by Bry Ann
“Thank you for understanding, big guy,” she whispers.
Funny. I want to tell her the same thing.
I’m so fucking grateful to be in my room. I’ve never been this grateful for some time to think, and I do like my alone time.
I throw my clothes off, ignoring my phone dinging with unread text messages. I need a clear mind. I do 150 pushups and 300 sit-ups. By the time I’m done, my mind is calmer. I’m able to sort through my thoughts on the woman next door. How she broke then rebuilt all on her own. How she is so loyal to her friends in her own way. The way she lets me touch her like I’m somehow worthy to touch her beautiful, unmarred skin. Fuck, she’s probably showering next door. The thought makes me instantly hard. I throw myself in the shower, and slowly slide my hand down my body to stroke my cock. I have no control of myself when it comes to her. With the beautiful, strong, confusing woman next door on my mind, I jerk myself off until I come in my hand.
“What the fuck am I doing?” I growl.
I run soap over my body roughly before storming out of the shower. I throw a pair of basketball shorts on and punch the pillows, over and over and over again. I can’t stop.
Everything was taken from me.
And why the fuck is this chick forcing me to miss something I’ve accepted I can’t have?
“UGH!”
Punch. Punch. Punch. I need a bag. I need it.
Soft knocks echo on the door connecting our rooms.
“Let me in right now,” Maria yells through the door.
“Go away, Maria!”
“I swear to God, if you don’t let me in, I will—”
I throw the door open. “What?”
She immediately looks to my clenched hands, then the pillows. Did she hear me? She couldn’t have heard me. Fuck, I don’t know. I was lost for a moment. I haven’t zoned out like that when fighting since, well, I first met her.
She walks in slowly, not saying a word, being sure to close the door behind her. She immediately goes to the pillows and starts picking them up. Her hair is long and dripping wet down her back. She’s wearing tiny white shorts that her ass hangs out of, and to go with it, she has a cami with no bra.
She’s actually trying to kill me.
When the bed is remade, she takes a seat, crosses one leg over the other, and gives me a hard look.
“Talk.”
“No.”
“I’ll sit here until you do.”
“You’ll be here for a long ass time, Maria.”
“Fine with me. I have the patience of a saint.”
She smirks at me. Then all of a sudden, some of her bravado falls. Her eyes drift over my torso, down my legs, then back to my torso. No woman has seen me like this who isn’t part of Blade’s club. Panic grips me. The same panic that made me want my mom as a young boy. I want to leave the room and fucking cry.
There, I said it. I want to cry. I’m a man. No less of one, but this feeling right here is not a good one.
“Oh my god, you’re beautiful,” Maria breathes.
My head snaps up. What?
She’s not seated anymore. She’s walking over to me. I can’t stop her. I can’t do anything but stand there. When she’s in front of me, she places a soft hand on my upper arm. Her fingers don’t even wrap around the front part of my bicep.
Her other begins to trace my scars.
“Who did it?”
What? Not what happened? Not did it hurt? No, a very pissed off sounding who the hell did this to you?
“A couple of drug dealers.”
“You sell or deal?”
I shake my head. My core clenches as her finger traces lower.
“Neither.”
My voice is hoarse. I’m hard as a fucking rock. Again. I’m sure she notices too. She kisses the left side of my chest.
“Fuck them.”
“You’re not sorry,” I bark, shoving her off me. Get out!
She frowns. “No, I’m not fucking sorry, you jerk. You survived. You’re strong. Probably much stronger than all of them combined now because of it. You don’t need my pity.”
“What are you doing here?”
“I don’t know, okay? I don’t fucking know! I heard you upset, and...” She sighs, and drops her chin. “What are you doing to me, big guy? Why do you make me feel different? What’s happening?”
I glance over at her. Look to see if she’s trying to make me feel better. Toying with me, like she does. But I don’t see one hint of that. The woman next to me is scared, vulnerable, and waiting for me to take the lead on something neither of us understand.
I stare at her for a moment longer, waiting for a decision to come, but none ever does. Nothing makes sense. This is not a situation I thought I’d ever be in.
My mind’s reeling, trying to give Maria an answer to an unanswerable question.
Two gentle hands slide up my shoulders. Then two unsure, fiery brown eyes meet mine.
And my decision is made. Damn the consequences.
21
I’m controlled.
It’s the thing I pride myself most on since the day I was ripped from my childhood.
But the second her hands slide up my shoulders, that control vanishes into thin air. Fizzles out like the dying embers of a wildfire.
I wrap my arms around her lower back with shaking hands, waiting for her to shove me away. Waiting for her to run out of here screaming for her life.
She probably should. She’s too good for me to touch her. Taint her.
She whimpers when I pull her flush against my body. Her hands tighten on my shoulders as her lips claim mine. With that last zap to my control, I slide my hands down her body to grip her ass. To pull her closer. I can’t get enough. She tastes like cherries. Her lips are soft and full, confident in her actions. Her tongue mingles with mine. I run my hand through her silky wet hair. That seems to light her fire.
“What’s happening?” She moans, grinding her hips into me. “What’s happening?”
Her voice is desperate. She sounds ready to cry, and that gets through to me. I pull her away as gently and considerately as I can. She looks at the floor and takes a deep breath, gaining control of herself. She runs her hand through her hair, almost a little frantic, before looking back up at me, chin lifted and proud.
“I’m not saying sorry for that.”
My lip quirks up a little. “The last thing I want from you is an apology.”
Her eyes soften, and I doubt she knows it, but her shoulders fall too. She looks so vulnerable and scared.
“Why were you sad?”
She rears back. “Sad?”
“You were sad.”
She shakes her head. “No, I wasn’t.”
“Maria.”
She puts her hands on her hips, lifts her chin again, and to drive the point home, adds a slight tilt of her hips. The whole time not saying a word.
“It’s why I stopped, you know? Not because you’re not the sexiest woman I’ve laid eyes on, not because you’re not beautiful, complicated, and strong, and definitely not because I don’t want you like I’ve ever wanted anything. You are perfect, but your voice… it was sad.”
I shake my head.
“I won’t make you sad. I refuse to do that.”
Her mouth falls open. She seems incapable of forming a new sentence. She stares at me like that for so long, I wonder if I should take her back to her room, if she’s in some kind of shock. Right as I’m about to do just that, she turns her head and looks to the floor, letting her hair guard the side of her face.
“I don’t do this.”
She gestures between us.
“Do what?” I refrain from using a term of endearment, one that so easily wants to slip from my tongue. I’d rather bash my head into a wall than use it. Better a head injury than a heart one.
First lesson in fighting: Block with the thing that causes the least damage.
“Was my dad saying goodbye today?” She whispers.
�
�Maria, don’t do that.”
She turns to me with guarded, but sad, eyes.
“Can you just hold me? Please.”
I need to tell her to go, that my control is slipping through my fingers, but how do I say no to the big brown eyes pleading with me to say yes, no questions asked?
I grunt, but she knows it’s a yes. She runs to the bed like a child with nightmares as I quickly throw on a t-shirt before climbing in beside her. I don’t hesitate this time when I wrap my arm around her. When I cover a fourth of her body with my arm alone. She’s facing me this time. Curling herself into a ball, tucking herself into the curve of my torso. I slowly stroke her lower back.
“If it was a goodbye today, Maria, he gave you a good one. Don’t forget it. Remember this last lesson. I know each of his lessons have meant a lot to you.”
She sniffles, but doesn’t cry. Her body hugs in tighter to mine.
“No one’s ever offered me comfort before,” she whispers. “Not one time.”
I stiffen.
“You do. All the time. Whenever I need it, your arms are open. It doesn’t matter if your body is worn from fighting physically or mentally. You’re always open.”
Open. Not a word I’d ever use to describe myself.
“And one day, you’ll be closed.” That’s when I feel her tears dampen my t-shirt. “You’ll go away from me. Won’t want me, won’t think you can have me, will meet someone else or move, and it’ll be the Maria Vasquez show again. Just me and my badass self. But you ruined me. I don’t want it to just be me all the time. I want this. I want comfort too.”
A sob bursts out of her suddenly, but she controls it. Quickly reigns it in.
“You’ve ruined me, and I don’t even know your first name.”
She doesn’t say another word, and I’m left incapable of forming another word. Much less summoning up a response. Sleep takes her soon after.
All I can do is tighten my hold on her. Keep her safe here. I can’t stop the pain. I can’t make false promises. Hell, I can’t even give her my name because I’m too damn scared.
I can give her nothing but my arms. So that’s what I’ll do.
For as long as I possibly can.
I guarantee she’ll want to run before I ever do.
Maria starts to shift beside me. Her hair is all over. All over the pillow, the covers, in my mouth, in her mouth. It’s an actual living thing on this bed with us. It’s insane.
I pull a chunk of her hair out of my mouth and place it next to her. Gross. That thought is quickly stuffed down when I look at Maria, spread out next to me like a freakin’ starfish. Clearly guys don’t spend the night with her. She wasn’t kidding when she said didn’t do attachments.
“Maria?”
She swats my face with her hand. On accident or on purpose, I don’t know.
“Maria?”
“Fuck off.”
She swats her hand in the air and throws a pillow over her head. I smile at her. Smile. I haven’t smiled this much in years. I sit up and stare down at her, waiting for her to realize it. As if on cue, she shoots up.
“Holy shit!”
She looks at me, wide eyed.
“Oh, fuck!”
She jumps out of bed and runs her hands through her madhouse of hair.
“I slept in bed with you. Oh shit. Shit. Shit.”
“Maria, it’s oka—”
“Shit. Oh shit, I’m sorry. Fuck.”
“Maria.”
“Seriously, I wasn’t right. Oh my… fuck, what’s wrong with me?”
I walk over and place my hand on her upper arm.
“Maria!”
She snaps out of her trace and looks at me with those same wide eyes.
“It’s fine. I said it’s fine and I meant it.”
She winces. “You’re not mad?”
“Mad? Why would I be mad?”
“I slept in bed with you. Overnight!”
“We didn’t elope, Maria. You can calm down any time now.”
Her fear dissolves slightly, but there’s still an edge to her.
“I need to get ready.”
She slips out of my arms.
“What’s the plan for today?”
“I was going to ask you that.”
She bites her lower lip. “I don’t think I should see my dad again. He’d want me to think on his words. I know it.”
I nod. “I don’t know him, and I won’t pretend to, but from what I could tell, I agree.”
“Let’s head out to see your family today, then.”
“Alright. Go, I need to think.”
She doesn’t take the slightest bit of offense. Simply nods and slips out the same way she came in.
Now, how to explain her to my mother and Mandi.
How to put her in a world where I’m not Cut, I’m Brantley. Just him. To my mom and Mandi, no matter how untrue it may be, I’ll always just be Brantley Taylor, boy from Altamont.
And now that she’s opened up to me, revealed her struggles, let me meet her father, told me about her childhood, and let me hold her. Cried to me.
It’s not an option to just leave her in the car. This is where Lacey’s words come in. Don’t hurt her.
I have to let her in a little bit.
The alternative is not an option.
It’s just not.
All sunshine and rainbows, Maria meets me down by the rental car. She’s acting like nothing’s happened. Like she never met with her father. Like he didn’t say goodbye. Like we didn’t… shit, I don’t even know what we did.
She’s acting like the Maria the world gets, and I don’t like it.
Not one bit.
I scowl at her.
“What are you so happy about?”
“What are you so pissed off about?”
I can’t answer her, because then I have to be the one to break this ‘nothing happened’ standoff we have going on.
“Nothing.”
I throw the car door open and glare at her.
“Get in.”
She smiles at me, but it’s condescending. “Gladly.”
She climbs over the console to the passenger seat and waits with her hands in her lap. I’m molten lava, I’m running so hot. I don’t get this way. Not ever.
Control.
I keep going back to that word. But it’s my peace. My blanket. My security.
And she’s ripping it to shreds.
“You can’t just act like nothing happened,” I bark, once we get on the highway.
She stares at her nails and pretends to inspect them. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
That’s it. I’m done. With all of it. She’s going to meet fucking Mandi. My mother. All I really have that matters in this world, and I’m not playing this game anymore.
I throw the car to the right, parking abruptly on the shoulder.
“What the hell?” Maria screams, grabbing the car door so she doesn’t go flying forward.
When the car’s still, I throw off my seatbelt and turn to her, eyes hard. She doesn’t look so willful now.
“Don’t,” she whispers. “Please.”
I shake my head. “No, begging won’t work for this.”
“I’m not begging,” she seethes. “I’m not fucking begging.”
“Fine. Then you’re gonna listen. And you’re gonna answer me, or I’m leaving you here on the side of the highway.”
All her fear dissolves and she smiles at me. Smiles. Like I’m some child throwing a tantrum.
“You’d never do that,” she laughs. “Not in a million years. You’re too good. You’re the best man I know.” She laughs even harder, until tears are coming out of her eyes. “You’d never hurt me.”
I think most men would be offended by her not taking their word seriously. Their ego would hurt or some shit. Not me. The fact that she so wholeheartedly believes I would never hurt her that it makes her laugh, even looking how I do, makes my heart do weird things. My anger fizzles
out.
“I’d never leave you on the side of the highway,” I confirm.
She beams at me.
Beams. Lights right up.
“Maria.” I pinch the bridge of my nose. “Are you fucking with me?”
She furrows her eyebrows, confused. “What?”
“Just tell me if you are. I will understand. Honestly. But you’re not a bitch. If this is a ploy, a game of yours, I need you to tell me now.”
Her eyes soften. I see a hint of the psych major come out in her. She stares at me for a moment longer with a tenderness I didn’t know she possessed, before climbing over the console. It’s not some sexed up move. She just climbs on over it, one leg at a time, until she’s straddling me.
Well, then it’s sexual.
And my cock gets the message.
Even as she cradles my face in her hands, and looks at me intently.
“I am not messing with you. Hear me. Please, if nothing else I say matters, then hear this: I hate you. Every single inch of you. Your heart. Your scars. Your muscles. Your face. Your tenderness. Every day, you are breaking me. And I hate you. Because I can’t shove you into the box I’ve shoved every other man into. Now please, let me kiss you.”
I make the first move this time, physically at least. I grab the back of her head and slam our lips together. Maria’s a sexual creature. It’s part of who she is, and it shows. Her hips grind into me. Her hands caress my skin softly. Her lips are confident, but tender.
She has me spinning, drowning with need.
“Maria,” I say, voice thick with need. “Stop. Please stop.”
“I can’t,” she whimpers. “I can’t.”
She’s panting, grinding her hips more relentlessly against me.
“Please. Stop this.” She honestly sounds ready to cry. “What are you doing to me? What are you doing?” she whispers for the second time.
“Let me help you?”
She nods against my shoulder, frantically. Pleading with her body.
She’s in a skin-tight tan skirt, so there is easy access. I slide my hand up her leg, being sure to run my hand along her inner thigh. I want her to know where I’m headed. Give her time to stop me.
