by Meli Raine
“You tell me.”
Free. I feel free. Not one hundred percent free, but when you’re trapped, any amount of freedom feels expansive. Freed from the shadows of the past, freed from truth that never made sense, and now I know was a lie. Drew didn’t let them hurt me. He wanted to stop them. He couldn’t.
And if you can’t stop someone from hurting someone else, it’s not your fault.
“It’s not your fault,” I whisper, reaching up to touch his brow. “It wasn’t my fault. We’re just victims.”
He flinches at that word. “We’re survivors,” he corrects. “Survivors.”
“Fighters,” I say, stretching up to plant a gentle kiss on his cheek. “Thank you.”
I feel him recoil. “Thank you? For what? I didn’t do anything.” His nostril’s flare, his jaw clicking. “Couldn’t do a damn thing.”
“You told the truth. That’s more than I’ve had for four years.”
I feel his restraint. He’s trying so hard to contain his emotion. His skin shimmers with movement in the night, the waves of warmth radiating off him moving me.
And then his mouth is on mine.
We’re completely alone in my bedroom, the soft bed under my back in seconds, his body hot and pressing, his desire for me evident.
A little too evident.
“Ow,” I gasp. “That, um, is really digging into my hip.”
He frowns, then looks down. “That’s my gun.”
“Interesting nickname for it.”
He chuckles, removing the gun belt and placing it on my nightstand. On his knees and hovering over me, he never breaks eye contact.
“I’ve missed you,” I say, watching him.
“God, I’ve missed you, too.”
“More than that, I’ve missed knowing that my friend really was there all along.”
His face breaks as I say the words, emotion sweeping through his features. Tenderly, he moves to my side, propping himself up on one elbow, his other hand tracing the line of my nose, my cheek, my jaw.
“I’ve been here the whole time, trapped behind too many walls. Truths I wasn’t allowed to reveal. I’ve missed talking to you. Four years without you feels like a lifetime in hell.”
“Strong words coming from a guy who served two tours in Afghanistan.”
“I know whereof I speak.”
Four years weigh on me like the burden that they are. We’re suspended between the breakthrough of the truth, and the horror of all this unresolved history.
And then there’s the fact that we’re alone in my bedroom. No rules. No interruptions. No limits.
We can do whatever we want.
So what do we want?
Drew answers my unspoken question with a kiss. His mouth says I’m sorry.
His hands say I’m hungry.
Hungry for you.
No one has touched me intimately in so long. Our kiss the other day was nothing compared to this. We have the luxury of laying on a bed, stretched out, his body unfolding for me to touch and stroke, explore and forgive.
Forgive.
“I forgive,” I whisper between kisses. “I forgive myself.”
“And me?” The anguish in his voice makes me halt.
“I want to forgive you.” He needs to hear the words. I know he does. You can’t erase four years of worrying and looping with a single sentence. A handful of kisses. A conversation.
You just can’t.
I can’t.
“I understand,” he says, “because you’re ahead of me.”
“Ahead?”
“I can’t forgive myself. I can’t. You should forgive yourself, because not one drop of it was your fault. But I keep going over that night, wondering how I could have outsmarted them. Overpowered them. Done something more.”
“You couldn’t.”
“I could now.”
I am tracing the edge of his cheekbone as he says that. I stop, my finger perched on the hollow bone beneath his right eye. “You could?”
“I know how. Took years of training. But yes.”
Some muscle in my chest releases. “Really?”
“That has been my single goal these four years. To learn how to win. How to win in any battle. Make no mistake, Lindsay. When I say they will never hurt you again, I mean it.”
Drew’s eyes telescope, like a sniper’s sight.
“I believe you,” I blurt out. Because damn.
He’s hard core. There is no ambiguity here.
His hand rests on my ribs, right where my waistline meets my bones. Fingertips slip under my t-shirt, stopping. The feel of his callused palm against my bare skin sends a full-body shiver through me.
“Can we stop talking about the past, Lindsay?” he says, eyes on mine. “And talk about what’s happening right now?”
My mouth goes dry. My V becomes hot and swollen, wet and aroused, my pulse migrating between my legs. When I was at the Island, I was encouraged to explore my emotions connected to sexuality. Told it was healthy to take care of things myself. Asked to report on my masturbation habits.
It was sooooo sexy.
For years, any sexual touch—and the only sexual touch has been my own—brought forth horror movie images of what was done to me. Only in the last year have I been able to sate myself without experiencing flashbacks.
This feeling is old and new. It’s how sex with Drew felt before.
Before.
He’d respected me, back then. Knew I wanted to wait for intercourse. Foreplay had been enough, endless hours of kisses and caresses, of mouths and tongues, of fingertips and strokes.
We’d been so close to making love all the way.
And then it was ripped away from us.
Drew’s watching me, his thumb moving in slow circles against my belly, but he’s waiting.
The next move is mine.
All this new knowledge about the past should take longer to percolate. I should wait, right? Analyze and dissect, think and absorb.
Instead, I lunge, reaching up to kiss him, my fingers in his hair, pressing the back of his head to me, my hips grinding into him.
He is freedom.
In his arms, I am safe.
In his arms, I can feel pleasure.
I wasn't sure whether this was the right way to proceed, but I am now. Every cell in my body screams for his touch. The way the moonlight flutters against his cheek makes me think of butterflies in spring, free and happy on the wind, landing on colored flowers and blending in. Just being.
I watch Drew with eyes that want to be free.
I sense his hesitation. I need to stop it. A kiss seems to be the only way to convince him. The connection of our lips feels so heavenly. I've missed this.
As he deepens the kiss, his hands going to my shoulders, then sliding down to my elbows, the warm press of his body against mine showing how much he wants this, I drift. I don't disconnect.
It's more like finding a new layer inside myself where all the worry and pain, the fear and regret, just doesn't live. It's a place where I can find a new self and study it under the lens of Drew's body.
His heat opens me, making my tongue curious, my hands given permission to stroke his muscled back. He groans, and I startle, the sound vibrating through me. He stops, breaking the kiss.
A part of me aches.
"What's wrong?" he asks, worried, his frown a validation that everything I feel is ok.
"Nothing," I rasp. "Nothing at all."
"If this is too much," he says, his voice firm. "You tell me."
"I will."
"I mean it."
"I know."
"You need to be open with me, Lindsay. No games. No nothing when it comes to being together like this. We're different now."
Oh, boy, are we.
His face is relaxed, the troubled tension gone, replaced by a different kind of pensiveness. I can tell he wants to make sure that I am fine, and that's good, right? It's not like four years ago.
Nothing is like four y
ears ago.
Not one damn thing.
He is comfort and passion, the brush of bunched-up cotton from his shirt tickling my navel. My hands become bold, reaching for the hot skin at his waist band, fingertips tentative but in control. I want to touch him. I want to feel his hardness. I want to wrap my hand around his shaft and give him pleasure.
I want to take, too, because there is power in holding a man by his center. There is power and goodness and a purity to it all.
Maybe I can be pure again by being naked with Drew. By letting him make love to me.
Perhaps that’s what this is.
A cleansing ritual.
A baptism.
I reach down and touch the outline of his erection through his pants, cupping my pal, letting my fingers gently touch the tip. His groan is almost a growl, the sound fiery and masculine.
It makes me feel good.
It makes me feel alive.
“Look, I know you haven’t been intimate with anyone for four years,” he says softly. His arms go tense. “At least, I assume that’s true.”
“It is.”
He nods. “I don’t need anything you can’t give.”
I begin to tremble.
“See? You’re shaking. Maybe this is too much.” He moves his elbow and slides his hip along the bed cover, the weight change rolling me slightly closer to him.
“I’m shaking because it’s hard to restrain myself.”
“Oh?” His voice is so low. Low and smoky and full of deep, dark promises. Promises that whisper to the longing in me.
“I don’t know how I’m going to respond. I might freeze. I might cry. Scratch that – I’m definitely going to cry at least once. And quit looking at me like that,” I chide, sticking a finger in his face.
He bites it. Oh, God, that warm, wet mouth on my finger.
I pull it back and laugh in spite of myself. “I want to trust you.”
“You can trust me, Lindsay.”
“How do you know you can trust me?”
His eyebrows go up, and in the strange moonlight he looks like a man from the 1940s, all greys and shadows, smoke and mirrors. The room seems huge and tiny at the same time, all the color gone, replaced by the intensity of us.
Just us.
Nothing else is real.
“Because you’re the same woman I knew four years ago, even if you’ve changed. What’s underneath is the same. The outside,” he says with an appreciative, almost wolfish, grin, “is most definitely still fine. Possibly even better.”
I squirm, embarrassed yet pleased by his words. He smells so good, his bare arms radiating musk and sweat. He’s so warm, so close, and I lose myself in the simple act of breathing him in.
“But more than anything, I trust you because I don’t have a choice.”
“Everyone has a choice,” I say automatically, like a robot. It was one of Stacia’s favorite catchphrases at the Island.
“Not when it comes to you. I’m a goner.”
And then we stop talking.
The press of my loose breasts against his chest feels like a wild ride, my nipples hard and rubbing against his thick pecs. His arms feel like bands of steel encased in hot velvet. His mouth moves on my jaw, planting little kisses as he makes his way to my mouth.
This feels so good.
That must mean you wanted it four years ago, cackles a nasty voice in my head.
My face twists with agony, Drew’s tongue turning cold in my mouth, my body getting smaller and smaller as I panic, a thousand images of blood and pain and degradation swirling with the feel of his affection.
He breaks the kiss “What’s wrong?”
I whimper.
“Too much?”
I nod.
He pulls me in, tucking my head against his shoulder. He strokes my hair, gentling me. “It’s okay. It’s fine. You’re fine. We stopped. We’ll always stop when you want to stop. You’re in charge, Lindsay.”
I open my mouth to make a sarcastic comment but nothing comes out.
Because a part of me really believes him.
I look up and my knee digs into the bed, propelling me, and I’m kissing him again. Lost in the lush feel of everything, that insidious voice can’t be heard. I refuse to hear it. I have power now. I decide what my body does. I decide what my mind tries to tell me.
Drew’s right.
I have a choice.
I can’t control the horrors that are stored within, but I can battle them, by God.
His slow inhale turns to a low groan as the kiss keeps going, my hands hungry, my mind fighting me for control. I won’t surrender.
To anyone but Drew.
All the secrets are gone, and yesteryear’s confusion cleared up. He’s breathing hard against me, his hands roaming up my back, covering my ribs, asking an unspoken question.
“Please touch me,” I beg. “Please.” He cups one breast and my entire body heats up, skin tingling.
“Yes, ma’am,” he whispers, the rush of air against my ear making me shudder. One thumb strums my nipple until it’s rock hard, and I press my belly against his, wanting to feel his hardness. It’s there, a long outline against his trousers, straining for release.
It has been so, so long since I felt pleasure with a man. With Drew.
Like this.
Maybe this is how I truly heal.
Suddenly, there is not enough Drew in the world for me. I want his hands everywhere, his eyes on me, his tongue along my teeth, his hands on my heated flesh, his fingers making me warm and wet and exploding. Frantic, I tighten my grip, and he roars in response, unleashing the politeness he’s kept in place since I came home.
He hovers over me, all bone and muscle, hard against my curves, his sounds the music of passion and need.
“What do you want, Lindsay,” he rasps against my neck, one hand cupping my breast up, pushing with the firm touch of a man. No tentative college guy, this version of Drew: he knows what he wants but is deferring to me because of my past.
Fuck that.
“I want it all. Erase everything I know and give me everything new, Drew,” I plead.
“I’ll do my damnedest. God, I’ve missed you so much,” His fingers thread through my hair, one hand on my ribcage, fingers tickling my breast. His hands slide to my waistband as he ravages my mouth with a kiss that makes me dizzy.
It feels so good to feel.
I’ve imagined this moment a million times over the last four years, all of it filled with self-hatred for wanting Drew so much. Before, when I thought he’d betrayed me, desiring him seemed like a curse.
Now that I know the truth, though, the fire between us is a revelation. He’s transporting me. His fingers on my belly make me smile. His hand on my breast makes me gasp. The pull of my hair in his fingers makes me kiss him even harder and strum my fingers along his erection.
He damn near chokes.
“That feels so good,” he growls, nipping at my earlobe, his hand gliding over my ass and squeezing. We grind into each other, my legs scissoring, his thick shaft a source of delicious friction against my V.
I giggle. I can’t help it. I’m reminded of making out my senior year of high school, stuck in a hidden, empty car on the Grove’s grounds, and how we dry humped until I had chafe marks on my thighs.
“What’s so funny?” he asks, dazed and out of it.
“Remember when we made out in the old service car?”
His deep rumble joins my higher laugh. Even his voice seems bigger. Richer. Smoother and more sophisticated than four years ago. He nudges his hips against mine. “Is this reminding you of that?”
“A little.”
“This time you won’t get red marks,” he promises.
“How do you know?”
“Because now I know we just need to take our pants off.” He brings my hand to his mouth and kisses my knuckles, looking up at me under his eyelashes. “For safety.”
“For safety, huh?” I say skeptically.
&nbs
p; We’re aroused. I’m throbbing. If Drew doesn’t touch me soon, I’m going to explode. I don’t care if this makes me seem desperate. I am desperate.
I take his hands and push his fingertips under my waistband.
He raises one eyebrow and says, “You sure?”
“Are you not?” I freeze. Maybe I’ve gone too far. Maybe this was all a mistake. Maybe he doesn’t really --
My mouth is devoured by Drew.
“I want to be naked with you,” I say breathlessly, coming up for air between kisses, the inch-by-inch exploration of my body too tentative, too slow. If I’m going to go swimming, I need to just jump in. None of this toe-in-the-water business.
I want to be hot and sweaty, naked and clenching, overwhelmed and catapulted to a sexual frenzy that makes me forget who I am.
And Drew tastes like he’s right there with me.
“You call the shots.”
“That’s an order.”
I shimmy out of my pants, on my bedspread wearing just a shirt and panties. He does the same, except he pulls off his shirt, stretched out next to me in boxer briefs. It occurs to me that if there were an emergency, Drew would be in serious trouble. Daddy would go stratospheric if he found the head of my security team naked in my bed with me.
I grin.
All the more reason to keep going.
My breathing changes as his hands slip under my hoodie. I sit up and peel it off, tangling his hands along my chest for a moment. He makes a small sound of amusement, and then a deeper one.
Of hunger.
I’m wearing a thin black tank and in a rush of quick decision peel it off, too.
Cold air rushes to tweak my nipples, making them hard, the skin around them pebbling with gooseflesh.
Drew rises up and suddenly, I’m under him. All that’s between us is underwear.
It’s too much.
“You stop any time,” he whispers.
“You keep saying that.”
“I want to make sure you really get it, Lindsay.”
“Then give it to me, Drew.” I kiss him and we stop talking, the blissful sound of sighs and groans mixing with touch. This feels so good. My smooth legs rub against his muscled calves, light hair covering them, the different textures alluring. He tastes so fine, a world inside his scent and flavor, and soon we create something separate, his fingers stroking me, my body all rush and thrum, all his.
