“Travis, is that you?” she asked, sitting up in the bed.
Her voice was soft, but it wasn’t sleepy, the way he had assumed it would. Maybe she had been sitting up waiting on him? Maybe thinking the same things that he had been thinking. Fuck, she was in his bed. What the hell was he going to do now? “Yeah, it’s me.” he answered.
There was an awkward silence between the two of them. He wasn’t prepared for this. Didn’t mean at all that he didn’t want it, but he wasn’t sure he was prepared. There were a million things about her that he didn’t know, some things he was downright scared to find out. It was all so up in the air.
When he didn’t say anything, she cleared her throat and pulled the sheet up closer to her neck. It gave her a sense of security, as if he wouldn’t be able to see the way she felt if she held that blanket up. Being here, amongst his things, had pulled some feelings to the surface that she hadn’t known were possible. “I didn’t know if you wanted me to be here…” She let the sentence fall off, embarrassment making her stop talking.
“No, you’re fine. If you don’t want me here, I can go stay in one of the other rooms that no one is in right now,” he told her, putting his hands in the pockets of his jeans. He had never been this nervous around a woman, not even when he had been a young kid. He rocked back on his heels and waited for her to let him know how she wanted to play this. Hardly ever would he defer to someone else to tell him who could sleep in his room, but she had already been through so much. It was like Tyler had told him; he had to direct her in an easy way. He wanted her to stay, and if it was her decision, all the more better for it.
“I don’t want to kick you out of your own room and bed. If you’ll let me know which rooms are empty, I’ll go take one.” The moment the words came out of her mouth, she wanted to shove them back in. What had happened to the fearless woman from the night before? The one who had known exactly what Travis could see and had given him a free show? Why was she being a fraidy cat now?
He could see her from the light that she had left on in the bathroom. She was modestly covered in a pair of sleep pants and a T-shirt. Her hair was disheveled, and a thought crossed his mind that he wished he had been the one to do the disheveling. Even though her voice hadn’t been laced with sleep, he could tell by the look in her eye that she was getting to the sleepy stage of the night. Probably made him a bastard, but he had watched her often enough on a computer screen to know what she looked like. He wanted desperately to know what she looked like lying beside him. “You don’t have to leave,” he told her, his voice low, as not to scare her.
Christine hadn’t expected him to say that. It wasn’t that she didn’t think he didn’t desire her, she knew that he did, but this was his room. The one thing that was his in this whole world besides the motorcycle he rode on and the patch on his back. “You want me to stay?”
That was the bitch of it, wasn’t it? He did want her to stay, but he didn’t want to force her to make a decision that she wasn’t ready for. “I want you to do whatever you want to do. I’m not that guy that tells you what you have to do. I’ve never been that kind of guy. I will tell you this, though. I’m gonna go take a shower. When I come out, you can either be here or not. There will be no hard feelings on my part if you aren’t here.”
That seemed fair enough to the both of them. It took the pressure off just enough that she could breathe.
He could feel her eyes on him as he went about the room, gathering the stuff he would need. From where he stood, he could almost hear the thoughts rushing through her head, and he worried if he hurried this, what if she wasn’t ready and what if he did irreparable damage to their tenuous, at best, relationship? “No hard feelings,” he told her again as he went into the bathroom and shut the door.
The click that indicated the door was shut sounded like a cannon going off in the silence of the room. She paced a circle around the bed and a couch that sat in the corner as she thought about what he had offered her. It was the best of both worlds, and there was no pressure behind any of it, she knew that without a doubt, but the implications were still there. The feelings were there, even if they were there only on her part. That’s what she had always been led to believe—men desired, but they didn’t feel anything else for women. They wanted property, and she wasn’t stupid, she knew what motorcycle clubs were; she had seen a property patch on a woman before. There was a part of her that wasn’t sure if she would be happy wearing that, not after what all she had already been through.
Then there was the elephant in the room. Jagger. He was going to flip his shit when he found out how long this had been going on and he’d had no clue. She was sure of that, but a part of her wanted him to get angry. A part of her wanted him to know exactly how rough it had been for her with him gone. That was the selfish part of her personality, the part that she hadn’t let surface in a very long time. “It’s not his fault,” she whispered to herself. And it wasn’t, but knowing that did nothing to help her sleep at night.
There had been so many nights she had prayed that he would come find her, be the big brother that she remembered him being. She had dreams that he would come to the front door and knock it down, trying to get to her. When she had been little, he had promised her that nothing would ever happen to her, that he would protect her at all costs. In this he had failed miserably, and she did wonder if he had ever thought of her again. Had he wondered where she was? Had he thought about what their father had done to her?
Pushing all those feelings aside was hard, but Christine knew that what Travis asked of her had nothing to do with Jagger. It had to do with what she wanted the two of them to be. Did she want them to sleep in the same bed? Did she want to be able to count on him to help her and her help him in return? That was something that had been sorely lacking in their relationship previous to this. Travis had done all the helping, and she had allowed it to happen, never offering, never anticipating what he might need from her. But that was where she got confused. The men in her life before him would need sex…did Travis need sex? Did he want it with her? He desired her, yes, but she didn’t know what he felt inside. Biting her thumbnail, she exhaled deeply and realized that she had run out of time. She could no longer hear the shower running inside the bathroom, and the doorknob was turning.
She stood rooted to the spot as Travis came out, steam and hot air billowing around him. “You’re still here?”
“Don’t act so surprised,” she tried the joke out. It was a little funny—it was something that she could definitely work on and with.
“No, I am, I figured you would be long gone, in another room by now.”
Her eyes landed on his bare chest, and she fought not to stare. Clinton had been an older man, and while Travis’ stomach and chest weren’t as muscular as some of the others she had seen working at Wet Wanda’s, he was very good looking to her. On one pectoral, he had a large tattoo. She had seen the ones on his arms before, but this one was different. This was one that he purposely kept hidden from other people, and it could only be seen because he had chosen to take his shirt off in your presence. She took that sentiment and held it close to her heart. It felt good, it felt right.
“You okay?” he asked, his voice held a twinge of laughter as she pulled her eyes away from him.
“I’ve just never seen you without a shirt on before.” That sounded lame even to her own ears.
“I don’t parade around like some people do without one on. I don’t have a lot to show off.”
But to her he did, and she wanted so badly to call it her own. What would he say if she told him that?
Chapter Fourteen
Lying down in the bed together had been one of the most awkward things that either one of them had ever experienced. The tension was so thick that it could have been cut with a knife.
“Is lying in bed with a man always this awkward?” she asked softly as she turned to face Travis, careful not to touch him.
That comment struck him as odd, but h
e tried to make a joke anyway. “I don’t know, I’ve never been in bed with a man before. Besides, you were married.”
She still was married, but she hated to focus on that. “Yeah, but we never slept in the same bed together.”
His eyebrow rose. “Never?” That was supposed to be one of the major perks of putting a ring on it. The fact that you could go to bed and reach over whenever you wanted to either be close or, if you were feeling the need, fuck her until you fell back asleep.
“Nope.” She shook her head.
The sound of her hair moving against the sheet was loud in the stillness of the room.
“He only came to visit me for, what do prisoners call it? Conjugal visits? Then he would leave as soon as he was done.”
There seemed to be no finesse. He wondered if she had even liked it. Had she ever found pleasure in anything besides the touch of her own hand? He hadn’t realized he’d asked her that question out loud until she answered.
“No, and do you know how much of a disadvantage that puts you at being a stripper?”
The laugh exploded from his body. Sometimes he could almost forget that she had been a stripper. “No.”
She huffed and resituated herself. “The whole time I was there, Wanda would tell me, ‘You must look sexier. Imagine the way you look at your husband. How do you feel when he gives you an orgasm? Give the men that face.’”
He waited patiently for her to continue. He was afraid he would embarrass her if he asked any more questions.
“But I had never had one. When I finally told Jasmine, Jasmine took me to a store just north of here, and we made a ton of purchases. I had to figure it out on my own,” she whispered.
Those words went straight to his gut, and then that tension was back. Travis cleared his throat. “I don’t know what to say to that.”
She laughed. “You don’t have to say anything, I’m just being honest.”
He needed to be honest too. He wanted to be the first guy to do that for her. Being turned down, though, would make things very uncomfortable between the two of them. In the end, he just decided to go for it. If she didn’t want it, she didn’t want it, but if she did, then maybe it would be the tipping point that would make her finally be able to fully trust and believe in him.
One minute, she was lying back against the pillow and Travis was lying beside her. The next minute, Travis had scooted over next to her, his face next to hers. “If I do anything that you don’t like, you tell me.”
She nodded.
“I need to hear you say it.” He didn’t want to scare her, he didn’t want anything at all to be misconstrued, he had to know that she wanted this as much as he did.
“Okay, I trust you.”
Those words were everything that he had always wanted to hear from her. He couldn’t believe how good it felt, how it made his heart race to hear that. They made him feel like motherfucking Superman, but there was still that inner debate—should he get on top of her, should he just stay on his side, facing her? He wished he was as smooth as some of the other members of the club. Fucking hell, Travis, just do whatever Tyler would do, he told himself. Never in his life had he been this nervous with a woman.
Christine must have seen the hesitation in his eyes, the personal battle he was having with himself, because she grabbed his cheeks and pulled his face closer to hers before placing a soft kiss on his lips. It was quick and she pulled back just as quickly.
“I trust you.”
He moved a lot quicker than he meant to, stretching himself over her body, holding himself up with his hands flat on the mattress. “I don’t deserve that trust.”
Christine looped her arms around his neck, burying her fingers in the hair there. “You do. You’re the only one I’ve trusted in such a long time. I want you to understand that. You’re the only person that I’ve been able to be myself with—ever. I’m still trying to figure out who that is, but I feel at peace when I’m with you, I’ve never felt at peace before.”
There were no words for what she had just told him, he didn’t know how to process it, how to tell her that he was himself around her too. More than he’d ever been. In the club, he got lost because he was quiet, because his presence wasn’t demanding. He wasn’t physically intimidating like the rest of them. It was his mind that made him dangerous, the things he could do with words and computer code. His threat was much quieter, but just as effective—not everyone understood that. The ones that did, knew exactly what he did for the club; the ones that didn’t sold him short and saw him as weak. Here, with her in his arms, he felt like the strongest man in the world.
Not being able to take the feelings that were rushing through his body, he dipped his head down, brushing her lips with his. Her reaction was tentative, and he didn’t want to rush it, but he had to taste her. With equally slow movements, he pried her mouth open with the tip of his tongue. She gasped into the kiss, and he wasn’t sure that she liked it until she arched her back, pressing her breasts into his chest. Her nails at the back of his neck dug into the skin there. The bite of pain was welcome as he braced himself up on one arm and used the other to cup her face and tilt her chin so he could use her mouth just the way he wanted to. In this movie between the two of them, he was the director, and he showed her with gentle pressure what he wanted.
“Travis,” she whispered when he broke the kiss. He tilted her chin up, trailing his lips along her jawline, down to her neck.
Christine had never done anything like this before. There had been no finesse when she was with Clinton. There had never been slow kisses, a buildup to anything. It was always he told her to be waiting in bed with her clothes off, and he would come to her, do his business, and be done. He’d kissed her maybe four times in the entire length of time she’d been there. This was entirely new territory for her. His lips and teeth nipped at her neck, his tongue soothing the burn when he put a small amount of pressure behind it.
“You okay?” he asked as his kisses trailed up to her ear.
She shivered when he used his teeth to nip her earlobe, a ribbon of excitement running through her body, causing her to arch against him. “Yeah.” She was afraid to move her hands from around his neck, afraid that she would make the wrong move and this would all be over. It felt too good. His mouth was now back at her neck, but this time it was at the column of her throat, and he was moving down, closer to her chest. Involuntarily, she felt her nipples harden against the cotton of her T-shirt, and she wanted him to lift it off her body, to show herself to him. She’d only showed herself to the men at Wet Wanda’s. This was something that she had a choice in, and she wanted desperately to show him that she chose him.
Lifting the lids of her eyes so that they were open, she looked down. His dark head was moving even further down her body, and the hand that had been at her jaw was now at the hem of her T-shirt. She’d never realized how big his hands were until one was splayed against her stomach, pushing the fabric up. It came to a stop just below her breast, and he took that moment to look up at her. His eyes were dark, full of desire. She’d never seen anything like it before, and she knew without a doubt that she wanted to see this look from him again; she had to see it again. She would do anything to see this look from him as many times as she could throughout her life. The look was so vulnerable, so full of emotion. In that moment she lost her heart to him. It had been hovering in his hands for a long time—the way he took care of her and the way she trusted him…it had been coming. But it was that bare, vulnerable gaze he gave her that clenched it all.
“Can I take this off?”
The tone of voice he used was quiet and respectful, telling her that if she wasn’t comfortable, it would be okay to tell him so, and he would be fine with that. The level of understanding he had with her was one she had never in her life been given with anyone else. Tears clogged her throat for some unknown reason, but she knew that she didn’t want to ruin this.
“Please.”
The side of his mouth tilted
in a cocky grin.
She helped him when he struggled using his one hand, and they both laughed. When his brown eyes swept her body, she fought not to cover herself up with one of her arms. It was difficult, but she didn’t. Insecurities came up from places that she hadn’t counted on.
“What’s wrong? You tensed.”
He was so in-tune with everything involving her that she had to take another moment to thank the God that sent him to her—and she hadn’t thanked God for anything in a while. “What if I’m no good at this?”
A mischievous smile lit up his face. “Then we practice until you feel like you get it right.”
She laughed, the sound loud in the room, but it filled him up with pride. He had successfully put her at ease. Not waiting for her to question anything else, he moved his hand from her stomach to the side of her breast. He watched her eyes as he stroked his thumb over the nub there. She inhaled deeply. “We good?” he asked.
“Yeah.” She breathed harder as he stroked a few more times, each pass faster than the last.
He nodded, dipping his head down, and instead of his thumb, this time, his tongue snaked out. Christine shifted so hard she almost came up off the bed, and he worried that maybe he had done something wrong.
“I’m fine,” she panted. But she really wasn’t. She wanted more and wasn’t sure how to tell him. Everything that Travis was doing was causing a deep ache in the middle of her body, the same kind of ache that she got late at night when she thought of him. She wanted him to take care of it, she was sick of taking care of it herself. She gripped his hair in her fingers and thrust against him. “More,” she whispered.
Dirty Little Secret Page 9
