“Please… Don’t talk to me. Just… Please do something to me. Anything.”
I lowered myself on top of her, letting her feel every inch of my cock through the barrier of my jeans. I unbuttoned my fly with one hand and wrapped the other in her hair, nuzzling my lips against her cheek. “I want you,” I said, even though I wasn’t supposed to talk. Who was the dominant, anyway? I tore myself away from her to tug a condom from my pocket.
Turning back, I pinned her wrists over her head and sucked in a breath as she struggled under me. Struggling females drove me wild, they always had, and this one was exceptionally strong. With a growl I reached down and pulled at one of her thighs so I could burrow between her legs. I gritted my teeth against the agony of my desire, palming the condom so I’d have it close at hand. I didn’t want to rush this, but I couldn’t hold out much longer.
“No.”
I almost didn’t hear it at first, my blood was rushing so hard in my veins. But then she said it again, louder. “No, please.” Her wrists struggled with sudden fervor against my palm.
“What’s wrong?”
“Please get off me. I’m going to be sick if you don’t let me up.”
I moved and she vaulted up and through the mats and blankets and everything. I sat blinking in the sudden light as one of the mats fell against my shoulder. The bathroom door slammed and I heard awful noises. Coughing. Retching?
I stood and refastened my jeans, pocketing the condom. Maybe it was a virus. Food poisoning. Overexcitement? She was crying, I could hear it from across the room.
I righted her decimated fort in a haze of shock. What had happened? Was it my fault? I thought back over the things I’d done. Up until the last few moments she’d seemed totally into it. Could extreme arousal cause nausea? That wouldn’t explain the sobbing. I went to the bathroom door and checked the knob. Locked. I could pop it in a heartbeat but she wasn’t acting like she wanted my company.
“Ashleigh?” I rattled the doorknob. “What can I do to help?”
There was silence for a moment, then she flushed the toilet. “I’m all right. I just need a minute.”
I spread my fingers against the door. “I’ll be out here, okay? If there’s anything you need.”
“I don’t need anything. You can go.”
There wasn’t a chance of me leaving, not while she was so distraught. “Can you open the door so we’re not talking through it?”
Silence. After a few minutes I walked back over to the hastily-restored fort and twitched at the blankets and quilts. I wanted to crawl inside and turn the flickering candle on, or maybe look up at the glow-in-the-dark flowers again. Mostly I wanted to go back in time about half an hour and do something to make this all turn out differently.
I should never have tried to seduce her. She was way too sweet. I’d come over here with my false rose to fuck her and now she was crying in the bathroom. I looked over at the pink bloom, at my jacket thrown over her chair. I could have visited ten other women to get my rocks off, no seduction necessary. It was going to take a long time to get over the image of her busting through those blankets to get away from me.
I walked back over to the bathroom door. “Ashleigh, please. There must be something I can do.”
“You can leave,” she said, her voice muffled by paint and pasteboard. “I’m not trying to be rude. I just want to be alone right now. I’m really…really not feeling well. I’m sorry.”
“Please don’t apologize. Come out and say goodbye to me and I’ll leave, if that’s what you want. Or rather than apologize, just explain to me—”
The door whipped open. She stood there gripping the frame, her eyes and nose red with tears. “You’re right. You deserve an explanation but I don’t know how to explain it to you. It wasn’t your fault.”
Then whose fault was it? She was fine until I climbed on top of her. I felt a little sick to my stomach thinking about what might make her react that way. I swallowed hard, wanting to touch her and comfort her. Afraid to reach out for fear she’d start retching again. “What happened to you?” I asked.
She shook her head. “Don’t.”
“Ashleigh—”
She shut the door in my face and clicked the lock. I pressed my forehead to the wood. Who had hurt this girl so bad that sex made her freak out like this? Whoever it was, I wanted to plant a fist in his face.
“Ash?” I tapped on the door one last time. I spoke low, not really expecting her to answer. “Is there anything I can do?”
Silence. Complete and utter silence as if she’d ceased to breathe. I walked back across the room and twitched her blankets into place one last time. Floral quilts would forevermore be the stuff of nightmares for me. I grabbed my jacket, scrawled my number on the notepad on her counter, and called out to her from the door. “Okay, I’m leaving. I’m going to close the door behind me and then I’m going to stand outside until I hear you lock it. My number is on the counter if you need me.” I thought a minute. “Please call, at least to let me know you’re okay.”
I opened her door and stepped through and closed it hard behind me so she would hear. About a minute later I heard the deadbolt turn, so, so quietly.
I never should have come. Sometimes you showed up to fuck a girl, and things didn’t end up at all the way you hoped.
Chapter Five: Help
Liam fixed my bed before he left. He placed my mats and blankets almost exactly as they’d been before he arrived. His rose laid on my counter, so beautiful, and next to it, his name and number, which was beautiful too. He’d been concerned. He hadn’t wanted to leave me. I put my fingers over my lips, remembering his kisses, his thrilling touches, the silken way he spoke. He’d blame himself for what happened, but my issues with sex and intimacy were long-held and deeply entrenched. He couldn’t have understood what I felt when he climbed on top of me. My father’s weight. My father’s bulk.
No, I couldn’t think about it. I’d be sick again and I’d been sick enough.
I paced my apartment, angry, confused, disappointed. Defeated. If anyone could have fixed me, it would have been Liam Wilder. I thought this time it would be different, especially with the BDSM factor. For a while his force and confidence had worked and I felt swept away in the moment. But then…no. No, no, no, no, no.
I knew I should call to let Liam know I was okay, but I didn’t want the questions. This had happened five or six times already, when I’d thought, this is the one who can make it work for me. This is the guy who can make me forget the rasping breath and heavy weight, and the raw, grinding pain between my legs.
If Liam Wilder couldn’t do it, then that was it for me. It was time to give up and accept my lonely, solitary life. At least I’d have work to fill my days. Well, until I got too old to dance. I’d have my friends and acquaintances, and my comfortable apartment where I felt safe.
I would have to forget everything that had happened between us. I’d have to forget him, as hard as that would be. I was a dancer. I was used to enduring pain and denying myself things I wanted. I ripped the paper with his number on it into a million pieces so I wouldn’t be tempted to call, then I took a shower and crawled into my flowered retreat to sleep, but once I was under there, I couldn’t stop thinking about him. After a couple hours I pulled off the blankets, kicked down the mats, and slept on the couch.
Monday and Tuesday were hard, but I woke up Wednesday feeling better. I was focused again, or maybe just resigned. I took class at ten, concentrating on each step, blocking out any thoughts of Liam. I performed that night better than I’d performed since Sleeping Beauty began. When I watched the prince kiss Princess Aurora to life, I reminded myself it was only a fairy tale. I felt no regrets about Liam, no desire for Rubio to notice me or acknowledge me backstage. In fact, I was relieved he didn’t. My world was restored to normalcy and I felt peaceful and calm. I walked home with a group of friends who lived on my block, looking forward to some tea and a good book.
My peaceful mood evaporat
ed, though, the second I opened my door. At some point during the time I was away, a large bed had materialized in the middle of my apartment. Not just a bed, but a gorgeous work of art. What had Liam said to me? You just need to find a bed that feels as safe as this place. They make them, you know.
Oh my God.
The headboard and footboard were designed to look like bunches of woven-together branches, while each of the four posts resembled tree trunks. The trunks reached to the ceiling and supported a canopy of more intertwined iron branches. Light silk curtains hung down from the canopy, enclosing the space inside. The effect was undeniably, overwhelmingly protective, like a hideaway in a forest bower. I’d seen a bed like this before, on the set of Sleeping Beauty. It was similar to the one the princess slept in as she waited for the prince to awaken her, but that bed was made of painted plywood and aluminum, constructed by set designers. This bed was real, for sleeping in. The mattress and box spring were still in plastic, with two sets of new queen-size sheets and fluffy down pillows propped against the decorative headboard.
I walked closer, and then I paused, my eyes darting around the room. There was only one way this bed could be standing here in all its magnificence. Liam had broken into my apartment. I knew from experience he had no problem with locks. He’d come here when he knew I’d be performing at the theater, and probably brought delivery people too. Was he still here, spying on me from the bathroom or some hidden corner? I did a quick, nervous inventory of all the possible hiding places, but no, he was gone.
I traced the etching on the vine-like footboard, trying to quiet the alarm bells in my head. It wasn’t normal to break into someone’s place and leave a bed like this without asking. He barely knew me. Or did he? He’d kissed me and held me in my blanket shelter, and talked to me about intimate, personal things. About bondage, and dominance and submission. Hell, I’d pretty much begged him to fuck me. I’d also cried in front of him—twice. So maybe he thought he knew me well enough to make a grand gesture like this, or maybe it was an apology for upsetting me. Maybe he was so rich he was out of touch with what was considered normal.
I climbed onto the mattress and lay back, luxuriating in the soft pillow top, and inspected the pair of plastic-encased sheets. Eight-hundred thread-count luxury in crisp white Egyptian cotton. There was a note card slipped down inside one of the packages with a W embossed on the front. I pulled it out and flipped it open.
This bed will keep the devils away.
That was it. Nothing else, no signature, no elaboration. I stared at the silk curtains enveloping me, and the detailed, twisting ironwork of the frame. This was the most beautiful, extravagant gift I’d ever received—but it came with a bunch of uncomfortable memories, memories of his hands, his lips, his arms around me. My psychotic breakdown and his freaked-out retreat. He would expect me to call him and gush over this, but I didn’t have his number anymore, and I couldn’t find his house if I tried. He’d probably wait all evening for me to contact him in gratitude. What would he think when I didn’t?
He’d think I wasn’t worth this beautiful gift. Maybe he’d come and take it back as stealthily as he’d delivered it.
No, he wouldn’t. Before he did that, he’d come over here to see why I didn’t call. What if he came tonight? I made up my new bed and changed into my pajamas, and crawled behind the curtains in a mild panic. For two, three, four nights I waited for him to knock, or just pop the lock and come in, but he didn’t come.
All that came were vivid dreams of Liam at my bedside, leaning down to kiss me in my forest bower like Sleeping Beauty’s prince.
*** *** ***
I didn’t buy the bed with any ulterior motives. It was a gift, freely given, but I was disappointed not to hear from her that night. Or the next night. Or the next. Maybe she was pissed that I’d broken into her place, but I’d only wanted to surprise her and cheer her up. She must have thought I was a world-class psychopath.
It was probably for the best. She was a damaged, delicate person. She needed help, not extended sessions of kinky sex. I used company resources to look into her past, to see if there was something I could do, some anonymous way I could help her. I was 99.9 percent sure it was God-fearing daddy who’d hurt her so badly. What I didn’t know was what he’d done to her or how long the abuse had gone on. It had been sexual in nature; that seemed an obvious assumption. The rest of it, I didn’t know.
What I did know with one hundred percent accuracy was that I had to let go of my fantasies about sleeping with Ashleigh. She had a lot of issues to take care of before she’d reach a place where we could connect. She wasn’t even into BDSM. Well, not yet anyway…
No. I couldn’t daydream about breaking her to the lifestyle. I didn’t have the time or the skill to fix a woman as messed up as her. Oh, there were messed-up chicks in the scene, sure, and sensitive, white-knight guys who loved to try to heal them. I’d never been one of those guys.
December arrived, Sleeping Beauty became Nutcracker, and she traded her poufy ball gown for a sleek snow-fairy tutu. I told myself that if she really wasn’t okay, she couldn’t dance as beautifully as she did, but I knew that for a lie. If she was anything like Ruby, the more miserable she was, the harder she pushed herself. As for me, I continued to struggle with an unholy urge to possess her. I ached for her slim, muscular body as I lay alone masturbating in bed. I distracted myself with work and parties and girls whose names I couldn’t remember an hour after they left.
By mid-December, I weakened in my resolve to leave Ashleigh alone. I started going backstage after shows to hang with Ruby, but really to catch glimpses of her. I’d see her for mere seconds before she disappeared into a hallway or dressing room. It felt like spying, or stalking, but she never saw me because she never looked up and around her. She was a ghost in a white tutu, and after she changed, a fragile dancer in black sweats. She seemed to have friends…that reassured me…but she never left to go anywhere with them after the shows. She hid in the corps dressing room and left the theater long after the other dancers. I asked Ruby what she was doing and he shrugged.
“She work on her shoes, maybe. Sewing ribbons. Maybe she practice or work out. Whatever. Why you care?”
He’d long ago sensed my interest in Ashleigh, and it annoyed him. “Why don’t you care?” I said back. “You danced with her once.”
“Once.” He looked up from his phone. “Once was enough.”
“I didn’t think she was that bad.”
He grimaced so hard his face looked like a raisin. “Her technique…not so bad. But her shoes were awful. And she had this smile.” He made a fake, bright pseudo-smile. “It freaked me out.”
“You do that same smile onstage, brother.”
He grinned at his phone, snapped a picture of himself and showed it to me. “This smile, yes?”
“No, that’s the smile you use when you’re about to be an asshole to a woman. I’m talking about this smile.”
I did his oily-ballet-prince smile and he took a picture of me. “I send that to everyone,” he said, nodding. “You look like an idiot.” He pushed more buttons on his phone, scratched his chest and leaned back in his chair. “Ah, Brandi. She text me sexy photos. You care if I play with Brandi?”
I wasn’t going to admit that I couldn’t remember who Brandi was. “Go for it, if you want.”
He waved his phone. “She’s texting me looking for you. Maybe I send her that idiot-looking picture.”
I could tell by his grin that he’d already done it. “When are you going to settle down with a respectable girl?” I asked as he showed me Brandi’s extremely explicit photos. Oh yes. I remembered her now, based on her labial piercings.
“Soon as you do,” he retorted. “You’re much worse than me. Maybe you settle down with Ashleigh, eh?” He snickered, flicked through Brandi’s photos a few more times, then threw down his phone and picked up his bag. “You call Brandi if you like. Tonight I’m busy.”
“With who?”
; “With life. Why you still here, Li-am? Why you hanging out at an empty ballet theater? Call Brandi, have fun. You break her in and maybe next time I’ll join you and we do her together.” He illustrated his suggestion with an interlaced mélange of poking fingers.
Brandi had already been broken in by most of the guys in our group. Both of us knew that. He left without a backward glance while I sprawled in his dressing room’s plush recliner. Why you still here? I knew the answer to that question, but I wasn’t a person Ashleigh needed in her life right now. I was a player, a pig, and frequently an asshole. She had emotional issues which I may or may not have exacerbated. Those intertwined branches on her bed were there to keep me out, not in.
I thought about Brandi, and Michelle, and Raine, and Bubbles, and all the other girls I could fuck any time with no repercussions and no stress. I would probably call Brandi later. Probably.
Why was Ashleigh hanging out at the theater all hours of the night?
I vaulted out of Ruby’s recliner and paced his room once or twice. Then, against my better judgment, I headed down the deserted corridor toward the corps dressing rooms.
*** *** ***
Since my Sleeping Beauty debacle with Rubio, I’d become obsessed with doctoring my toe shoes. I’d developed an exacting ritual to prepare each pair so I had three or four ready to go at any given moment. First I sanded down the satin tips of the toes for traction, then bent the shank in a slow and careful process. I sewed my elastics and laces on at a specific angle and only then did I go to work on the boxes, alternately kneading them and banging them on the dressing room floor until they lost their echoing “knock.” Bang, bang, bang.
My practice behavior grew equally compulsive. Dance was all I had now; I had to make it count. I came early to class and warmed up twice as long as my fellow artists. I grimaced through each exercise, needing every movement to be flawless. When I had a bad class, I fell into a funk for hours. Performances were a little easier to deal with, since adrenaline distracted me from all but the worst faults. Bang.
Waking Kiss Page 6
