I smoothed the hair back from her face. “Gia, what happened with you and Matt is in the past. It doesn’t have anything to do with us.”
“But it does,” she argued. “Because it’s part of me, and I want you to know what you’re getting into before we have sex. So will you let me tell you?”
I wanted to say no. I wanted to lay her down here and silence her with kisses until she forgot any man who wasn’t me. But I could see the storm brewing in her eyes, and I knew I couldn’t stop her from doing what she felt she had to do.
“Okay.” I settled her more firmly against my chest. “But it’s not going to make any difference in how I feel about you.”
She offered me a tremulous smile. “I hope that’s true. I’m trusting you right now more than I have anyone else, so I hope I don’t regret it.” She crossed her legs and leaned into me as she began to speak.
“I gave away my virginity when I was sixteen. I’d been dating the guy for a little while, and I liked him, but I knew I didn’t love him—I just wanted it over with. We broke up a month later, but we stayed friends. After that, I had two more boyfriends in high school, and I slept with them both. But it really didn’t mean anything with them, either. And it wasn’t particularly . . . exciting. I didn’t get much out of it, but I figured that was a typical teenage experience.
“I messed around with a couple of guys the first month of college, but nothing serious. I remember talking to Zelda, who had a serious policy of hooking up whenever she wanted, with whoever she wanted. She told me that she had sex like a man: no strings, no expectations. When I went down to Carolina that first time, I already knew that was what I wanted. My sisters all talked about how they met the men they ended up marrying during the first year of college, and I didn’t want to be them. As a matter of fact, I was hell-bent on being the opposite of them.”
I rubbed her back but didn’t interrupt.
“Quinn had warned me about Matt before I got there, and I already knew he was an asshole. I didn’t plan to get involved. I was having fun at the bar, just messing around and dancing, and then I met you.” Gia closed her eyes. “Maybe I’m looking back at it through the eyes of what I know now, but it felt like . . . there was something between us. You seemed like a nice guy, and I had this sort of electric reaction to you—the kind that made me want to run away as fast as I could.”
I snorted. “Um . . . I’m sorry? Or you’re welcome? Not sure what to do with that.” It did give me a jolt of surprise that Gia remembered that night the same way I did. She’d never before given me any indication that it had meant anything to her.
“It wasn’t your fault. If I’d responded to you that night, we both would’ve ended up hurt. I wasn’t in a good place then.” She paused. “As opposed to now, clearly, when I’m the picture of mental health.”
“You’re amazing. Stop beating yourself up.” I kissed the top of her head, and she swiveled her neck to look up at me.
“Buddy, you don’t have to try so hard. As long as it’s up to me, you’re getting lucky tonight. If you still want me.”
I couldn’t think of a scenario when I wouldn’t want her, but arguing the point would waste precious time, so I kept my mouth shut and let her continue.
“You might have scared me shitless, but Matt—he seemed like a good bet for some no-strings sexy times. When he propositioned me on the dance floor, I didn’t hesitate. I let him come back to the hotel with me, and—” She broke off. “Matt wasn’t like any guy I’d ever slept with. I found out with him that night that I liked what he gave me. He was rough, he didn’t seem to care much about whether or not I was having a good time, but it turned out that I liked that. I wondered later on if it was because I figured that was what I deserved.”
My blood was on the edge of boiling. Not for the first time, it occurred to me that if Matt Lampert wasn’t already dead, I’d be very tempted to kill him. I realized my hands had fisted, and I made a conscious effort to relax my fingers. Getting angry at a dead man wasn’t going to help Gia now.
“I thought it was a one-night stand. A hook-up. But then . . . Matt started texting me when I was back at school, and when he heard that Quinn was coming back down, he asked if I’d come with her. We sort of fell into a pattern, where I’d ride with Quinn, spend a night or two with Matt and then go back to New Jersey. At first, I thought it was the perfect arrangement. After a while, though, he’d get mad and call to scream at me if he heard I’d gone out with another guy. He was the one telling me we were casual, but when I acted like we were, he was also the one getting crazy jealous.
“I should’ve ended it then and pulled back. I should’ve stopped going down to Carolina, and I should have stopped taking his texts and calls. But the thing was . . . I was already hooked. As much as I pretended that I was cool with keeping things unstructured between us, deep inside, I really believed that at some point, Matt would admit that he loved me. We’d have our happy ending. I saw how he acted, but I thought I could save him.
“That’s how it went for . . . years. All during college. At the end of sophomore year, his coach—your coach—gave him an ultimatum: he could live with his grandparents over the summer and attend summer school at Birch, on his best behavior, or he was off the team. Matt told me this was our chance to really be together. He’d live at his grandparents’ house in theory, but he’d really be at the apartment I shared with Quinn and Zelda. Quinn spent that summer down south with Leo, so it was just Zelda and me. And Matt.”
“Ah.” I ran a finger down her arm. “And how did that work out?”
Gia hmphed. “How do you think? It was a train wreck. We’d get along for a few days, and then Matt would get trashed . . . sometimes he’d sleep with a random girl and I’d catch them, and then we’d spend days screaming at each other until we wore ourselves out and then we’d have make-up sex, and the whole cycle would begin again. Matt alienated everyone. He picked a big fight with a couple of Birch football players at a bar, and it was ugly. Zelda spent most of the summer being furious with me and hating Matt. She sat me down after he’d gone back to Carolina and told me that I was involved in a relationship of mutual destruction. I remember that, because I’d never considered that maybe I was also bad for Matt. I heard her, and I did try to distance myself from him, but it never seemed to take. He’d call me, crying, and beg me to take him back, and of course, I did, because every time I believed it would be different.”
Gia lapsed into silence, staring across the room as though she could see back through the years. I wished I could ease her pain, even a little.
“By the second half of our senior year, Matt was in a seriously bad way. He’d been kicked off the team, and Leo told me that he didn’t think he was going to classes anymore, either. I lived in constant dread of the next bad thing that was going to happen, even though I didn’t know exactly what that was going to be.”
She paused again, and I had a feeling everything else had been just a warm-up to whatever was coming next.
“One weekend, Matt got mad because he’d mixed up the dates I was supposed to go down there to visit him. He was pissed at me for abandoning him, even though he’d known all along when I was scheduled to arrive. That night, I saw pictures posted on social media . . . Matt, with a bunch of girls. One was giving him a blow job. Another he had bent over a table, and I knew that was one of his favorite . . . well. Anyway, I flipped out. I can’t explain why, because I’d never believed that Matt had been faithful to me, but seeing it right there, and knowing that even if it was taken down immediately, the rest of the world would see it, too—that was different. It was humiliating.
“So I did something . . . impulsive. I went out to a party on fraternity row, and I specifically searched out some of the guys on the football team. I told them that I was Matt Lampert’s girlfriend, that I was looking to get back at him and that I was down for anything. I told them that I wanted mindless sex, and that I didn’t care how that happened, or with whom.”
I
began to feel sick. Gia was speaking in a monotone now, and she’d gone stiff in my arms. Her hands were cold underneath mine.
“I didn’t have clear memories the next day of what happened. I’d taken something I shouldn’t have, and I’d drunk a lot, and when I woke up the next morning, I was alone in a room, with my clothes at the end of the bed. I called Zelda to come get me, but I didn’t tell her what had happened.”
“Gia.” I breathed out her name. “Oh, my God. Did you ever tell anyone? Were those guys—were they prosecuted?”
“For what?” She shrugged. “I’d given my consent. Hell, I’d served myself up on a silver platter. I couldn’t be upset with them for doing what I’d begged them to do.” Gia cleared her throat. “But it’s what happened next that changed everything.”
Chapter 12
Gia, Then
As many times as I’d made the flight down to Carolina, Matt had never met me at the airport. I could lie to myself and pretend there was a good excuse: he was busy with football practice, or he had a late class or he’d lost his license after the last DUI. But this time, as I wheeled my small suitcase off the plane and into the crowded terminal, I wished that just once, I’d exit the secured area and find him waiting for me.
Of course, that didn’t happen. To be honest, I was more than a little nervous about this trip; Matt hadn’t acknowledged his tirade of texts to me over the misunderstanding of the date I was coming, and I sure as hell hadn’t asked him about the girls who’d shared porno pics or told him about my night with the Birch football team. I shuddered a little; I was trying to pretend none of that had happened. I knew I was going to have my hands full with this visit, anyway, just because Matt had been more difficult than usual lately.
As I always did, I took the airport shuttle to a hotel near campus and then called a cab to get me the rest of the way to the apartment Matt shared with Leo. It was just off campus; the guys had moved there last year after media attention on Leo had gotten so far out of control that he needed a safer place to live. The doorman gave me a quick nod and smile. At least someone remembered me.
The elevator carried me to the fifth floor, and I made my way down the carpeted hallway to Matt’s door. I knocked and waited for an answer, half-expecting to see Leo opening the door. Matt always groused that his friend and roommate had become a little bit of a hermit in the wake of his most recent break-up with Quinn, and it was true that Leo was almost always at the apartment when I came down.
But it was Matt who greeted me. He swept his gaze down over my body, and I had the crushing sense that I was disappointing him—again. I’d worn jeans and a camisole top with a sweater, which had seemed like a good idea for traveling, but Matt always preferred me in dresses.
“Easier access,” he’d say with a leer.
Tonight, though, he just gave me a nod and stepped back, letting me in.
“Hey.” I tried to sound chipper and glad to be there. “How’re you doing?” I stopped next to Matt, standing on tip-toe for a kiss. He hesitated a second and then touched my lips with his.
“Hey. I’m good. Come on, let’s take your bag back to the bedroom.” He shut the door, locking it, and then stalked in front of me down the short corridor to his room. I glanced around me as I followed.
“Is Leo here?”
“Nope. He’s out. He’s going to be away all weekend.” Matt lifted one shoulder. “Football shit. Some big meeting up in Virginia.”
“Oh, that’s exciting.” I left my bag up against a wall and turned to face Matt. “It looks like he’s going to be drafted, then? Does he know where he might end up playing?”
“Who the fuck cares?” Matt snarled, and mentally, I kicked myself for mentioning a painful subject. Once upon a time, Matt had assumed that he’d play pro ball, too. But he’d trashed that dream years ago.
“So.” I decided it was time to change the subject quickly. “Do you want to go get some dinner, or should we order in?”
“Not hungry.” He picked up a bottle from his desk and took a swig. “Here. Have some of my supper.” He passed me the booze, and my stomach lurched. The whiskey bottle was nearly empty, and now that I took a good look at him, I realized that Matt’s eyes were unnaturally bright. This wasn’t just alcohol. This was something else. I knew he’d been taking drugs more often in the past year, now that the threat of being cut from the team had become a reality. But I’d never seen him this . . . off.
“Okay.” I took a sip of whiskey and grimaced. “Ummmm . . . do you have any food in the kitchen? I haven’t eaten since breakfast, so I’m starving.”
“We’re not eating right now.” He tore the bottle from my hand and pointed to the bed. “First things first . . . baby. Take off your clothes and get on the bed.”
I swallowed a sigh. This wasn’t unusual for Matt. He liked what he called a quick hello fuck, which I’d come to realize was his way of asserting control over the time we spent together. I knew that once he got this out of his system, he’d be a little more relaxed.
So I stripped off my shirt and jeans and hopped onto the foot of the bed.
Matt stood in front of me, looming above me, his arms over his chest. “I got a text today. It came from a number I didn’t recognize, so I almost didn’t open it. You know, viruses and some shit. But it was a Jersey number, so I figured I should check it out. Wanted to see what it was.”
A wave of dread and nausea swept over me. I had a sickening sense that I knew what this was going to be. I’d spent the first few days of this week terrified that either word of what I’d done Saturday night would get out, or that someone had taken pictures that would be posted on social media. When nothing happened, I’d begun to relax a little.
But now, I thought I knew what I was about to see. It only made sense; what kind of payback would just fucking me be for those guys who hated Matt so much? It would be so much sweeter if he knew what they’d done.
Before I could give Matt the off-handed, feigned innocence answer I was trying to drum up, he hit a button on his phone, and I heard my own voice. It was slurred and foggy, but it was undeniably mine.
“Ohhhhhhh,” my recorded voice moaned. “Harder. Do it harder. Make it hurt. I need you to hurt me. Fuck me hard.”
“Sound familiar?” Matt’s tone was brittle. “Does it ring a bell?” He flipped around the phone, and there I was, nude and splayed out on the same bed I’d been in when I’d awakened on Sunday morning. There were two guys standing next to me, their faces cut off by the camera’s angle, while another was between my legs, pumping into me. My eyes were closed, but I was definitely aware.
“Matt.” I tried to speak. “I don’t . . . I was mad. I saw pictures of you with girls down here—one was sucking you off and then you were screwing another one—and I just reacted. I got mad. I’m so sick of this. I did something incredibly stupid, but it was only because I was so hurt—”
“You forgot the rule we live by, Gia.” Matt gave me a little shove on my shoulder, pushing me onto the bed. “The rule is that you belong to me. You don’t have the right to fuck around, Gia. You belong to me. Only me.”
Anger bubbled up inside me. “Oh, really? But you’re allowed to do whatever the hell you want?”
“I only had to fuck those girls because you didn’t show up last weekend, Gia. You forced me into it. I have needs, and when you’re not here to meet them, I have to find another way. But you don’t ever let another man touch you. Do you hear me?”
I bit my lip and turned my head, my heart pounding in both fury and fear. I wasn’t usually afraid of Matt. He’d never physically hurt me unless it was in the middle of sex, and even then, it was consensual and not really painful. But tonight, something was different.
“I need to teach you a lesson. I can see that now.” He pushed against my legs, forcing me to spread them. “I need to remind you who you belong to.”
Matt grasped my underwear and pulled until they snapped off me. I was trembling, but I refused to show him that.
/> “Don’t worry, Gia. First, I’m going to make you feel good. Don’t I always?” When I began to draw my thighs together, he grabbed one leg. “Keep them spread.”
He brought his hand between my legs, stroking me gently. “Feel that? You want this, Gia. You know you do. You’re going to come for me.”
I shook my head back and forth, and Matt sighed.
“Yes, you are. C’mon, baby.” He was cajoling me now. “Don’t you want me? Don’t you love me?”
A sob escaped. “You know I do. I’d never want to . . . I didn’t mean what I did. I never want anyone but you.”
“Shhhh, I know. Just relax and feel. This is make-up sex, Gia. Let me do this for you.”
I should’ve been smarter. I should’ve seen where he was going. But I didn’t, because I always wanted to believe that Matt could be better. I needed to believe that he loved me, even when he had trouble showing it.
So I let it happen. I let him get me off, using his hands and his fingers and his mouth. I came on a long, keening cry, my body giving in even when my mind was still wary.
I was still panting, still recovering, when Matt began to undo his pants. That didn’t worry me, either. I watched him lower the zipper, releasing his erection. He stroked himself once and then twice, his eyes never leaving my face.
“Do you know who you belong to now, Gia?”
I nodded. “Of course, I do. Come here. I’ll make you feel good. Your turn.”
“No.” Matt shook his head. “I’m in control. And I’m going to fuck you hard enough that you won’t forget again.” He pushed down my legs again and entered me with one punishing stroke.
But it wasn’t the pain that alarmed me. I struggled to sit up, trying to push him away. “Matt. You need a condom. You know we can’t—stop it now. Go get a condom first.”
Down By Contact: A Making the Score Football Romance Page 17
