Rest & Trust

by Susan Fanetti

She turned and picked up a remote from a shelf. Turning off the television, she walked to her kitchen, and he followed, stopping at the end of her counter.

  With her back to him, she said, “Live clean. I used since I was in middle school, and I’ve only been clean a little more than a year. The world is a lot different this way.” She opened her fridge and took out two Diet Cokes. “And this is new to me. I’ve never…” She paused, seemed to take the time it took to open the cans to reconsider, then walked back and handed him a soda. “I’ve never let a guy get this close before.”

  On the list of things Sherlock would rather drink than diet soda was pretty much everything short of puke or piss. So he simply held the can and waited for her to take a long drink before he asked, “Never?”

  They hadn’t gotten very close at all yet. Then again, she’d been in his house, he’d brought her there with barely a blink, and he didn’t normally bring women to his house. Taryn had been there a grand total of three times—and two of those times didn’t really count, since she’d only dropped by to bring him something he’d left at her place, and she hadn’t left arm’s reach of the front door.

  The third time, she’d spent a few days with him while the kids were with their dad and her house was being fumigated. That had not been a highlight of their rocky relationship. She had hated being a guest in his home. And he’d hated having her there.

  “Never,” Sadie answered. “I was too busy being a junkie and an honor student to have a boyfriend.”

  He smiled. “Is that what I am? Already?”

  She blushed and looked away. “Don’t make fun. It feels like you could become that.” Her eyes returned to his. “Doesn’t it?”

  Again he considered whether this was a good idea. To the impartial observer, what was happening between them probably looked like a disaster in the making: a recently-recovering addict, a cutter, a girl clearly damaged and admittedly naïve in the ways of love and relationships, and an older biker, still stinging from the shocking end of a fractious relationship, a man whose life was as messy as his home and whose loyalties lay elsewhere.

  They probably were a disaster in the making. Staring down into her hopeful, youthful eyes, Sherlock could think of a dozen reasons that the kindest thing he could do right now would be to be the grownup, to kiss her forehead and walk away.

  But he didn’t want to. He liked her. So much. He liked that she enjoyed the things he enjoyed. He liked the way she made him feel. He liked that she needed him, that she would let him take care of her. He liked the way she was looking at him right now, like he could make everything better by simply saying the word ‘yes.’

  He reached around her and set the can on the counter. He took her can from her and did the same. Then he cupped her face in his hands and said, “Yes.”

  Her smile lit up the room, and he bent down and kissed that lovely mouth. As he plunged his tongue between her soft lips, she whimpered and grabbed the edges of his kutte, leaning into his body.

  And then she climbed him—kissing him back greedily, she hooked her arms over his neck and pulled herself up his body until he got what she was doing and grabbed her ass. She wrapped her legs around his hips and settled in.

  He really liked her there, and he stood for a long time, standing next to her kitchen counter, with her completely in his arms. Fuck—this, holding her like this, was as hot as almost anything, as hot as the feel of her tongue against his. As hot as the sound of her breath quickening. As hot as the feel of her hands holding his head.

  Fuck.

  He turned and headed toward her ridiculously little bed.

  She sucked on his pierced lip—the feel of that made his cock twitch and throb—and then pulled away. “Wait. I need to make it up. It’s not big enough.”

  “Fuck it. I don’t want to wait. We’ll just have to stay close.”

  She gave him a smile that made him think he’d said more than he had, and she squeezed herself more tightly around him. “Okay.”

  As he had earlier in the day—the day before—he laid her down on her daybed. She was barefoot, so he went right for the waistband of those pajama pants. And, as she had before, she grabbed his hand and said, “Wait!”

  “Easy, sweetheart. Your scars didn’t bother me before, and they don’t bother me now.”

  “No—it’s…shit. Okay.” She let him go and lifted her hips, and he pulled her pajamas down her legs.

  She had a gauze pad taped to the inside of her thigh, about two inches wide and four inches long. Faint lines of blood had seeped through.

  Sherlock looked up and caught her eyes. She was afraid again. “Ah, Sadie. Why?” He brushed his fingers over the gauze.

  Reaching down to knock his hand away, she said, “You left. And I couldn’t reach Gordon. I cleaned everything, and I went for another run, and it wasn’t enough. I needed to do something. Better this than score, right?” A corner of her mouth lifted sheepishly. “And I was better after. It makes me feel better. It always has.”

  “Why?”

  She shrugged. “When things feel like they’re spinning away from me, it makes me feel less scared. My counselor says it’s a way to be in control of my body, even things that hurt it. I’m not suicidal or anything. I just get kind of lost sometimes. And tired.”

  The whole conversation had become overloaded, and Sherlock didn’t know what to say. He wanted to ask her a hundred questions. He wanted to understand. But he was also thinking about the way they’d fucked. He’d thought that she’d liked giving over to him, giving him control—he knew that she had—and that knowledge wasn’t jelling with this explanation.

  “Why today? I said I’d be back.”

  He stood up straight, and she scooted up into a sitting position. “It’s not your fault,” she said.

  “I know that. But I’m trying to understand.” He sat on the end of the daybed and set her feet on his lap. “Was it that I left, or was it what we did?”

  “I love what we did. I never fucked like that before, but I loved it. It didn’t freak me out. It’s different. I didn’t feel like I wasn’t in control. It felt like I was giving it, not like you were taking it. If that makes sense. It was totally hot.”

  It made perfect sense; it was exactly the reason he fucked like he did. He got off on being given control. “Then why?”

  Again, she shrugged. “Once you left, the way you did…I don’t know. It almost didn’t feel like you’d even been here. Except for this.” She plucked at his beater. “And then you kept being gone, and I kept getting fizzy. Like I said I get.” Laughing, her cheeks turning pink, she added, “I know I sound like a basket case. I promise I’m not actually crazy. Just new at this. And I have some bad habits. I’m trying to break them, but I can only do it one at a time.”

  “What happened to you, sweetheart?” He reached out and caressed a pink cheek.

  “No. Not yet.” She caught his hand and held it. “Did I kill the mood again?”

  She hadn’t. As before, whatever he was feeling deepened with this insight to her. He liked her vulnerable. “You didn’t kill it before. But”—he nodded at her thigh and let his other hand slide up from her ankle—“I don’t want to hurt you, and that’s my spot right there, between your legs.”

  The sheepish wariness left her face, and she pulled his beater over her head and let it drop to the floor. “Do you only fuck missionary style?” Then she lay on her side, her stitched arm up, and scooted to the edge of the bed, leaving room for him behind her.

  He grinned, and she grinned back. “No, I do not.” With a pat of her knee, he stood and shucked off his clothes, hanging the kutte he’d never gotten around to taking off over the wingchair and dropping the rest of his clothes in a pile on the seat. He had two more condoms in his wallet; he fished them out and brought them with him to the daybed.

  When he was stretched out behind her, he slid one arm under her head and the other around her waist. Nuzzling his beard against the join of her shoulder and long neck, he nipped h
er skin gently and said, “You had my number. You could have called or texted me.”

  “Would you have come?”

  Not unless it had been an emergency, and he wasn’t sure it would have been. He had to get a stronger read on that. “I would have talked to you. I would have answered.”

  She sighed, and he felt her relax fully into his embrace. “I don’t mean to be needy.”

  He kissed her neck, the spot just behind her ear, then her lobe, sucking on the row of slender silver rings through it. Then he murmured, “You’re not needy. You need. It’s different.” He moved his hand to her tit and plumped it gently, pinching her nipple lightly until she shivered, and the skin puckered.

  “You’re okay with that?” Her voice had grown soft with a different kind of need.

  “Looks like I am. Put your leg up on my hip.” She did, and he caught her hand and took it down between her legs. Holding her fingers, he moved them over her wet clit. She resisted for half a second, as if she were confused; then she moaned, and her hand went slack. She let him move her fingers over her, let him slide her hand down and press her fingers inside her. He worked her like that until she was whimpering, then he brought her hand up to his mouth and sucked each finger individually. Her breath came in deep, ragged heaves.

  Fuck, the feel of her in his arms. He didn’t know what it was, but she just fit there. Which didn’t make any sense; she was probably close to a foot shorter than he was. But she was soft and just comfortable, and when she was wrapped around him, or when he was behind her like this, somehow she seemed to be tailor-made for him. There was none of that awkward, wait-hold-on-what’s-your-arm-doing-there business. They fit.

  It made him hotter than he could stand.

  Reaching behind him, he grabbed a condom and managed to get it on with one hand, while the other played with Sadie’s pretty tits. Once he was wrapped, he took her hand again and pushed it back between her legs. “Stay on your clit for me, sweetheart. Do what feels good.”

  As she rubbed herself off, he pushed his own hand past hers and sank two fingers into her. Finding her more relaxed than he had their first time, he added a third finger and pistoned them in and out, curling them up to reach her g-spot, which he’d found without much trouble, and to which she responded beautifully.

  He loved to see and feel the way she stayed relaxed this time, not getting caught up in her head, not trying so hard to hurry up and come but letting her body work its way up on its own. When he felt that she was ready, he removed his hand and took hold of himself.

  The clench as he pushed into her was still almost painful. She was built narrow, and he was built wide. In this way, their fit was a little snug. He eased back and pushed in again, a little farther. Her head fell forward, and she made a whine that sounded more like pain than pleasure, but her hand kept moving on her clit.

  “Breathe, sweetheart. Deep breaths.”

  She nodded and took a shaking inhale.

  “Good girl.” He pulled out and then, without further hesitation, pushed fully into her.

  Fucking hell, she was tight. As he flexed his body against, into, hers, her head flew back, colliding with his shoulder. She began to flutter and tremble, and he felt her spasm around his cock. Her finish was coming up fast. Her hand moved emphatically over her clit, and she started to grunt and move her hips, driving him into her with new force.

  He yanked her hand away and grabbed her hip to still her. She groaned in frustration and yelled, “Fuck! Please!”

  “When we fuck, I make you come.” He rolled them both, pushing her to her stomach, careful of her wounds. And then he took over in full, rising up on his hands and rocking his hips, increasing his speed and intensity with each stroke. She was so damn hot and tight he didn’t know how long he could last, but the orgasm that had been coming for her hadn’t been derailed, and she was close.

  In this position, he knew he hit her just right with every thrust, and her cries of ecstatic anguish every time he surged forward proved it. Then the flutters and spasms around his cock became rhythmic clenches, and her cries became words, and he knew she’d arrived.

  “Yes…fuck…yes…God, yes…” She lost words again and simply howled, and Sherlock let himself go, let himself really feel the tight silk pulsing around him, let himself see the way her hands clawed into the mattress, let himself hear her cries and smell the scent of her ecstasy. Let himself need her.

  His balls tightened into a knot against his body, and his release rocketed through him, making his muscles contract painfully from his forehead to his feet, and filling his sight with red stars. Every thought left his head. He knew nothing but this moment, a moment that went on forever.

  When he could focus on anything else, he saw that Sadie’s shoulders shook. Fuck, was she crying?

  “Sadie?”

  “Holy shit,” she laughed, the side of her face still pressed into the mattress. “Fuck a duck, you’re good at that.”

  “Fuck a duck?” He laughed, too, and they both groaned as it moved him inside her. He lifted up, pulling out of her as gently as he could, and then dropped to her side, completely exhausted. He barely had the energy to pull off the condom and tie it off. The thought of moving enough to throw it away in her bathroom was just too damn much, so he dropped it to the floor.

  “Gross,” Sadie muttered without any conviction whatsoever.

  There was a patterned throw over the back of the daybed. He pulled it over them and relaxed down at her side. Then he kissed her shoulder, hooked his arm over her back, and closed his eyes. There wasn’t a lot of room on what amounted to a single bed, and he had to let his feet dangle off the side near the end, but he didn’t feel like he needed more.

  She rolled to her side and tucked herself snugly against his body, pulling his arm more tightly around her. Sherlock smiled. He enjoyed sleeping like this, in the warm comfort of companionship.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Sadie drove past the valet parking and found a spot on the street, around the block. Her car sighed and bucked as she cut the engine. It was more than thirty years old, but it had been her mom’s, so she wanted to keep it forever. But the time to take it in for another checkup and probable overhaul loomed.

  She left the top down—she’d learned the hard way that putting the top up and locking a convertible was an engraved invitation for some asshat to slash the top open—and grabbed her bag, then headed back toward the restaurant, smoothing her hair on the way.

  Blue Sky was a fancy-schmancy restaurant in Madrone that her father had discovered several years back, and now called his favorite. Sadie suspected it was where he took his dates. He’d dated since she was in high school, but she’d never met any of the women he fancied, not even to this day. She’d seen a few photos; occasionally, her father made the social pages of the local press. But he seemed to be a man who’d married once, for love, and never would again. Now, he sought only companionship.

  Tonight, she would be his companion. It was her twenty-fifth birthday, and he was taking her to dinner and a play.

  The maître d’ told her that her father was already seated and then led her back. They hadn’t seen each other since the night of her one-year anniversary meeting, which hadn’t been their all-time best time together, but he stood with a smile when he saw her approaching. He pulled out a chair for her, and the maître d’ made a little bow and went back to his station.

  “You look beautiful, Sadie. Very elegant.”

  “Thanks, Daddy.” She kissed his cheek and took the seat he’d held for her.

  Her father didn’t like the way she normally dressed—honestly, there was a lot he didn’t like about the choices she made, even those that hadn’t nearly torpedoed her life. Sadie wondered how he’d feel about Sherlock. Not enthusiastic, she wagered.

  But tonight wasn’t about all the ways he thought he’d failed because Sadie hadn’t turned out like her mother. Tonight was about letting her father be happy with her. So she’d worn a plain, sleeveless, litt
le black dress—a sheath that nearly skimmed her knees—and basic black pumps. Her hair was solid black, her makeup was classic and lightly applied, her manicure undamaged and her polish red, and she wore her mother’s three-strand pearl choker and the bracelet that matched it. The six silver rings in each ear, and the ring in her nose, she left. They were too much of a pain in the ass to take out and put back in, so she never did.

  Johnson Ballard was an executive with a corporate consulting firm. To this day, Sadie wasn’t entirely sure what he did, but he had a title—Senior Vice President—and a corner office, and he went off every day to do Important Things that, even in a world where more than half the corporate workforce worked remotely, from home, kept him at the office for ten and twelve hours a day.

  When he was home, he’d tried to be a good father. Sadie’s mother had been a stay-at-home mom, but after she and Ben died, Sadie’s father had learned to cook and do laundry, and, when he was home, he’d helped with homework and taken her to movies and museums on the weekends. He’d tried.