Truly Madly Yours

by Rachel Gibson

  “Don’t be. I’ve always wanted to make your panties wet.” He stood once again and gave her a quick kiss. Then he grasped her waist and set her on the hood of the Mustang he’d just vacated. He moved her feet to the chrome bumper and said, “Lie down, Delaney.”

  “Why?” She put a hand on his chest then moved it to the front of his jeans. She pressed against the hard bulge beneath his zipper.

  He sucked in his breath and pushed her shoulders until she lay with her back against the cool metal. “Because I’m going to make you feel real good.”

  “I already feel good.” She held out her arms for him as he stepped between her thighs.

  “Then I’m going to make you feel even better.” He planted both of his palms by the sides of her head and kissed her like he wanted to consume her. When he raised his mouth again he said, “I’m going to set you on fire.”

  Delaney looked up into his beautiful face and she wanted him to make love to her. She wanted to know what other young women her age knew. She wanted Nick to teach her. “Yes,” she said to anything he wanted.

  He smiled as his skillful hands eased her panties from her legs. She felt the cotton slide down her calves and then her underwear was gone. His palms drifted up the insides of her thighs, and one of his thumbs touched her where she was slick. The pleasure was indescribable. His fingers brushed her moist flesh until she wanted to scream.

  “More?”

  “Yes,” she murmured and her eyes slid shut. “More.” His touch felt so good it was almost painful, the building pressure in her groin intense. She wanted it to end, yet at the same time continue forever. She wanted him naked and on top of her, filling her arms with his warm body. She opened her eyes and gazed up at him, standing there between her knees, looking down at her through heavy lids. “Make love to me, Nick.”

  “I’ll give you something better than love.” He knelt on one knee and softly kissed the inside of her thigh. “I’m going to make you come.” Delaney froze, extremely grateful she was surrounded by darkness. When she’d said yes, she hadn’t meant that. She would have clamped her legs together but Nick was in the way. She wasn’t sure what he would do, but she was pretty sure he wouldn’t do that.

  But he did. He slid his hands beneath her behind, then raised her to his hot open mouth. Shock held her still. She couldn’t believe what he’d done. What he was doing. She wanted to tell him to stop, but she couldn’t get the words past the warm pleasure swirling through her body. She couldn’t control the shiver tingling up her spine and instead of pulling away, she arched her back. His tongue and mouth gently caressed between her legs in much the same way he’d kissed her breasts.

  “Nick,” she moaned and touched her hands to the sides of his head. The pleasure grew and tightened and each touch of his tongue pushed her toward the peak of climax. He moved one of her heels to his shoulder and tilted her hips. He took her more fully into his mouth and drew on her sensitive flesh. The incredible sensations built and coiled in her body, then shoved her over the top.

  The stars above her head blurred as she felt herself pulled under wave after hot wave of ecstasy. She called his name over and over as heat flushed her thighs and breasts. Involuntary contractions shook her, and when it was over she felt changed. She was shocked by what she’d done and who’d done it to her, but she wasn’t sorry. She’d never felt so close to anyone else in her life, and she wanted him to hold her.

  “Nick?”

  He gently kissed the inside of her thigh. “Mmm.”

  At the touch of his lips, she suddenly became very aware of her embarrassing position. She felt her cheeks burn as she slid her foot from his shoulder and sat up.

  He stood and cupped her face in his hands. “More?”

  She was naive, not stupid, and she knew what he was asking. She wanted to give him the same awesome pleasure he’d just given her. “More.” She pulled his T-shirt from the waistband of his jeans and released the buttons of his fly. His hands wrapped around her wrists and stopped her.

  “Be still a minute,” he said right before a beam of light struck him full in the face. “Shit!”

  Delaney glanced over her shoulder and was blinded by two headlights gunning toward them. Pure adrenaline shot through her veins, and she pushed Nick and jumped off the hood at the same time. Her dress lay at his feet and she reached for it just as Henry’s silver Lincoln slid to a stop beside the Mustang. She pulled the summer dress over her head but her hands shook so bad she couldn’t button it. “Help me,” she cried to no one in particular.

  Nick turned, and he reached for the buttons at the waist of her dress. He whispered something to her, but she couldn’t hear him over the pounding in her ears.

  “Get away from her!” Henry bellowed the second he opened the car door.

  She managed the top two buttons but was helpless to control the panic welling within her. She glanced at the ground and saw Nick’s big foot in the crotch of her panties. Distressed little sobs filled the top of her lungs.

  “Get your filthy damn hands off her!”

  Delaney looked up just as Henry reached them. He shoved Nick and pushed her behind him. Both men were of the same height, same build, same flashing gray eyes. The Lincoln’s headlights lit every excruciating detail. The stripe on Henry’s dress shirt, the silver in his hair.

  “I never thought you’d sink this low,” Henry said as he pointed at Nick. “I’ve always known you hated me, but I never thought you’d sink this low just to get back at me.”

  “Maybe this has nothing to do with you,” Nick said, his brows lowered on his forehead.

  “My aching ass this has nothing to do with me. You’ve hated me all your life, and you’ve been jealous of Delaney since the day I married her mother.”

  “You’re right. I have hated you all of my life. You’re a son of a bitch, and the biggest favor you ever did my mother was deny you ever slept with her.”

  “And you finally got your revenge. The only reason you screwed Delaney was to get back at me.”

  Nick folded his arms over his chest and rested his weight on one foot. “Maybe I screwed her because she makes me hard.”

  “I should beat the hell out of you.”

  “Give it your best shot, old man.”

  “Oh, God,” Delaney groaned as she finished the buttons on her dress. “Henry, we didn’t-”

  “Get in the car,” Henry interrupted her.

  She looked at Nick, and gone was the gentle lover who’d made her feel beautiful. “Tell him!” A few moments ago she’d felt so close to him, now she didn’t know him at all. He appeared relaxed, but it was an illusion. Or maybe she did know this Nick. This surly man before her was the Nick she’d grown up with; the man who’d picked her up earlier had been the illusion. “Please, tell him nothing happened,” she pleaded with him to help her out of the worst of it. “Tell him we didn’t do anything!”

  One knowing brow rose up his forehead. “What exactly do you want me to lie about, wild thing?” he asked. “He saw you sitting on my car like a hood ornament. If he’d been a few minutes earlier, he would have seen a hell of a lot more.”

  “You got your revenge, didn’t you?” Henry grabbed Delaney’s arm and pushed her toward Nick. “You took an innocent girl and you made her dirty just to get even with me.”

  Delaney looked into Nick’s hard gaze and she didn’t know what to believe. She wanted him to care just a little bit, but the eyes that stared back at her were so cold. Several minutes ago she would have said Henry was mistaken, but she didn’t know what to think now. “Is that true?” she asked as one tear ran down her hot cheeks. “Did you use me to get back at Henry?”

  “Is that what you think?”

  What he’d done to her was so private, so intimate, she didn’t think she could bear knowing he’d used her. She wanted him to tell Henry he was wrong, that he’d kissed her and touched her because he wanted her, not because he hated Henry. “I don’t know!”

  “Don’t you?”
/>   “No.”

  He didn’t speak for what seemed like an eternity, then he said, “Believe Henry then.”

  A sob caught in her throat and she stumbled toward the Lincoln. Her chest felt as if it were caving in on itself, and she managed to get into the car before the second tear slid down her cheek. The cold leather beneath her bare behind reminded her she was completely naked under her dress. She stared out the window at both men, and above the pounding of her heart, she heard Henry threaten Nick.

  “You stay away from my daughter,” he yelled. “You stay away or I’ll make your life hell.”

  “You can try,” Nick said, his words barely audible through the thick glass. “But there is nothing you can do to me.”

  “We’ll see about that.” Henry moved to the driver’s side of the Lincoln. “Stay away from Delaney,” he warned one last time and slid into the front seat. He slipped the car into reverse, and the headlights shone on Nick for a few short seconds. And in those few seconds, his T-shirt glowed a bright white, the soft cotton untucked at his waist, and the top button on his jeans was undone. He leaned down to pick up something, but Henry cranked the wheel and the car turned toward the road before she could see what he’d retrieved from the ground. But she didn’t have to see, she already knew. Carefully, she tucked her dress beneath her bare behind.

  “This is going to kill your mother,” Henry seethed.

  Probably, Delaney thought. She looked down at her hands and a tear fell on her thumb.

  “She went to your room to tell you good night, but you weren’t there.” The Lincoln turned onto the main road, and Henry gunned the big engine. “She’s worried sick. She’s afraid you’ve been kidnapped.”

  Delaney bit her lip to keep the customary apology inside. She didn’t care that she’d worried her mother.

  “Just wait until she learns the truth is worse than anything she could have imagined.”

  “How did you find me?”

  “Not that it matters, but several people down at the market saw you crawl into Allegrezza’s car. If you hadn’t left the gate open at Angel Beach, it would have taken me a lot longer, but I would have found you.”

  Delaney didn’t doubt him. She turned her gaze to the passenger window and stared out into the dark night. “I can’t believe you hunted me down. I’m eighteen and I can’t believe you drove around town looking for me as if I were ten years old.”

  “And I can’t believe I found you naked as a two-bit hooker,” he said and kept up his verbal battering until he pulled the Lincoln into the garage.

  As calm as possible under the circumstances, Delaney got out of the car and walked into the house. Her mother met her in the kitchen.

  “Where have you been?” Gwen asked, her gaze sliding from Delaney’s face to her feet then back up again.

  Delaney walked past without answering. Henry would tell her mother. He always did. Then together they would decide her fate. They would probably ground her as if she were a child. She moved up the stairs to her bedroom and shut the door behind her. She wasn’t trying to hide. She knew better, and even if she hadn’t, tonight’s lesson showed her the futility of independence.

  She looked at her reflection in the cheval mirror. Mascara trailed down her cheeks, her eyes were red, and her face pale. Otherwise she looked as she always did. She didn’t look as if her world had shifted beneath her feet and now she stood in a new place. Her room looked the same as it had hours ago when she’d sneaked out the window. The pictures stuck to the mirror, and the roses on her bedspread were the same as they’d always been, but everything was different. She was different.

  She’d let Nick do things to her that she’d never imagined in her wildest dreams. Oh, she’d heard about oral sex. A few girls in her math class had bragged about knowing how to give blow jobs, but until tonight, Delaney had never believed people actually did that sort of thing. Now she knew better. Now she knew a man didn’t even have to like the girl he was with. Now she knew that a man could do incredibly intimate things to a woman for reasons other than passion or mutual attraction. Now she knew what it was like to be used.

  When she thought of Nick’s warm mouth pressed to the inside of her thigh, her pale cheeks turned red and she turned her gaze away from her reflection. What she saw embarrassed her. She’d wanted to feel free. Free from Henry’s control. Free from her life.

  She was a fool.

  Delaney changed into a pair of jeans and T-shirt, then washed her face. When she was finished, she went to Henry’s office, where she knew her parents would be waiting for her. They stood behind the mahogany desk, and by the look on Gwen’s face, Henry had filled her in on every excruciating detail.

  Gwen’s blue eyes were wide as she looked at her daughter. “Well, I don’t know what to say to you.”

  Delaney sat in one of the leather chairs opposite the desk. Not knowing what to say had never stopped her mother before. It didn’t stop her now.

  “Tell me Henry is mistaken. Tell me he didn’t see you in a sexually compromising situation with that Allegrezza boy.”

  Delaney didn’t say anything. She knew she wouldn’t win. She never did.

  “How could you?” Gwen shook her head and placed a hand at her throat. “How could you do such a thing to this family? While you were crawling out your bedroom window did you give a thought to your father’s position in this community? While you were letting that Allegrezza boy put his hands on you, did you stop-for even one second-to think how your father would suffer for your actions?”

  “No,” Delaney answered. When Nick’s head had been between her thighs, she hadn’t given a thought to her parents. She’d been busy humiliating herself.

  “You know how this town loves to gossip. By ten o’clock tomorrow, everyone in town will know about your shameful behavior. How could you do this?”

  “You’ve hurt your mother deeply,” Henry added. They were like tag team wrestlers, one ready to jump in when the other ran out of steam. “If your disgraceful behavior gets out, I don’t know how she’ll hold her head up in this town.” He pointed a finger at her. “We never expected this of you. You were always such a good girl. We never expected that you would do something so vulgar. I never thought you’d bring shame on this family. I guess you aren’t the person we thought you were. I guess we don’t even know you.”

  Delaney’s hands clenched into fists. She knew better than to say anything. She knew defending herself only made things worse. She knew if she said anything, Henry would considered it arguing, and Henry hated for anyone to argue with him. But Delaney couldn’t help it. “That’s because you’ve never wanted to know me. You’re only interested in how I make you look. You don’t care how I feel.”

  “Laney,” Gwen gasped.

  “You don’t care that I don’t want to go to college right away. I told you I didn’t want to go, and you’re making me go anyway.”

  “So that’s what tonight was all about,” Henry said as if he were an omnipotent God. “You wanted to get back at me for knowing what’s best for you.”

  “Tonight was about me,” she said as she stood. “I wanted to go out and be a regular eighteen-year-old. I wanted to have a life. I wanted to feel free.”

  “You mean feel free to screw up your life.”

  “Yes! Free to screw up my life if I want to, just like everyone else. I never have the freedom to do anything. You choose everything for me. I never have a choice.”

  “And it’s a good thing,” Gwen took over. “You’re immature and selfish, and tonight you chose the one boy who could hurt this family the most. You gave yourself to a person whose only interest in you was to get back at Henry.”

  What Nick had done was a hot lump of humiliation burning a hole in her stomach, but the despair choking the life out of her was worse. As she looked at both of her parents she knew it was no use. They would never understand. Never change. And she would never escape.

  “You’ve degraded yourself, and I can hardly stand to look at you,
” her mother continued.

  “Then don’t. You were going to take me to the University of Idaho in a week. Take me tomorrow instead.” Delaney walked from the room, the weight of resignation settling about her shoulders. She moved up the stairs, her feet felt leaden, her heart empty, too drained to cry. She didn’t bother to pull off her jeans before she crawled into bed. She stared up at the pink canopy above her head and knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep, and she was right. Her mind raced with every dreadful detail of the past few hours. What her parents had said. What she’d said, and how nothing ever changed. And no matter how hard she tried to avoid thoughts of Nick, her mind turned again and again to him. She remembered his hot touch, the cool silky texture of his hair through her fingers, and the taste of his skin. She closed her eyes and could practically feel his warm wet mouth on her breasts and lower. She didn’t know why she’d let him do those things to her. She’d had enough previous experience with him to know he could pass for pleasant one minute and turn mean as a snake the next. So why Nick Allegrezza of all people?

  Delaney punched her pillow and turned on her side. Maybe because he’d always been so free, and he’d always fascinated her with his heavenly face and wild hellion ways. Maybe because he was so beautiful he took her breath away, and tonight he’d made her feel like maybe she was beautiful too. He’d looked at her like a man who wanted to make love to a woman. He’d touched her as if he wanted her. But it had all been a lie. An illusion, and she’d been a naive fool.

  I’ll give you something better than love, he’d said. I’m going to make you come. Why he’d chosen that particular method she didn’t know. But he couldn’t have chosen anything more humiliating if he’d had years to plan it. He’d stripped her naked while he’d remained clothed. He’d touched her all over, and she’d never even gotten a glimpse of his bare chest.

  Her only consolation was that no one knew, not even Henry, exactly what had happened on the hood of Nick’s Mustang. And unless Nick spoke of it, no one would ever know. Maybe her mother was wrong. Maybe no one would talk about it.