by Emme Rollins, Julia Kent, Anna Antonia, Helena Newbury, Aubrey Rose
He stopped for a second. Just long enough to look me in the eyes, to know that I was okay. I looked steadily back at him, my breath coming in shuddering gasps, and nodded.
His hands found my legs again, but this time he traced up the outside, over the dress, and when I didn’t jerk or pull away I felt him relax. He cupped my ass, almost lifting me up off the table, and I went weak.
My hands were running down his back, marveling at the muscles there, tracing down to his waist...and then his tight, firm ass. I felt his palms slide up my back, until they reached the loop of the dress’s halter neck. He pulled and it stretched, and as I ducked my head there was just enough give in the fabric to drag it over my hair and off. The fabric flopped down to my chest, and then there was nothing holding the dress up but friction.
He stroked it down with his hands, sliding the fabric over the glossy cups of my bra. His mouth returned, and this time I tangled my fingers in the soft curls of his hair as he explored their softness, tongue running over and between them until I was groaning. The heat inside me was rising, growing darker. I wanted to grind my body against him, wanted him naked against me. I grabbed the hem of his shirt and jerked it up, baring his back, and then as I pulled it higher he took over and stripped it off over his head.
Everything stopped.
Ever since I’d first fantasized about him, I’d had the mental picture of his firm, muscled abs in my head. They were just as hard and defined as I’d imagined—better, even, but—
Starting on his stomach and winding around his side, there was a sweeping constellation of brutal, jagged scars. I felt my mouth open, horrified that anyone would want to ruin his perfection. I looked up at him, and he was staring back at me. Pleading with me not to ask.
I nodded. And a little voice cruelly taunted that the wrench I felt inside, the sick fear at not knowing—that was the same experience I’d just given him.
I ran my fingers down his arms, tracing his form as if he were a statue. Then over his chest, my palms flat against the broad sweep of those delicious pecs, feeling the hardness of them. And finally, tentatively down, ready to stop if he wanted me to. I looked up into his eyes as I smoothed over the damaged skin, following the shape of it round to his side. He stared right back into my eyes and I could see the pain his memories were bringing him, but he didn’t stop me.
I realized he was undoing my bra. I gasped as his fingers finished with the clasp, and then my breasts were throbbing in the cool air of the huge room. His mouth closed on one breast, tongue slathering the nipple, and as I felt it pucker and stiffen, I whispered his name.
He lifted me onto the table, on my back, a plate hitting the floor. He climbed up onto it himself, kneeling astride one of my legs. Suddenly everything was different. A minute ago, we’d been kissing. Now, we were going to....
He lowered himself atop me, moving between my legs and kissing me again, and now his naked chest was rubbing against my breasts with every movement, the sensations driving me wild, making me grind myself against the hardness I could feel at his groin.
He sat back on his haunches. My skirt was up around my thighs. He stared into my eyes as he reached up under the fabric and hooked my panties. I lifted my ass, showing my willing, and he dragged them off.
I watched him unfasten his pants and push them down. God, he was already hard and...big. He rolled a condom on, and then moved over me. And then I felt him....God!
I arched my back as he moved into me, hissing through my teeth at his girth, at the feeling of being filled. My breasts mashed against his chest, my hands tracing down his naked back, feeling his muscles flex as he began to move. The heat inside me bloomed and rose, claiming me for its own.
Silken hardness as he thrust. My head going back, hair tossing as he filled me again and again. My hands slid down to his ass, kneading his firm cheeks, pulling him into me, needing him. Something rolled off the table and smashed.
I started to grind back against him, the heat inside me whirling and building, out of control. The delicious tight friction of him, my legs wrapping around him as he reached a frenzy, and then I was gasping and shouting his name as I felt myself tipping over the edge. He was driving hard into me, and as my orgasm broke I closed my eyes and went rigid, wanting that moment to go on forever. The pleasure exploded inside me and I strained and shook, and before I’d recovered I felt him shudder and groan himself.
He took his weight on his arms so as not to crush me, and wrapped his arms protectively around my quaking body. I was a mess. Half-dressed, on a dining table, my mascara no doubt in long rivers down my face. But God, I felt so good.
As he got his breath back, he asked, “Would you like...to move somewhere more comfortable?” And despite everything, I giggled.
Chapter Eighteen
Darrell
I lay back on the bed and tried to think. So much had happened in the last half hour that it was a relief just to have a second to stop and process.
Thinking was difficult, though, because of what was happening not ten feet from where I was lying. When we’d come upstairs, Natasha had glimpsed herself in the mirror, seen the pizza crumbs in her hair and the long black waterfalls of mascara on her cheeks and immediately asked to take a shower. That meant she was in there naked. And wet. And slippery. And every time she moved around under the spray, I could hear the change in the sound of the water and couldn’t help but imagine her lithe body twisting and bending and—
Concentrate, dammit!
I was an asshole. My work gave me a way of dealing with my memories, but it came at a cost: one that had left Natasha alone in a bar, in tears. She must have thought I was a cold, uncaring bastard. She probably thought I cared more about my work than I did her, and that wasn’t the case, could never be the case. I just—
I sighed out loud. How could I explain to her why I did it? How could I explain the anger that pulled me out of bed at three in the morning, when I woke from yet another nightmare, and sent me straight down to the workshop to hammer and weld? How could I explain the way my work made me feel? The sense of vengeance, the feeling of fighting back?
It wasn’t just being obsessed with work that she’d never understand. It was what I made—instruments of death. And yet that was what made it work—that’s what kept me functioning. Being able to do something, to take action, even at a distance...it was the only thing that made life bearable. Since I’d met Natasha, the purity of it, the certainty that I was doing the right thing, seemed a hell of a lot less clear cut. She was making me see things in a whole new light. But if I stopped making weapons, what was I supposed to do instead? Forget the past? Forget them?
The memories started to come back, the tang of exhaust fumes and the scrunch of sand beneath my shoes. I screwed my eyes closed and concentrated. Focus. Stop being so selfish. Concentrate on Natasha.
I’d reduced her to tears, three times in one night. Or I’d been the catalyst, at least, for the reawakening of some awful memory. And I knew what that was like—had felt the same thing, when the subject of my parents had come up. And again, when she’d seen my scars.
I had to figure it out. I knew that she wouldn’t tell me, and I wouldn’t push her for an answer. But I couldn’t accept the idea of her being broken. Not my Natasha. I had to fix her, and if that meant working out what had happened to her on my own, so be it.
I sat up on the bed, staring at the door to the bathroom. I thought back to the candles. Why would she be scared of them? I’d heard of people using them as part of sex games, dripping hot wax on each other. Had she had an abusive boyfriend—some BDSM relationship that went bad? And then there were the scars I’d felt, on her thigh.
I turned it over and over in my mind...until I remembered what she’d said when we were sitting on the edge of the stage. It had made her uncomfortable then, too. Foster care. She’d gone into foster care after her parents died.
My stomach lurched. It wasn’t difficult to piece together. She’d been fifteen years old, with
no one to protect her. And some guy, probably her foster dad—
I thought I was going to throw up. And then I heard her move again, behind the door, and the rage hit me. Not the slow, burning anger I lived with every day. This was fresh and ice cold, a hurricane wiping out all thought and reason. The idea that someone would hurt her, this perfect girl, break her mind and scar her body and leave her damaged. The knowledge that I hadn’t been there to protect her—
The water shut off in the bathroom, and my anger hardened into resolve.
I hadn’t been able to prevent it, but I could sure as hell make it right now. I’d help her, fix her. I’d find the son of a bitch who did this to her and—
She stepped out of the bathroom, her hair still wet but the dress back on. I jumped off the bed and ran to her, sweeping her up off the ground and into a hug.
She clung to me, surprised. “It’s okay,” she told me, feeling the tension in my body, every muscle rigid.
“It isn’t,” I told her. “But I’m going to make it okay, Natasha. I’m going to make everything okay.”
Chapter Nineteen
Natasha
He held me for long minutes. The shower had been glorious, the scalding water sluicing away the last traces of the dredged-up memories. When I’d emerged, wet hair still dripping, I’d felt pleasantly sleepy and warm. I’d wanted to cuddle. I hadn’t been expecting a bear hug.
What’s gotten into him? But I had a horrible feeling that I knew. He’d felt my scars, however briefly. Maybe he knew that I cut. But if that was true...why was he hugging me? Why wasn’t he angry, or disgusted?
When he eventually released me, I looked up into his eyes. In my bare feet, he was a lot taller than me. “Darrell?”
He looked down at me with such warmth and caring that I felt a tiny shred of hope. Maybe he wasn’t like everyone else. Maybe, somehow, he understood.
He pulled me close, my head on his chest. “I know,” he said softly. “I know, okay?” The hope flared and shone inside. He did understand! I flung my arms around him and buried my face in his chest. After a moment, he gently moved me back and held me there, so he could look into my eyes. “I didn’t say it before, but I’ve meant to—ever since I got back from Virginia—”
“What?”
“I love you.”
He took my face between his hands and kissed me again and again. I managed a delighted “I love you too!” between kisses.
He led me over to the bed and we fell onto it together. He lay on his back and I slid in next to him, my head on the firm pillow of his chest. It was the closest...the safest I’d felt in years.
* * * *
The next morning, it took me just a second to work out where I was. It was the first time I’d slept anywhere other than my own bed in about a year, and that OhmyGod moment of realizing that no, that wasn’t my ceiling, was like an ice bath. My head was still on Darrell’s chest, deliciously warm and firm, and I snuggled up against it while I remembered. The meal. The sex.
The scars. He’d felt the scars. He’d figured out that I cut myself.
But after the sickening lurch of fear, a calming warmth settled in. My second-worst fear had come to pass. He’d discovered I cut myself...but he’d been okay with it. He hadn’t demanded answers or got angry with me. He’d just wrapped me up in those big arms and made me feel safe. After so many years out in the cold, I barely dared let myself hope...but maybe this was going to work out. If he was really happy not to probe further, then my worst fear—that someone would find out what I’d done—maybe that never had to happen.
I got up without waking him and crept downstairs, closing the bedroom door behind me. The night before he’d whisked me upstairs, and I hadn’t really taken in just how big the sweeping oak staircase was. I padded down it barefoot, and then caught my breath as I stepped onto the freezing marble tiles of the hallway. Coffee. I needed coffee.
The kitchen was as showroom-spotless as I remembered it. I was starting to realize that he really didn’t use the mansion, aside from the bedroom and bathroom. He lived in the workshop. What did he do for food? And what was it about his work that had him so caught up in it? I was still hurt that he’d put his work before me, but given what he’d just accepted about me, he deserved some leeway.
There was something else, too. I’d seen how sorry he was in the car—it was almost as if his work wasn’t a choice, as if it was beyond his control. I remembered how relaxed he’d seemed, when I’d first met him and he’d declared he was an engineer. Now, every time the subject came up, he seemed tense. Was that my doing? Was I coming between him and his work, making him unhappy? Or was there something else going on?
The scars on his side. Was it all tied in with that? Sooner or later, we were going to have to talk. But I sure as hell wasn’t going to push him—not when I needed to keep hold of my own secret. This whole thing felt fragile as hell, but if we nurtured it...I allowed myself a smile. Maybe, just maybe, this could work.
I thought back to the pizza. Pizza and champagne—the way he’d rescued the date had been so him, so spontaneous. I saw a lot of that in him: he’d needed a stage for me, so he’d just had one built the same day, right in his workshop; he’d wanted me as his muse, so he’d scoured Facebook and tracked me down; he’d wanted to see ballet, so he’d just barged into an audition.... Well, okay, so maybe barging into the audition hadn’t gone so well, but if he hadn’t done that, we’d never have met. I admired his confidence, his ability to just make a decision and go with it, instead of being paralyzed by every choice.
At first, I thought there wasn’t any coffee, but then I found an aging, open packet with enough grounds for a couple of mugs. I smirked—he really did never use this place. By contrast, I’d seen a coffee pot in the workshop with about six different brands of coffee lined up next to it. He obviously couldn’t tear himself away from his work long enough to even come upstairs.
At that moment, I heard my phone ring, the music echoing through the house. Shit! I didn’t want to wake him. I raced in the direction of the music, the coffee packet hitting the floor behind me and coughing grounds across the tiles. I burst into the dining room, the table still littered with the detritus of the night before. Where was it? I listened, and eventually homed in on it: in my handbag, under the table. I knelt, cursing, scrambled through the bag, rooted out my phone and answered without looking to see who it was.
“Hello?” I was panting, pushing loose locks of hair out of my face.
“Natasha Liss?”
I didn’t recognize the voice. “Yes?”
“This is Sharon Barkell. You auditioned with us on Wednesday?”
Now I knew her. The choreographer. I slowly stood. “Um...yes?”
“One of our four choices just pulled out thanks to an injury. You were our first choice backup—I would have told you on Wednesday, but you ran out of there before I could—”
“Oh!” I’d frozen, standing in the middle of the dining room with my handbag resting on my bare toes.
“I’ll level with you, Natasha. I loved your dancing, but there was just a little too much anger coming through. We need exactly what you gave us, but with a little more lightness and fun. Do you think you could do that?”
A week ago I’d have said no. But now I thought of the man—my man—upstairs, the man who loved me despite what he knew, and my heart swelled in my chest. “Yes! Yes, definitely.”
I could almost hear her relieved nod. “Okay. Let’s do a second audition in a couple of days. Same routine as before but it’ll be just you and me. I’ll call you with a time—okay?”
“Yes. Absolutely. Totally okay. Thank you!”
I hung up and stared at the phone’s screen, wondering if I’d just dreamed the whole thing. The day was getting better and better.
Back in the lobby, I stood at the foot of the staircase and listened. Nothing. I’d managed not to wake him—more good luck.
I cleaned up the spilled coffee. There was just enough left in t
he packet to brew two mugs, and I carried them upstairs. On the landing, golden sunlight formed what felt like a solid block as it streamed through the window and I stood there in its warmth for a moment, basking. I wasn’t sure how to wake him. Subtly—let him smell the coffee? Sexily—kneel over him and let my hair fall in his face? Romantically, with a kiss? Eventually, I decided there was only one way, given the news I’d just had. I’d put the coffee down and jump on the bed, and when he woke up, startled, I’d tell him about the audition.
I opened the door, and everything went wrong.
Chapter Twenty
Darrell
Four Years Ago
In some tiny, powerless corner of my brain, I know that it’s a nightmare. That should make it easier, but it doesn’t. A nightmare means I can relive it again and again, forever.
We’re on week three of my four-week trip to the Middle East. After not seeing my folks since Christmas, being able to spend a full month together feels great, although mom is already driving me crazy with questions on my diet, my love life...even how often I’m doing my laundry. I think partially she’s just glad to have me to talk to. We don’t see a lot of Dad—he’s at the airbase most of the day, watching his new engine go through its paces on the F-35, then doing yet another round of tweaks and fixes. We’ve managed a handful of family days out, though, exploring the high-end shopping malls and resorts. The area has me a little freaked out, with its complete clash of ancient culture and modern riches. On one level, we’re honored guests but on another, we’re total outsiders.
We’ve just picked up Dad in the SUV. It’s only four and I figure we can hit the pool in that magic time when the sun’s low enough not to frazzle our family’s trademark pale skin, but still high enough for us to stretch out and relax. Also, there’s a cute blonde staying at the resort who might just be by the poolside....