Explicit Memory

by Scarlett Finn

Proving her lover’s innocence would hinge on the details, and if they got one thing wrong, if things didn’t add up, then everything could fall apart, and Flick wouldn’t let that happen.

  Chapter Eleven

  Getting back much later than she had intended, Flick walked through the peculiar array of objects filling the front shop. The items, which had caused her so much shock and outrage initially, were now a part of her life. Just as the brothel reception that she now traversed was. A scantily-clad Lilah sat behind the desk and they exchanged a nod of acknowledgement before Flick went through the curtain and into her bedroom, which promised the solitude and quiet that she craved now.

  The day had been long and tiring. Going through the reports and discussing ideas of how to make things right didn’t actually offer any sort of solace, because they still hadn’t gotten anywhere concrete. The Merciers had a head start, and so their side was at an unprepared disadvantage.

  Taking everything off in preparation for bed, Flick went for a long shower and then slid between the sheets alone, as was becoming her custom. A minute could have passed as easily as an hour, but somehow this time she felt him approach even through her slumber.

  The essence of her lover surrounded her, so she let her moist eyelids part and relaxed her body weight onto her back to see him standing at the bedside, watching her. There was no anger in his expression, and no love either. He simply stood, observing her. Her eyes were open, and they had to sparkle in the embers of light breaking through from the narrow windows above. Rushe must have recognised that she was awake, but he didn’t speak or acknowledge her consciousness in any way.

  She felt the urge to reach out and to say something, to communicate with him. For all they’d gone through together, they’d become close and forged a trust she thought was lasting. Her actions since Simone’s revelation exposed her desperation to keep them together, to maintain what they’d found, and to prove to him that he meant to her just what she meant to him.

  But here in this silent room, with two feet between them, the longer he stood there, the more detached from him she felt, and she didn’t like it.

  While elevating her hand, Flick made a show of shuffling closer without making a sound. Touching the denim on his leg, she registered the texture, smooth and yet coarse in a way that emanated through the material from his skin.

  Tensing her abdominals, Flick sat, but he didn’t move or speak. They couldn’t go on like this, and the questions kept building inside of her. Each of them centred more and more on the woman who clearly meant so much to him.

  Flick didn’t know who Tawny was, as he’d never mentioned her before. But he’d never mentioned any specific woman from his past. He’d alluded to relationships, at least being intimate with hookers, when she’d asked directly, and Flick considered that maybe this was it. Maybe Tawny was the girl who came before her. It could be that now he was here, faced with his history, he craved this woman from his past more than he wanted Flick in his future.

  She’d been secure with Rushe, but now witnessing the gulf widening between them, she began to think herself naive. Tawny could be the one he truly wanted, and Flick had been too stubborn to see the truth.

  Her own hand remained steady on his thigh, and his touched her forehead. His fingertips slid back, letting her hair part between them until he combed through her tresses, over her ear, to her cheek, to her chin, holding on to her locks until they slid out of his fingers.

  Flick couldn’t let herself slip out of his soul. She belonged to him, and he belonged to her. He gave her an identity; he’d changed who she was. This was what she wanted. This was what her life was meant to be, and giving it up had never occurred to her. If she had to walk away from him, she would have no purpose and no identity.

  Stretching her fingers, she let them glide upward until Rushe’s own broad digits got hold of hers and removed her caress. Her questions throbbed in her head and she wanted to liberate them, but she was consumed by the sorrow that she felt in him tonight.

  Could Tawny be the one that he missed? Had being back with her proved to him that he wanted to be with her? Flick couldn’t let herself believe it. Rushe belonged to her, and she trusted him, even in the times when he didn’t trust her.

  But they hadn’t been intimate since they’d been here, and they’d never had such a long passionless spell, so it couldn’t be ignored. Rushe had never shied from her physically, and he’d never refused her. He’d always let her take exactly what she wanted. But more than that, he’d hankered for her.

  Every minute of the day, every time they were together, he proved that desire. With every word he spoke to her, he betrayed how he yearned for her, and that made her feel so powerful. Flick loved his words, the way he spoke to her, and how he couldn’t hide the animal that wanted her, that existed in him.

  So she let herself curl around, twisting to plant her feet on the floor on either side of his and up she stood in front of him. Her calves were pressed to the edge of the bed, and she had no room to move. But Flick didn’t want to go anywhere, because this silent moment was perhaps the most intimate that they’d shared since they’d been together in Silver’s place.

  Something was different here, Rushe was different, and she didn’t know why. But if she could foster their intimacy, remind him of their physical connection, then she could encourage him to open up. All she had to do was have him make love to her, and he would remember their bond.

  With a concentrated effort, Flick drew her lips inward, moistened them with her tongue, and pushed up to her tiptoes. Brushing her palm the width of his cheekbone, Flick let her fingers touch his hair, and still he didn’t move or speak.

  ‘Kiss me, Rushe,’ she whispered.

  But he did nothing, his blank eyes just stared. Refusing to take action wasn’t like him. In these months they’d spent together, he’d given her confidence. He inspired her to push forward, regardless of her shame or feelings of embarrassment, because he had taught her that there was nothing more important than this, than them.

  So taking control, she found the top button of his jeans and pulled until every single one of the fasteners parted.

  ‘You want it,’ he mumbled.

  ‘Yes,’ she confessed, hoping that this was the moment, the breakthrough, the understanding that he could trust her. Maybe this was when he would let her in.

  Dipping down, he let his mouth meet hers, and parted his lips just enough to give her the taste of him. The heat of it, that moisture, the reassuring dampness of this aching kiss was more than they’d shared in days. But it wasn’t him, because this wasn’t a kiss of passion, or desire, it wasn’t even a kiss of love. It was a kiss of obligation. He didn’t want this, and she didn’t know how to react to that.

  ‘I want you to fuck me,’ she murmured.

  Pressing her hands against the resistance of his solid chest, Flick urged her breasts closer, crushing her flesh to his, trying to remind him of the connection that they shared.

  ‘Please,’ she exhaled, mustering the confidence that flailed inside. Matching that fierce stare she’d seen in him so many times, Flick pinned her gaze to his. ‘No fucking around. We do it here. We do it fast. We do it now.’

  Turning her rear to his groin, she grasped his hands around her hips. Leading them to the couch, Flick bent over it and kept her hold on him as she parted her legs, presenting her naked form for him as open and ready.

  ‘Do it,’ she said. ‘Do it like only you can. I need you. I want it now... Rushe, please, make me feel. I have to feel you.’

  Taking the risk, Flick loosened her fingers from between his in the hope that he would take over, because this was a chance he wouldn’t pass up if everything was right between them. Flick needed him to regain control and to take what he always wanted from her. Once she was back in his system, Flick wouldn’t let him shake her loose again.

  When his digits curled, her lips mimicked the action, and as his grip increased, she thought that she could feel him coming back to her
.

  ‘Oh your ass,’ he said, squeezing her just the way he loved to. ‘High up in the air, right there ready for me. Oh you’ve got a sweet fucking ass.’

  Rushe would spank her stupid for it, but she almost wanted to giggle at his words of appreciation out of the sheer delight she felt at hearing him bestow them.

  ‘Yes,’ she breathed, pushing back when he parted her folds and let his fingers slide between her, up and down, all through the juice that was there for him.

  ‘You’re ready, Kitten. All juiced up, all ready to go... You fucking whore.’

  Flick let herself whimper, but his fingers had slowed, slowed and then stopped, and then they were gone. She hoped that he was about to take her by surprise, and that something was about to happen, that this was the instant that they’d be together again. But he was gone.

  ‘Do it,’ she said. ‘Fuck me, oh god, Rushe.’

  Fumbling behind her, she tried to seek his hand but it wasn’t there. Her heart beat loud in her ears, every contraction of the organ send a barb of anguish outward. He was gone. Blood rushed through her veins in a torrent so loud that she heard it, yet she was cold. Flick’s extremities prickled. He’d withdrawn, and there wasn’t a fathomable reason for it.

  ‘I can’t.’

  It was in that second that her heart shattered in a way she’d never known possible. The only time he’d ever been incapable was when he was with Simone, and he couldn’t function sexually because he didn’t want the skinny French chick. He was in love with Flick, his Kitten, his woman.

  Now they stood here in this brothel and she felt him slipping away. Rushe said he couldn’t, and if he couldn’t get an erection, it was for one reason and one reason alone – he loved someone else.

  Letting her knees bend, they unlocked of their own accord, and she crumpled to the floor in a crouch. Covering her face with both hands, Flick propped her forehead on the back of the couch and let herself sob aloud; embarrassment be damned.

  Rushe couldn’t do it, he couldn’t be with her, and that meant only one thing. A nightmare that she had never previously considered had just become reality. Her instinct was to recoil when his fingertips met her shoulder, but he was stronger and still touched her with entitlement. Curling his digits around the ball of her shoulder, they bit into her with the force he had to use to turn her. He spun her body, and though she complied, Flick smacked his arm away from her form in the process.

  ‘Don’t,’ she yapped. As her forearm came back down, she noticed something in the way he crouched beside her. ‘You’re hard.’ Unable to take her eyes from the thick length of him bobbing so proudly between his thighs still on a plateau of denim, Flick was mesmerised.

  ‘You’re offended?’ he asked.

  ‘No, I... I don’t understand.’

  ‘You don’t understand?’

  ‘You just said that you couldn’t. You said you couldn’t,’ she said. ‘The only time, the only reason...’

  Her anger wouldn’t help anyone, and she would just make a fool of herself. So ignoring the rods of agony growing in her throat, Flick made herself meet his eye.

  ‘It never occurred to me,’ she admitted. ‘Not until right now.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘That you might... that you might love her more than you love me.’

  ‘What the fuck are you talking about?’

  ‘But I don’t understand, if you love her...’ she murmured. ‘You have an erection.’

  Of its own accord, her hand moved forward until her fingers coiled around the length of him, not in a sexual advance, in a sort of embrace, a comfort, something familiar for her to hold onto and anchor herself to in this confusing time.

  ‘We can’t do it. We can’t do it here,’ he said, taking hold of her wrist to remove her hand from his member.

  ‘Are you withdrawing presumed consent?’

  ‘You think if I wake up to you riding my cock that I’m going to cry rape?’

  ‘That would be unlikely to happen when you refuse to share my bed with me.’

  Rushe stood, once again, looking down at her from above. ‘That’s rich, when you’ve been going to him.’

  ‘Don’t pretend to be the jealous type. If you thought Liam wanted to touch me, then you’d have gone after him already to beat him to a pulp, wouldn’t you?’ Forcing her knees to take her weight, she straightened her limbs until she stood in front of him. But he didn’t speak. ‘Wouldn’t you? Rushe? Tell me you would. Tell me I’m your woman.’

  ‘He wants you. Don’t let your guard down, not for a second.’

  ‘What is this?’ she beseeched. ‘What’s going on here?’

  But he walked away, Rushe turned his back and paced away in an action that frustrated her. He didn’t like to argue, but neither did she, and none of this made any sense.

  ‘What is it you’re trying to tell me? What is it I don’t understand? Do you love her?’ Flick asked, ignoring the flash of grief that spread out as a ripple from her core.

  ‘Who?’ he asked, spinning around, but the instant he read her expression he frowned, and his own torture grew within him. ‘You’re hurt. I’m hurting you.’

  ‘Yes.’ Crossing to the bed, Flick couldn’t hold up her own weight anymore. ‘I can’t breathe,’ she exhaled, willing herself not to lose it, and not to get emotional. Becoming hysterical would achieve nothing, and it would only upset him. Trying to regain her composure, she pulled her lip between her teeth and tried to set her jaw, but her chin quivered.

  ‘You know,’ she started. ‘When I thought I’d lost you... When I thought you were dead... I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t breathe, it was... the world stopped turning, and I couldn’t stand upright. I couldn’t breathe, and everything was pain. I fell to the ground, and I didn’t want to ever get back up. I lay in that alley, and I’d have stayed there forever. I’d have stayed there forever, Rushe... And now you’re here in front of me, and... I don’t want to get back up.’

  Letting her chin fall, the moisture seeped out of her eyes. Despite her best attempts to fight, the tears prevailed. He’d disconnected, he wasn’t hers, and she didn’t know how to get him back.

  But before the tumultuous emotion took over, before she let it consume her, she recalled what he’d taught her. Rushe made her stronger, he made her better, and if another man threatened him, he wouldn’t collapse, he wouldn’t cry. He wouldn’t give up.

  So in a flurry of movement, she opened the drawer and her hand went inside to seek the knife he’d given her for protection. This wasn’t physical protection; it was emotional. But protecting herself from pain was her goal all the same.

  Surging to her feet, Flick was intent on exactly where she was going and exactly what she wanted to do. But Rushe intercepted her and got hold of her wrist, twisting it until the knife hit the floor.

  ‘If I loved her, do you think I would let you hurt her?’ he asked. ‘Do you think I would let anyone hurt the woman I love?’

  ‘I won’t let you go to her,’ Flick said, as determined as ever. But if Flick needed any sort of confirmation of his feelings that was it. She let her arm slacken, though it remained in his hold. ‘Tell me what I need to do.’ The stretch of her fortitude increased with every single second, because this was the man she loved and wanted to be with. She would do anything for him, anything to make him happy, just as he’d promised to do for her.

  But he didn’t say anything, Rushe remained stoic. Flick widened her eyes and focused her burning courage on him, to prove that she would go to any lengths for him.

  ‘Tell me what I have to do to make you happy.’

  ‘Stop it,’ he growled, baring his teeth.

  ‘Give me a chance to—‘

  ‘Stop.’

  ‘Please,’ she said. ‘It’s not fair to expect me to—‘

  ‘Kitten! Goddamnit, you are my woman.’

  Crouching down, his arms came around her, and she was swept off the floor and up into his arms. His mouth clashed against hers, this wa
s a hungry man, a starving man, who was losing grip on his last thread of control. This man kissed as though she held the key to his very existence. His mouth was wide, beckoning hers, and desperate for more than she could give. But he would always take what she could offer, crave what she provided, just as she craved him.

  With a ragged breath in, Flick let her head fall back when he nudged her out the way and kissed down the column of her throat. Twining her legs around his hips, she let her body merge with his as they collapsed down onto the bed. This was a man who wanted her.

  ‘You are my woman,’ he said. ‘Fuck. This body, I love this body... Your tits, your ass, you’re hot, I wanna fuck you. I wanna fuck you until you never forget.’

  ‘I couldn’t forget,’ she said.

  His mouth was everywhere, her mouth, her neck, her shoulders, her breasts. His hands slid down her arms and up into her hair, back down, then grasping her breasts he squeezed her nipples, and she whimpered out at the ecstasy he provided.

  This was a man in love. This wasn’t a man holding back, this wasn’t a man who was not in love with her. This was her man connecting, seeking her soul. This was exactly the physical breakthrough she’d been aiming for him to experience.

  ‘Talk to me,’ she pleaded, desperate to hear what he wanted to do with her, because she didn’t want to lose this yet.

  ‘Don’t ever doubt me again,’ he said, rasping his teeth over one nipple and then the next.

  ‘I didn’t doubt you. I didn’t... one day you’re going to turn around and see... God, I’m so scared that I might lose you.’

  His mouth ceased in its feast and he lifted his attention to look down at her. ‘You’re fucking crazy,’ he said. ‘You’re one dumb bitch, you know that?’

  ‘Rushe,’ she sighed, desperate to hear him, to see him, to feel him, to be a part of him.

  Raising her legs higher, she hooked her toes inside the loose waistband of his jeans and she pushed down until she’d stripped his jeans away, as far as her legs would let her.

  ‘You’re my woman,’ he said, looking down on her from above. ‘Here, this place, this isn’t for love, this isn’t for... What we are, and what we have, is not here. It’s not for here.’