He was slurring his words. It wasn’t OK, but she was crying and that was tearing his gut up again. He didn’t want her to cry.
‘Stop, please.’ At least he sounded more human that time.
‘Are you OK?’ she asked. Her voice wobbled and she sniffled before reaching for a napkin and blowing her nose.
‘No –’ he wasn’t going to lie ‘– but I will be.’
Slowly, painfully, he pushed himself up to a sitting position, moving to lean his back against the tree trunk to remove any pressure from his balls.
‘I am so sorry, Connor.’ She looked pitiful. Her green eyes were drenched and there were tear trails down her porcelain skin.
‘What the hell happened?’ It was still hard to speak normally considering his balls were throbbing, but he needed to know what just happened.
‘It wasn’t you. You didn’t do anything wrong. It’s just that –’ She broke off and, looking away, began tearing apart the napkin she was holding. ‘It’s just that there are some things I just can’t do.’
‘You can’t kiss me?’
‘No, it’s not that.’ She balled up the wreckage of the napkin. ‘It was the way you held my neck and tried to lay me down.’
‘So you can’t have your neck touched or lie down to kiss me?’
‘Right, well, I just can’t have you on top of me like that.’
‘So I can touch your neck, but not lie on top of you?’ His head was starting to hurt as much as his balls. She wasn’t making sense.
‘No, what I mean is –’ Her brow creased and new tears threatened. ‘It’s just that –’
Connor was losing his patience. He liked her, but this was the second time she’d gone physical on him. He wasn’t trying to get involved with a crazy person.
‘OK.’ He groaned a little as he sat forward and his bruised nuts rubbed against the cotton of his boxers. ‘Tell you what. Let’s call it a day. I don’t know why you lose it with me the way you do, but clearly this was not meant to be.’
‘I was raped, Connor.’
He’d begun to rise, only to fall back when her words registered.
As if in slow motion, he turned to face her. She wasn’t looking at him. Her tension was obvious in the balled fists resting in her lap and the corded muscles standing out along her neck.
Hypocritically, his own tension drained. It was like having the answer to a riddle you didn’t even know you had to solve. It explained why she’d reacted so violently to being startled. And it certainly explained her fighting him when he’d taken a posture that effectively trapped her.
Gently, he lifted one of her hands and smoothed out her fingers so he could take her hand in his.
‘Can you tell me about it?’ he asked. When she hesitated, he said, ‘Please.’
She didn’t know if she could tell him. She didn’t want to see his face change. To see the pity and have him begin to treat her differently. They all treated her differently after they knew.
‘Bridget, if you don’t feel comfortable telling me right now, that’s fine. I understand. We don’t know each other very well yet.’
There he went again with his compassion and willingness to let her take the lead. Squeezing his hand, she shook her head, which he mistook as an indicator that she didn’t want to talk and began to pull his hand away.
Squeezing it tighter, she took a deep breath and began, ‘I was in college.’ Letting go of his hand, she smoothed her capris and looked off into the distance as she continued. ‘I was returning some notes to a friend when a guy I’d been kind of flirting with invited me into his dorm room. I went in and the rest, as they say, is history. He raped me.’
There was more to the story. Infinitely more. But she just couldn’t go there. She’d never told anyone the full story. It was bad enough she had to live with it; she wasn’t going to allow anyone else to judge her for it.
Bridget jumped when Connor took her hand and brought it to his mouth, kissing the back of her hand.
‘I am so, so sorry that happened to you,’ he murmured against her skin.
She squeezed his hand reassuringly. ‘It was a long time ago.’
‘What happened to him?’
A wave of bitterness flooded Bridget.
‘Nothing. Absolutely nothing.’ She pulled her hand from Connor’s and began to pluck at the blanket again. ‘I never told anyone.’
‘Why not?’
‘The same reason why so many women don’t say anything. I was ashamed. And I wasn’t willing to be vilified on the stand. So I just moved on.’
Shame coloured the bitterness, but she pushed it away. What was done was done.
Connor didn’t try to take her hand back, but he did move closer and put a gentle arm around her shoulder. She stiffened. Here it came. This was the part where he stopped looking at her like a woman and began to treat her like a victim.
The last thing she should be treated as was a victim, but how could she convey that to him without telling him everything? How could she get him to understand without losing his respect?
Every single time she’d told a man she dated about the rape it was like this. She went from being a sexy, desirable woman whom they could barely keep their hands off to a victim. Someone they treated like spun glass. Instead of embracing her and kissing the breath out of her, they kissed her like she’d shatter if they pressed too hard.
She may have been raped, but she was still a woman and she hated the way men treated her once they knew. She hated more, though, that there were some very real things she needed them to be aware of. It could be hard to have passionate, animal sex when she tensed every time they touched her neck, or they had to remember not to lie on top of her.
Each time, she eventually gave up. She’d lie quietly, doing her best to not react to anything they inadvertently did. They’d fuck her just as gently and she’d pretend to get off. Inevitably, the relationship would sour, distance would grow, and she’d amicably end their dalliance. All of her serious boyfriends were now happily married and she was going on her fifth year without any kind of meaningful relationship in her life besides her two best girlfriends.
She’d long ago given up on finding a man who could tread that fine line with her between truly uninhibited sex the way she fantasised and being mindful of her past. Connor brought out the deeply sexual woman in her. That much was obvious, but she highly doubted he’d be any different than the others now.
Back stiff as a rod, she waited for the inevitable.
Chapter Eight
Fury pumped through Connor’s veins. His hands itched to tear apart the bastard who’d hurt her. He hated men who preyed on woman. There were so many chicks who would fuck you willingly that it was completely uncalled for to take it from anyone. The evidence of the scars left behind was obvious.
Bridget was a gorgeous, dynamic woman who now sat as if she were about to be executed. That she had a scar like this to deal with enraged him as much for the shame he saw in her eyes as for the psychological damage that slimy bastard had clearly left behind.
Right now, she sat stiff as a board beside him and he was at a complete loss. Should he hug her? Should he leave her be? Take her hand? Kiss her? Scream out his frustration.
‘Bridget.’ He left his arm where it was.
‘Hmm?’ She still plucked at the damn blanket.
‘Look at me, will you?’
She looked at him and there was a wariness in her green eyes that hadn’t been there before. Dropping his arm, he moved back to lean against the tree trunk and couldn’t miss the disappointment and disgust that flashed across her face.
Frankly, it pissed him off. He may be sympathetic, but he’d also been kneed in the nuts and was now floundering in completely untried territory.
‘What was that look for?’
‘What look?’
‘The one you just gave me.’ He was beginning to sound belligerent and he didn’t like that. This woman got under his skin in the worst way.
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��I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ She was looking everywhere but at him.
‘Yes, you do. You just looked at me like I was a bug and I want to know why. If we’re going to move forward, then I need you to talk to me.’
‘Move forward? What do you mean?’ Her head jerked up and the look of surprise on her face was almost comical.
‘What do you mean “what do I mean”?’ He blew out a rough sigh and held up a hand when she started to speak. ‘Let’s back this up a second before we begin to sound any more like two-year-olds.’ He smiled at her and she smiled back – a little too tentatively for his liking.
‘OK, what I’m saying is that you just shared with me something that had to be horrific and terrifying for you and that, frankly, has obviously left some lasting damage behind.’
She drew breath to speak and he held up his hand to stop her.
‘Let me finish,’ he said. She relaxed back, cocking her head to one side and looking very kittenish in her anticipation of what he’d say next. ‘I am unbelievably sorry that you experienced anything like that. But I am equally insulted that you would think that would change my feelings about you. I also don’t like the look you just gave me, as if I’d confirmed some suspicion you had.’
She flushed, confirming his notion that she’d been thinking exactly that.
‘If I’m being completely honest, I can barely comprehend what it must be like for you to have lived through that. I find myself flailing here because I want to handle this the right way, and frankly, beyond letting you know that I think you are remarkable and tough and strong. I really don’t know what to say, yet those words feel hollow compared to the scars you must carry.’
He took her hand again. ‘I want very much to get to know you, and what you’ve just shared with me doesn’t change that one bit.’
She gave him a tremulous smile and squeezed his hand, but her words did nothing to set his mind at ease. ‘Look. Don’t feel obligated. It’s OK. I don’t want you to be burdened with this. One of us dealing with it is enough. And, to be honest, I can’t deal with another man treating me like a victim.’
‘Why would I treat you like a victim?’ He refused to let go of her hand when she tugged on it while looking at him like he’d lost his mind.
‘Duh, sugar –’ damn, he loved that drawl ‘– I was raped.’
‘That doesn’t make you a victim.’
If her eyes got any bigger they’d pop out of her head. That lip, though, pulled between her teeth like it was, he just wanted to bite it.
‘What does it make me then?’
‘It makes you a woman who was victimised, but it doesn’t make you a victim. That’s a mindset. You don’t strike me as a woman who makes excuses for herself and lets others walk all over her. Hell, my nuts can attest to that fact.’
She flushed deeper and looked away from him, but he tipped her face up to his. ‘So now, if you please, why’d you give me that look?’
Green eyes bored into his own for several seconds. It was as if she was trying to read what he was thinking. She must have given up, though, because she took a deep breath and answered.
‘I don’t want the same thing to happen that always does.’
‘Which is?’ he prompted.
‘Men always begin to treat me like I’m fragile. That if they touch me with any vigour, I’ll freak out or break. But at the same time, I can get overwhelmed and shut down. I’m tired of the contradiction. I can’t handle that any more. I’d rather just leave it be right now.’
She looked up at him with those emerald eyes awash with anger and pain and his heart squeezed. She didn’t have to fear that from him. He was more worried that he wouldn’t be able to restrain himself enough. He’d never been one for gentle, slow sex. He liked his sex rough, hard, and with a healthy dash of kinky.
‘Bridget, after everything you said, I’m a hell of a lot more worried about pushing you too far too soon.’ He took her hand and brought it to his lips, nipping lightly at her fingertips and enjoying the way her eyes watched what he did. ‘I don’t want to come off like an insensitive ass in light of everything you shared, but from the moment I got you out here by yourself, all I’ve wanted to do was get inside you. I’m not those other guys. I only know that I want to get to know you better, but it would be a complete lie to say I didn’t want to be intimate with you too.’
Wary eyes shot to his but she smiled as she said, ‘I don’t think that makes you insensitive. I want to get to know you too.’ Her voice dropped to a near whisper as she said, ‘Intimately and all.’
He could pretend he was a better guy than he was. He could be all chivalrous and restrain himself, but the truth was he wanted her and she needed to know that she was desirable no matter what had happened to her in the past. It tarnished nothing. If anything, her strength in coping only made her more desirable.
Leaning down, he tugged her closer and brushed her lips with his. They were soft and yielding. He licked the seam and groaned as she opened for him. He’d wanted this from the moment he saw her that day on the trail.
He explored her mouth, all the while fighting the urge to grab her tight and roll her under him. He wanted to feel her along him, feel those breasts smashed against his chest as he ground his cock into her. That would not be the way to proceed here. Not treating her like a victim didn’t mean tap dancing on her scars.
Clamping down on his less productive urges, he pulled back and growled, ‘In my lap, Bridget. Now.’
Her eyebrows shot up at the demand, but she put up no resistance as he gripped her hips and brought her astride him. He kneaded the soft flesh of her ass through the cotton of her capri pants and resumed kissing her.
She kissed him back with an abandon that made him ache to strip her naked and take her. Her hips were nicely padded. He’d never have to worry about getting poked by errant hipbones as he pounded into her. The thought of being inside her had his cock hardening and he groaned as she pressed her hips into his groin.
‘That’s right, Bridget,’ he growled and pulled her hips in tighter. ‘Rub against me. Let go.’
After a moment’s hesitation, she complied and moaned; a deep, low sound that made it that much harder not to let loose and go wild on her. He enjoyed the flex of her buttocks under his hands and the way she deepened the kiss obviously as excited as he was.
Letting go of her, he began to undo the buttons of her top. Gradually unwrapping her to reveal … the absolute ugliest bra on the face of the planet. It was a cage of cotton. Not at all the delicate lace creation he’d been hoping, no, expecting, to see on a woman as sexy as Bridget.
He eyed the contraption and was relieved to see a front clasp. At least he could open it and push it aside, rather than being forced to look at it any longer. With nimble fingers, he did just that, giving an appreciative groan as all that luscious skin spilled out.
Her breasts were full and large with rosy, pink nipples that jutted out from her body. He had to taste them. He sucked one into his mouth and ate up the sound of her moans. She was practically churning in his lap, rotating her hips and pressing hard against the length of his erection.
He licked and sucked, laved and nipped at her nipples, being sure to give each equal attention. She was rubbing herself hard against him and he was loath to do anything to break her rhythm, but he wanted to see her. Leaning back against the tree trunk, he ate up the sight of her.
Tendrils of her fiery hair were spilling out of her ponytail, framing her face. Her eyes were closed and her head back as she ground against him. Her breasts filled his hands as he massaged them, tweaking and rolling her nipples.
She moaned and made tiny mewling sounds and he encouraged her, whispering words of desire and lust even as he struggled to keep his own release at bay.
‘Come for me, sweetness,’ he demanded before sucking her nipple back into his mouth.
She wanted to come for him. Bad. Her body was running away from her. She was losing control. The sensations were
coursing through her body. She was on fire from head to toe and the ache in her womb was painful.
She relished it. Revelled in the ache and burn.
She wanted to grab him and demand he fuck her. She wanted to pinch her nipples until they hurt. Wanted to feel the sting as he spanked her nipples until even the air made them scream.
She wanted him to throw her down, bind her, and have his way with her while she was completely helpless. She wanted more, harder, rougher. Now.
With an anguished cry, Bridget pulled away from Connor, breaking all contact.
‘Bridget?’ His confusion was apparent. ‘What happened? Did I do something wrong?’
It would be so easy to lay this at his doorstep. To act as if he’d done something wrong. But it would also be a lie and he didn’t deserve that.
Shaking her head, she said, ‘No, Connor. You didn’t do anything wrong.’
Taking a deep breath, Bridget willed herself to relax. To retreat into that space she always found in these moments.
That didn’t work.
She felt erratic. Brittle.
It was as if one touch from Connor would send her careening off an edge she’d spent the last 20 years ensuring she never even came close to.
He was dangerous to her carefully cultivated self-control.
‘I don’t know if I can do this, Connor.’
Connor was at a complete loss. One moment, she’s languid and hot, practically purring like a kitten. The next, she’s distant and unreachable.
She sat inches from him, but she might as well have been a mile away. She’d righted her clothes and now was once again looking anywhere but at him and trying, again, to run. He wasn’t having it.
She was under his skin like a tick and, especially now that he had some inkling of her past, he was not interested in letting her get away. This wouldn’t be the simplest relationship he’d ever embarked on, but Bridget Ross was the sexiest, smartest woman he’d ever met and he was willing to bet all she needed was patience and honesty. He could give her that. She had to let him, though.
‘Why do you always try to run away from me?’
Reflection (The Chrysalis Series) Page 6