
Now, though, secure in my apartment, still buzzing from an unbelievable evening with Dan, an irresistible urged traveled up my spine and down my arm, my hand moving almost of its own volition to draw my dress up over my thighs, stopping when it brushed my waist. The air in the apartment was cool, and I shivered, my skin puckering with goosebumps.
I hooked my fingers on either side of my panties and lifted my hips, taking them down to my knees. I was bare to the night, and I pressed my legs together briefly for that shudder of sensation before spreading them again, walking my fingers back up my legs, ghosting light touches at their juncture, teasing my velvet lips, the downy hair there already dewy with my desire.
I hadn’t told Dan to come up here. I hadn’t given in to my baser instincts. That was good. I could reward myself, couldn’t I? It didn’t hurt either of us if I imagined that he was here, with me, that the finger running up and down the cleft of my lips, parting them to skate in the wetness there, was his instead of mine.
He said he’d been with other women; I wondered just how experienced he was. He was older than me, so I imagined he already knew his way around the female form quite well—not like the guys I’d been with at college, barely able to last longer than a few minutes with a girl who’d been so eager to give herself away in order to get away from herself.
No, Dan would take his time. He’d know that he already had me, that there was no point in rushing it, that he could take as long as he want, torturing me to completion.
He’d plunge one finger into my hot depths, just as I was doing right now, and he’d take a leisurely tour of what I had to offer. I’d let him, of course, because he knew exactly what I liked, exactly how to touch me to get me to arch my back, to urge him onward. He’d laugh at me, tell me I just needed to slow down and enjoy myself, but I’d beg him for it. I might be ashamed, but I’d beg him to give it to me, not looking to lose myself in that black orgasm but to find myself, instead.
I was so close it scared me. I hadn’t given myself this kind of pleasure in so long that it was like my body was flooding at the first sign of rain in spite of the drought it had endured. I lightly flicked my fingers over my clit, again and again, feeling a pleasant burn in my forearm, well out of practice for this sort of thing. I imagined my fingers were Dan’s tongue; I imagined that he was looking up at me from between my legs, ready to push me over the edge…
…but then it was Roland’s face that replaced it, that scar so insignificant compared to the waves of climax crashing down over me. Was it wrong that it was Roland instead of Dan? I squeezed my eyes shut and then nothing mattered, gaping into the darkness, my hand never slowing for a second, gasping out my confused pleasure, and sinking into a sweet slumber that didn’t care who made me feel good.
Chapter 11
The thing about human beings was that people could get used to whatever they had to get used to. Adaptation happened whether we were aware of it or not, and we always tried to protect ourselves regardless.
I couldn’t say that I’d ever actually fully adapted to the reality I’d created with my horrible decision, the one that had killed Caro, my parents, and Roland’s fiancée, Mina. But I had adapted beyond the point of curling up in a ball and weeping for hours on end. I’d even adapted past the stage where I’d sit still for whole days, staring blankly in front of me, not eating or drinking until something inside me felt like it would break.
The lizard part of my brain, the portion responsible for keeping me alive even after the rest of its real estate had already decided that I didn’t deserve to live, had asserted itself during my time at college—when I was trying and failing to find something to end my suffering. My lizard brain realized that I wasn’t adapting to my new situation as long as I was there, so I had to move.
Because those were the decisions the lizard brain had to make: adapt, move, or die, and it wasn’t about to choose death. The lizard brain made me eat, made me sleep, made me wake up, made me breathe when I didn’t want to, hold my breath when I wanted to open my lungs underwater and let it all come pouring in.
It was the lizard brain that propelled me across the country, pushing me from place to place when it felt like I wasn’t adapting, certain it could find a better situation for me down the road.
And now that I had settled into Seattle, my lizard brain had gotten lazy. It didn’t mind the fact that there wasn’t much sun in the city to sit its scaly body in. It basked instead in having a place to sleep at night that wasn’t the car, at having all the food it wanted and then some, at sticking to a schedule that was shifting away from late nights and toward early mornings.
When the part of me panicked at the thought of Roland discovering the truth about my past, about how I was responsible for our mutual heartache, the lizard brain yawned and turned its face away from me. We’d been doing so well here in Seattle up until this point, and the lizard brain had dug itself a burrow, content on adapting in the most comfortable place we’d been in since…well, since my parents were still alive and I didn’t have anything to run away from.
The lizard brain tongued the air of my panic and told me to get used to it, to figure out some way to exist with it, because we weren’t moving around anymore. We were going to stay in Seattle. If we couldn’t thrive, then we’d, at the very least, survive.
And so I adapted to the terror that Roland would someday discover the truth. It became easier to ignore with the distractions I found for myself. Dan had fit that role nicely, pushing me so far out of my comfort zone that it was easy to forget about everything el
se that worried me.
And that was how I found myself able to move around the office without sweating through my blouses and blazers in anxiety. I was able to smile without it freezing on my face in a frightened grin. I was able to have small talk with Sam, eat lunch at the cafeteria, and do some real damage to the papers that needed to be digitized.
When the phone at my desk rang, I was able to answer that, too.
It had taken some time to get used to being around Roland in a professional setting after I realized just what I’d done to him, what I’d taken away from him with the single stupidest mistake in my life.
If anything, Roland had loosened up, perhaps relieved at the fact that I wasn’t angry at him for his admission. How could I have been? Nothing was his fault.
All of the biting commentary on my appearance and performance had vanished, and he actually sounded happy to see me sometimes. It was a shocking transformation from the beast he’d been when I first got hired.
Once he became nicer, a funny thing happened. It became easier to forget about Roland’s wretched scar. I could hold an entire conversation with him, looking into those blue eyes, without feeling the macabre need to follow the twisting path of that scar across his face. When he wasn’t acting mean, he was downright pleasant to be around.
Part of me suspected it was the guilt I felt at ruining his life. I could at least be nice to him, be his one friend in this office, the one person who wasn’t so horrified at his appearance that I refused to even give him a chance.
“What can I do for you?” I asked, cradling the phone against my neck between my ear and my shoulder so I could continue typing with both hands. “I almost have the meeting summary typed up.”
“No rush on that,” Roland said, his gravelly voice warm. “I’m sure it’ll be riveting stuff.”
“Riveting?” I snorted. “I don’t know about that. There was a five-minute discussion about office supplies…”
DEFENSE Page 31
