by Summers, Jo
“See,” he said. “Something went wrong with the two of you—physically, I think. I don’t want to push, but if it’s all the same to you, I’d like to know.”
There was nothing but sincerity in his words.
Against her resistance, Andi felt a twinge of embarrassment at the way he’d called her out. After that, though, she felt something else…something like…relief. There was only a hint of it, but it was enough to spur her to open up…just a little.
“It’s hard to put into words,” she said slowly. Colin’s eyes were on her, kind and nonjudgmental, so she went on. “When we slept together, Jared and I…I never—"she forced herself to say the words, accepting the humiliation that was certain to come—"I never had an orgasm.”
She checked Colin’s face again, but it was just as tempered and even as before, if a little sad now.
“And that in itself wasn’t the real problem, although it definitely sucked. I realize now that it was just a symptom of a ton of other issues.” Anger rose in her chest as she recalled the verbal abuse and ruthless denigration. “He had a way of knowing exactly what to say to cut me down, and nothing I ever did or said was adequate to Jared, which he made sure I knew on a daily basis. He called me fat, ugly, and stupid—constantly. He just used fancier words.” She closed her eyes, searching deep for the fortitude to continue.
“You see, I didn’t go to college for a lot of reasons, one of which was my dyslexia.” She swallowed before continuing. “That’s the reason I ran into you the other night at the hotel—I was supposed to give a reading but, to make a long story short, I had trouble with the words. I know that they have programs and help for that, but my mom never had the kind of money it would have cost for that sort of thing. Jared was a very successful attorney, so he picked at my vocabulary and criticized the way I spoke on a regular basis, and berated me for not being what he would consider well-read.”
She took a breath, not daring to look at Colin again. She knew if she did, she might not be able to continue.
“He took every opportunity to make fun of me at parties with his work friends. I guess it made him feel superior or something, and even though they never joined him I could always tell they felt sorry for me, which really just made it worse; they didn’t dare say anything because he was so respected in his firm, he could ruin their connections if he wished.”
Even as she spoke, she hated herself for pouring all of this on Colin, but he’d opened something up in her and she just couldn’t seem to stop.
“Anyway, the reason I have trouble with physical intimacy is because he blamed me for our crappy sex life. He said it was my fault I couldn’t be satisfied because I was too rigid and cold, that there was something wrong with me. In his way of thinking, it had nothing to do with him.”
Colin spoke, the words tight and stiff. “But you’re anything but cold, Andi. I’ve only known you for a couple days, but any idiot can see that about you.”
Andi looked up, surprised to see anger all over Colin’s features.
“I wasn’t always the way I am now. I let him turn me into a person you wouldn’t have liked very much. Not only that, but I let him push all of my friends out of my life. I allowed him to destroy everything I cared about while I watched, all for selfish reasons. After my dad left, it was just Mom and me, and finances were tight. I met Jared one night while cleaning his office and he seemed interested in me. I was flattered, and he promised to take care of us.”
Colin tucked a finger under her chin and pulled her face close to his. “Andi, Andi. What happened wasn’t your fault. You fell in love with an asshole, is all.”
She giggled in spite of herself. Leave it to Colin to make light of a serious conversation. Though it wasn’t really that. She could tell with every bone in her body that he did actually care—or at least he had convinced her he did. It was more that he seemed to want her to laugh, to be happy, and that part of him—among so many others—was responsible for how quickly she’d begun to admire and enjoy him.
Colin laughed along with her, though there was still a glimmer of wild heat in his dark eyes. “What I don’t get, though, is that anyone can see that you’re incredibly smart.”
“Well, after I left Jared, and after I got my life sorted out and back on my feet, I found a therapist to help me with my dyslexia. I learned tricks and ways to make reading easier.”
“Is that when you started writing?”
“No,” she said, smiling at the memory of those hard, character-forming years, when stringing a few words together had felt like drawing blood. “I’d been writing for years—just not very well before Lily got hold of my work, helped me polish it, and made me think about trying to publish. But the reason I started was because I wanted to beat the dyslexia. I wanted to show the world that it wasn’t going to stop me from doing something I love.”
She turned serious. “Writing saved me, in a lot of ways. It gave me a place to pour out and work through all the confusion I’d experienced in my bad relationship, and over time, I started to heal.”
“But not physically,” Colin suggested.
“Right,” she said, amazed again at how astute he’d become at gauging her feelings. She swallowed. “You’re the first since Jared, and I was nervous that I wouldn’t be able to…you know.”
“Yeah,” he said, his tone oddly pensive. “I know. It all makes a lot more sense now.”
He was silent for a moment before continuing. “You didn’t do anything wrong, Andi – you need to know that. As far as I can tell, your only offense was having a good heart, and a lot of optimism in spite of having some real garbage thrown at you. Maybe you went into it for a less-than-ideal reason, and maybe it didn’t serve you well in the end, but it’s his fault for treating you like shit.”
Tears pricked at the back of her eyes and her nose tickled, but she fought to keep from crying. A girl could only stand so much humiliation in a few days’ time before she became a sensitive wreck. This was cutting it close.
“Thank you for that,” she said, relieved that her voice was much stronger and clearer than she felt.
He shook off her gratitude. “No need for thanks. It’s just the truth.”
Chapter Eleven
“I’ve been going on and on,” she said. “Your turn.”
“My turn for what? Did I miss out on a game we’re playing?” he asked, feigning innocence.
“Typical man,” she teased. “Don’t play dumb with me. You know what I mean.”
He looked out at the water and Andi took the opportunity to admire the strong features of his profile. He truly was a stunningly beautiful man.
“There’s nothing to talk about, really,” he said, but Andi remained patient and didn’t speak, hoping the silence would eventually cause him enough discomfort to keep going.
“We have more in common than I initially thought—you and I,” he said finally, still staring into the sea.
The sun, which remained perched behind the clouds, had dropped lower toward the horizon, washing the land in rich, warm shadows that reminded Andi of Catherine on Heathcliff’s moors.
“We both got caught up with people we thought we knew, who and it turns out we didn’t after all.”
Andi waited, certain he would say more. She was learning that he just needed space and time to open up.
“There’s not a lot to say. I really thought I’d found the proverbial one when I met Nicole. We made each other laugh, we liked all the same things, and since we were both actors, we understood from the beginning that our relationship would have to endure separate travel and months apart a great portion of the time, and we’d have to make peace with that in each others’ absences. Or at least, I thought we did. In the end, it seems I was the only one prepared to handle the difficulties of a long-distance relationship.”
He closed his eyes, and Andi almost felt guilty for bringing it up. But she knew enough about the healing process to know that talking through sore spots was a decent way to start getti
ng over them.
“I came home one time and found them—she and my best mate—going at it on the couch.”
He rubbed at his temple and Andi could feel the leftover grief permeating from him.
“God,” she said. “I am so sorry.”
He shook his head. “It still makes me sick to think about the two of them carrying on all that time without my knowing about it. Such a fucking stupid bloke I was not to notice it. Now I look back and I can see the signs that were there all along, but I was busy with work and I must have just overlooked what I didn’t want to accept.”
Andi wanted to reach out and touch him, but she wasn’t sure it was the right thing to do. His eyes were stormy and there was fierceness in them that she wasn’t brave enough to challenge, but he didn’t deserve what had happened to him any more than she did, and he needed to know that.
“Looks like we both picked the wrong partners, huh?”
Colin nodded and then looked up, the clouds from his eyes clearing as though he’d just remembered he wasn’t alone. “How did we end up here, you and I?” he asked. “Sort of makes you wonder what the universe was thinking, joining two disasters from opposite sides of the pond, doesn’t it?”
He lifted a hand to cup her chin softly, eyes wandering to her lips. He touched them with the pad of his thumb and as her lids closed to savor the sensation, she felt as though a star had dipped from the sky just for her, just for that moment. The intimacy in his caress was almost better than a kiss.
She opened her eyes and searched his. Colin’s tone was light, but Andi detected a hint of seriousness in his question.
A deep hollowness formed in her chest and she decided to take what she recognized as a rare chance to be open with him, with this man that the world saw only on a surface level. To most, he was simply an actor, a sex symbol—a stand-in for a hundred different characters, hers included, rather than a real person with his own collection of successes and failures, triumphs and heartbreaks.
But, for whatever reason, right then it was Andi in his arms—no one else.
It was Andi he’d chosen to invite into his padlocked heart.
She’d known his touch, had shared tender wounds and private pieces of herself with him. Part of her was terrified of what might happen if she let him know her beyond her body…but another part was learning that maybe fear wasn’t the end of the world.
She was stronger now than she’d been when she had first set foot in Scotland, and in a way, making a fool of herself on her first night in a new country had released her from certain expectations. Standing in front of that crowd, feeling the heat from the lights and the eyes of the audience—facing a challenge head-on and ultimately failing—hadn’t destroyed her.
Andi McKenna was still standing.
And she was ready for more.
She took a deep breath. “Look, Colin. I know we haven’t known each other all that long, but that’s not necessarily the most important thing when it comes to really…seeing someone.”
Closing her eyes, she fought to gather a sense of calm. It was important that she say the right things so that he could understand how much she wanted this…wanted him.
All of him.
So close.
Inside.
Somehow she felt certain that being with Colin was the last step in letting go of her past—of that timid, scared girl she’d been before—the girl she was done with now. Making love with him would be like crossing a barrier, and she had a feeling her life would be better on the other side, or, if not better, at least it would belong to her.
She’d fallen out of love with Jared a long, long time ago, but she knew that, until this moment, she hadn’t really let go of the chains he’d placed around her self-esteem. Continuing to waste thoughts on her ex gave him power he didn’t deserve, and she was finished with that.
Colin was a milestone. This time with him was something she could look back on to remember her moment of change.
She inhaled and released her breath slowly, building courage. When she looked up at him again, she met raw hunger and heat in his gaze, mixed with the same tenderness she’d known before in his more than capable hands. Seeing him want her as much as she wanted him spurred her confidence, and roused her body.
When he reached out to her, gently grasping both hands to pull her closer to his intensifying warmth, Andi didn’t hesitate to give in. His strong hands moved up her arms, leaving sparks in their wake and igniting a desire for his touch she’d only recently learned.
When he spoke again, she was so lost in him that she nearly missed the quiet huskiness of his voice.
“So you think you really see me then, do you?”
Andi nodded and wrapped her hands around the firm wall of his torso, running them up until the beat of his heart tapped at her thumb from underneath his left pec muscle.
“Then what do you see?” he asked, his voice rippling through her. She knew he was challenging her to tell the truth, but she wasn’t afraid. Andi pulled her hands lower until her fingers dug into his thighs and she used the leverage to move in, staring straight into his smoky eyes.
“I see a man who gave his heart away to a woman who turned out to be an idiot.” She ran a finger up and down his upper leg, groin to knee, delighting in the flames her touch brought to life behind his eyes. “A man who gave everything he had to someone who couldn’t appreciate it. And now he isn’t sure if it will ever be worth it to hand it over to someone new”—
“Are you saying you want to be that someone new, Andi?”
His question surprised her; it wasn’t at all what she’d expected, and the genuine curiosity behind it was something she chose, for that moment at least, to ignore.
“Not at all,” she lied. “I’m saying you can trust me not to take it. You can have me—no promises required, no risks involved.”
She moved her hands up to his face, pulling it near so she could linger over his features. Out of millions of women who’d love to have him, Andi was the one who got to see him up close, a distance at which he was far sexier than the too-perfect movie-poster version of himself. At this proximity, Colin was real—tight flesh and bone with Greek god cheekbones, stormy eyes, sexy ruffled hair and lips that inspired the dirtiest corner of her imagination.
“You’re certain about this?” he asked, his face revealing concern.
In answer, she leaned in and ran her tongue along his delicious lips and he opened them without protest, pulling her against his chest, kissing her back, further exploring the molten depths of her mouth.
As their mouths locked, Andi planted her knees between Colin’s open legs and rested her hands on his chest, using her body to push him back against the blanket. His hands trailed up and up, heating up the skin of her waist and belly, teasing the sensitive flesh underneath her breasts. When he ran his fingers over her still-covered nipples, she ached to get out of her clothes and feel skin on skin. He fought the fabric of her sweater like an enemy, and she giggled, feeling his frustration with the clothing.
“They say patience is a virtue,” she mused, but Colin obviously wasn’t in the mood for banter. Instead of answering, he raised his torso to face her, and Andi looked down to admire the ripples in his abdomen as he tore off her top, tossing it into the grass beyond their blanket before silencing her with another ravenous kiss.
He pulled away and left them both hungry for air. “Don’t make me wait to see the matching panties,” he said, reaching to unhook her plum-colored satin bra.
She grinned as Colin slid the garment down her arms and it was airborne, on its way to join the discarded sweater. Her nipples tingled in the chilly air for only a second until he cupped a breast in each of his hands, rubbing a rough thumb over them until she had to bite her tongue not to beg him to cover them with his mouth. Thank the stars he was on the same page. She let out a small sound of pleasure when his tongue slid over them before he nibbled at the hard peaks, bringing about simultaneous pain and ecstasy.
He was everything she’d never had, and everything she’d always wanted. Their bodies craved each other—from the second his skin first grazed hers, she’d craved his flesh.
And now it would be hers.
Quickly, urgently, she unbuttoned his shirt and lifted it over his head, her fingers shaking with anticipation rather than fear. She no longer cared what anyone besides this man thought about her body, and the bulge in his jeans left no room for doubt that he wanted her. He caught her staring and smiled, taking her hand to guide it to his crotch. She unzipped his fly and he leaned back, helping her remove the pants.
Andi stood and slowly pulled off her purple thong as Colin watched, admiration in his expression as he took in the whole of her naked figure.
“I don’t think I have to tell you that I like what I see,” he said.
And for the first time, she wasn’t shy. For the first time, her instinct wasn’t to cover every perceived flaw, every place she wasn’t happy with. No. With Colin, it was different. The unabashed appreciation, plain as day on his gorgeous face, reaffirmed the confidence she’d been slowly discovering already existed deep within her.
She couldn’t help the wide open smile that spread across her lips as she knelt down to rejoin him on the blanket. Andi pulled his boxer briefs down over the hard curve of his ass and past his knees before letting her eyes linger over his full erection.
He leaned his head back and a guttural noise escaped his lips as she wrapped a hand around his hard penis. He throbbed in her palm as she gripped his hot skin, pulling up and down, over and over, until he closed his eyes and arched his back, curling folds of the blanket into his fists.
Knowing he was close, Andi paused just long enough to pull a condom out of her bag, slipping it on with ease. She leaned down and set her mouth on him, alternately flicking her tongue around and around and wrapping her lips around him, until she’d driven him near the breaking point.
“Andi,” he rasped, the sound of his voice making her even wetter.
“Hmm,” she said, too lost in her new power to make him hard to fully hear his words.
