Learning to Trust

by Lynne Connolly

  Too close, too hard, too near to real emotion. She couldn’t afford that. Liking would work for her, but nothing more. And she felt more, felt her wayward heart yearning, but she couldn’t do that now. “You’re pretty awesome yourself. Come here and fuck me senseless.”

  That worked. His smile turned to a feral grin and he reached down to retrieve the condoms where they’d fallen on the floor. “That I can do. Then I can do it again.”

  He smoothed down her body, his hand spread wide to encompass her flesh, making her feel impossibly dainty and small. Arching up, she pressed her breast into his hand, and when his thumb grazed her nipple, gasped at the contact. “Oh that feels so good.”

  “Open your legs, sweetheart. Let me in.”

  He knelt up on the bed over her and she did as he asked, wider, so he could see her glistening pussy. “Wet for me?”

  “All for you. Every bit of it.”

  He palmed a foil package and bent his head. Before she realized what he was doing, he licked her from opening to clit, making an “Mmm” sound, like someone enjoying a delectable meal. The purr vibrated against her and she flailed and cried out before catching his hair and taking hold. He slurped, and the sound drove her wild. A dessert for the taking, but she hadn’t had her entrée yet. “Jon! Fill me up, drive in hard.”

  She wanted to lick him too, know his flavor, but she’d do that later. She promised herself the treat, that she’d keep him awake, get everything she could from him before he had to leave. Pushing away the sharp pang of longing that filled her, she dragged him up. “Now, now.”

  He tore open the packet and covered his cock in latex, making her wish she’d gone down on him before. Maybe he didn’t want that. But she knew what he did want. She raised her knees, cradled his body between them as he came to her. “I’d try to be more inventive, but all I can think about is getting inside you.” He kissed her, letting her taste herself on him and drove down, through the cleft between her legs, into her body.

  In one of the old books she’d taken to reading lately, she’d read that sensation as “coming within her governance,” and she knew exactly what the writer meant. He was entering her kingdom, her domain, forging a path within her, taking whatever he wanted like some medieval marauder.

  He could take her any time. She lifted her feet and wrapped her legs around him, tightening her hold to grip him. But not too tightly, or he couldn’t withdraw only to drive inside her again and take her, just take her.

  Her head went back against the thin pillow, her hair tangling around her, strands clinging to her cheeks. Their mouths met, held, melded, as if they’d known exactly what this would feel like from the day they were born. She tasted him, threaded her fingers through his hair and held him close.

  She followed his pace, arching her back to respond to his demanding thrusts, accept him and return them. He groaned into her mouth and she drew a sharp breath in through her nose when her vagina tightened and clenched. An orgasm rippled through her, taking her by surprise. She cried out.

  He lifted, his teeth bared in a paroxysm of effort. “I will not come. Not yet. I want three climaxes out of you. Shall I count? That was one. You nearly killed me, lady. But I’m taking you for two more before I’ll give in.”

  Why three? She didn’t know, didn’t care as he lifted. He rested his weight on his hands and changed the angle of his thrusts, reaching a spot inside her that drove her wild. Fast, too fast, her body tumbled out of control. Her breasts bounced and she had to work hard against the badly sprung mattress to keep control, to keep her body tensed and ready for his attack, but she couldn’t stop.

  With a cry, she reached for him. Harder this time, her orgasm poured through her, reaching every part of her body. Her fingertips tingled, her hair felt as if it were standing on end. All of her responded to his brutal invasion.

  She kept her legs curled around his, but he shook them off, reached for them and slid them up his arms to lie over his shoulders. She’d never been this open to a man before. Her knees crushed against her breasts, pushing them into each other, she stared up at him. He pounded into her, relentless. “Two.” He shifted, eased his body down a little. “Now for the third.”

  Her involuntary groan made her wonder if she could take any more, but one look at his relentless expression and she knew she had no choice. She spread her arms, gripped the sheets and watched him, his sweat-slicked body working her hard. His first deep drive felt like nothing else, deeper than anyone had gone before, reaching parts of her she could truly say were virgin territory. Deep and hard, he worked her, and the sounds of their lovemaking, the wet pounding rhythm, grew sweeter than any song she’d ever heard.

  He could make her do anything right now and sure enough, her body sucked him in, took what it needed and sent her spiraling into space. But she kept her eyes open, watched him come apart, watched his eyes as he stared at her, as they came together.

  Too much, far too much. What had she gotten herself into?

  Chapter Four

  Fucking jet lag. Here he was, five a.m. and wide awake. With a woman wound around him. That last part he didn’t object to one bit, despite the humidity of the small room, but he felt thirsty and he didn’t want to disturb her. She was on the early shift. It took him a good ten minutes to unwind her limbs without waking her, but his leg began to cramp and he needed that drink. Still, as he left her, regret touched him.

  He dragged on his jeans, then crossed the room to the sink in the corner, set by the tiny kitchen bench that held a microwave, a filter coffeemaker and nothing else. After finding a glass in the cupboard above the sink he turned on the tap. He nearly dropped the glass when a horrendous noise from the pipes reverberated through the room. But she didn’t stir, so he filled his glass and thought about coffee. She might be used to the pipes but maybe the scent of brewing coffee might rouse her and Jon needed some peace. Time to think.

  Sitting on the sofa, he studied his bed companion. He’d wanted her for so long he couldn’t remember a time when he hadn’t. The first time he met her she’d just turned eighteen, when he was beginning to find his way in the family business.

  Then she’d dated Byron and Jon had stepped back, although it had nearly killed him to do it. The charming Byron captivated every woman in his life. Unfortunately he’d usually escorted them to the wildest parties, the most exciting places, which inevitably meant the most dangerous.

  But Jon had still wanted her, watched her, helpless to do anything when they sank into a life of parties and drugs.

  He saw none of the party girl in her now. Just a lovely woman. Drugs hadn’t caused her thinness. She didn’t have a needle mark on her body, or scars from burned-out veins. The shadows under her eyes came from hard work, not late-night partying. He didn’t know if that mousy brown hair color was natural to her, but he didn’t much care. Except that when she tossed her head on the pillow he’d seen flashes, glimpses of something brighter.

  She was ten times more dangerous to him now. He saw her as she was, stripped down in more ways than one. He wanted her so badly he didn’t think he could survive seeing her as she used to be, dressed in expensive clothes, polished and tanned. Burnished. He preferred her now. There was a lot to be said for natural. Especially when it came in a package like this.

  When she stirred, he got to his feet, ready to soothe her. She needed all the rest she could get because she had a hard day in front of her. Maybe he should have left her to sleep, but he couldn’t.

  He’d needed her so badly he hadn’t thought things through. Unusual for him. Not that he was averse to taking risks, but he never threw everything at the same problem. Not like he’d done last night.

  She turned and reached for the sheet. Much as he enjoyed looking at her, her comfort was far more important so he helped her untangle the sheet from her legs. But the action woke her up. She stared at him, brown eyes sleepy and vulnerable. He couldn’t help giving her a soft kiss.

  “Is everything okay?”

 
He smoothed a strand of hair back from her forehead. “Sure. I’m just jet-lagged, is all.”

  She glanced at the wall clock above the door. “It’s early, but I have to be up in an hour. Shall I make coffee?”

  “No, you stay there. I’ll do it.” He felt her gaze on his back all the time he was filling the glass jug, filling the coffeemaker and setting the machine off. When he turned, he’d pasted a smile on his face, deliberately relaxed his features. “How are you this morning?”

  She returned the smile, intimacy flashing between them. “Better.” She sat up, drawing the sheet with her and tucking it under her arms.

  “Good.” He opened the small refrigerator set under the counter and found a carton of milk. The coffee bubbled and spurted at the end of its cycle. He filled two white mugs, similar to the ones he’d seen downstairs in the café. Simple, functional and in their own way, beautiful. Like Lina.

  He took a mug over to her and put it on the bedside table before returning to the sofa with his own coffee. He needed the space. If she dropped that sheet he might not be responsible for what he did next. Asleep, he found her beautiful and tempting. Awake, virtually irresistible.

  He didn’t speak until he’d taken a sip of the scalding liquid. “When do you have to be at work?”

  “Six thirty. I’m on early shift. I’m off at eleven. We can go to the shelters after that. It’s the best time, anyway, at mealtimes. That’s when most of the addicts wake up and make their way there.” She stared at him, a new sharpness in her eyes. “So how did you find me? What brought you to Franco’s?”

  “A photo. I’ve had people trying to find you for years. At last, someone sent a photo of Byron arriving at the train station in Naples. I got an address with the picture, this one. I expected to find him here, not you.”

  “How did they find me?”

  He hated the vulnerability she showed. Fear and something else. A tinge of anger, perhaps. He’d do anything to never see that expression again. He had to tell her what he knew, had to trust her. “I don’t know. I assumed our people had tracked Byron to this address. I’ll get in contact when I get home.” He stopped fighting to remain calm, to get the image of Byron walking through the train station out of his head. The bedclothes rustled when she stirred but he held up his hand. “I’ll want you again and we need to talk. I want you to help me find Byron, I want—” He broke off. He couldn’t ask her now. She’d refuse him outright if he asked her to come back to New York. “I want to know where he is, to get him the help he needs.”

  She lay against the wall behind her head, the sheet once again up around her breasts. “He’s past help, Jon. That’s why I left him.”

  “Because you wanted help and he didn’t?”

  “I wasn’t that sensible.” She took a deep breath. “You didn’t believe that I was off the stuff, but you do now, don’t you?”

  He nodded. “You have no marks, you don’t need a fix. You’re not trembling or anxious.”

  She met his eyes and he couldn’t look away. Didn’t want to. “I broke my leg. A car hit me when I ran across the street to the man.” He knew which man. The man who had the drugs. “I had the money, and I needed my fix. I was using heroin by then. It’s cheap, and it gets you there. My days of fancy cocktail drugs had long gone.” She grimaced. “I was as bad as you can imagine. I’d do anything for smack or crack. Anything.” Silence fell between them, and he gave a terse nod but didn’t say anything. He couldn’t.

  “I didn’t have insurance, any kind of health care for that matter, but the Sisters of Mercy took me in. Not a fashionable part of Rome, not a rich order, but they cared for me and people like me. They weren’t the habit-wearing nuns you’re imagining.” She gave a short laugh. “I guess they had habits for Sundays, but they said they found it better if they didn’t wear them all the time. If they looked a bit like us. But they cared for me.

  “I spoke Italian like I was born here. I grew up bilingual, but my mother would have blanched at some of the words I added to my vocabulary the three years I lived in Rome. Existed. Byron came to see me in the hospital, but the sisters caught him stealing and they banned him.”

  She lifted her sheeted knees and dropped her head, resting her forehead on them. He gave her the space she needed, drank the rest of his coffee. She looked up. “That visit, I asked him to come in and get the cure. They believed in cold turkey. Brutal, but effective. It can kill you, but if you survive, it’s the fastest way to get out of it. It nearly killed me, that was for sure, but with a broken leg I could hardly get to see my dealer. Anyway, he’d been busted, Byron said, so I’d have had to find another. The sisters let me stay until I got some strength back and they helped me start a new life. I want to give them a donation, Jon. A good one.”

  “I’ll give them as much as you want. Fuck, I’ll double it.” Gratitude and a sense of relief swept through him. “How did you get so poor?”

  She smiled wryly. “In New York, after we bought our tickets to Rome, Byron and I destroyed our checkbooks and plastic. We didn’t want anyone following us.”

  “Why not?”

  She paused and ran her fingers through her tousled hair. “We were scared. His parents, your parents, wanted to force the cure on Byron. And Marty told me he was sending me to the same place, too. Do what they thought was best for us. My mom had gone through all the money my father left us. With my help. So I had nothing left.”

  She glanced at the clock again, but he knew she only did it to avoid his eyes. “The only way anyone kicks the shit is because they really want to. I wasn’t ready then. I was three years later, but Byron wasn’t. We knew that the minute we accessed our bank accounts someone would know where we were. And we knew if we got desperate enough, we’d do it. So we removed temptation. Without emptying our accounts first, which was probably the most stupid thing we did. Apart from getting addicted in the first place.”

  “No argument there. But you got out of it. So why not come home now?” He caught his breath, praying she’d say she’d come back with him.

  She shook her head, sending her hair curling around her in waves. There it was again, that glint. But she was refusing to come. Nobody said it’d be easy. “I’m happy here. I have a life. If, somehow, you can get some money to me, I’ll be even happier.”

  “I can do that.”

  She got to her feet, throwing the sheet over the other tumbled bedclothes and he groaned. Not skinny at all. Beautifully shaped, with gentle curves, not artificially enhanced. At least she’d escaped that fate. He had a private theory about the growth of vanity surgery. All the girls had fashion dolls in their childhood and it had shown them an image of an artificially shaped woman. They spent their adulthood pursuing that ideal to the point of grotesqueness.

  It was as good as any of the other theories out there.

  Maybe she hadn’t liked dolls. Every delectable inch of Lina looked real. Her pale skin gleamed in the light of the new day filtering through the thin drapes. It danced over her form, around the breasts he’d kissed and fondled last night, into the tempting dip of her waist and over the feminine flare of her hips. All there, all perfect. The physical work she’d done in the last couple of years must have honed her body from the rake-thin, scary shape of addiction to thin but fit.

  He got to his feet and caught her, one arm around her waist pulling her to him. Temptation just turned into irresistible desire. Her breasts pressed against his bare chest and he let her feel the desire she’d evoked. Her eyes widened.

  He smiled into them. The velvety brown irises were circled by a line of black and the pupils widened, making them sultry and inviting. He cradled the back of her head and kissed her, welcoming the day. Right then he knew he wouldn’t tire of kissing her good morning anytime soon. “Shall we shower together? Or do you have time for something else first?”

  She laughed and pulled away, before grabbing a toweling robe from the back of the door. “No to both. The bathroom is outside. I share it with the occupant of the
other flat, but since nobody’s there right now, we have it to ourselves. Come on, I’ll show you.”

  When he saw the bathroom, he realized why a shared shower wouldn’t work. He couldn’t use it without bending, as it was set in the slope of the roof, and it was so tiny he’d be lucky to get all his body wet at the same time. He recalled the bathroom in the hotel he’d just left, remembering his derisory response when he’d seen it. Luxury compared to this. So he grinned, pushed her inside and went back to get more coffee. And hopefully his erection would subside.

  Chapter Five

  At five minutes past eleven, Jon glanced up from his book when Lina entered the flat. She seemed surprisingly perky for a woman who’d been working for the last four and a half hours, mostly on her feet. He’d stayed upstairs, and consequently suffered all the delectable cooking smells wafting up from the café below, with only coffee to help him through.

  She carried a paper sack that she tossed to him. “I thought you’d come down.” She turned to hang her apron on the peg. “You must be hungry.”

  By this time his mouth was full of the most delicious bacon sandwich he’d ever tasted, so he gave an “Mmm” in response.

  She laughed, genuine, unfettered humor. “Let me wash up and we’ll get going.”

  She returned from the bathroom in ten minutes, still dressed in the jeans she’d donned that morning, but wearing a fresh T-shirt. She crossed the room to the alcove where she kept her clothes and pushed the curtain aside, taking a denim jacket off a hanger. There had to be all of eight hangers in that space, and they weren’t overcrowding the alcove, either. A pair of sandals, a pair of flat pumps and a pair of boots stood underneath.

  In the old days she’d have had a room full of clothes, the sale of any one of which would have paid the rent on this place for a month or more. And yet she seemed happier now, lighter. Even before she began to use drugs heavily she’d never seemed entirely happy. Not that he saw much of her until later, when she’d taken up with Byron. Just after he’d noticed her and wanted to get to know her better.