by Alice Ward
“Make love to me.”
There. I said it. Said what I wanted, what I needed, and the words seemed to unleash some built-up dam inside him.
He lifted me until I could wrap my legs around his waist, lips never parting with his. Then we were moving, through the door of his bedroom, and I was on his bed, his weight pressing me into the mattress.
He raised his head, but I pulled it back, crushing his lips onto mine. Our kiss softened and then deepened again, tongues licking into each other’s mouths, tracing the other’s lips. I lifted and ground my pelvis into his, needing pressure between my legs.
Because he seemed to always sense what I needed, he pressed his thigh between my legs, then higher, giving me the pressure I craved. His hands worked on the robe, pushing it away from my shoulders. The t-shirt was next, sliding up my body and over my head before being tossed onto the floor.
“So incredibly beautiful. So soft.” The calluses on his palms moved from my face to my throat, and lower, their roughness enhancing everything I was feeling. “Mine. My goddess.”
It was true. I felt like a goddess in his arms. I touched him too, pulling his shirt up and over his head so I could feel his skin as I ground my sex into his thigh, using him to fulfill my needs, and he let me.
“Please.”
I wasn’t even sure what I was begging for as he kissed down my throat. Then lower. His tongue licked at my skin, lips kissing my breasts, fingers pulling hard on the puckered flesh of my nipple. His mouth opened, capturing the sensitive tip between his teeth. His teeth grazed, his mouth suckled on me, softly, slowly, so intimately. The rasping of his teeth, the warmth and wetness of his mouth, the flickering of his tongue all combined into a whirlpool of sensations that threatened to drown me, pulling me into the place I’d only written of.
My longing for him increased, his tenderness and strength fanning the flame building inside of me, a light I didn’t know was there.
“I need you. Please. Inside of me.”
It sounded wanton of me to beg, but I didn’t care. Not with him. With Gray, everything I did felt right.
He growled. “I’ll be inside you.” He crawled back up to my mouth, his hand in my hair again. Pain radiated from the wound on my head, but I didn’t stop him. Staring down into my eyes, he continued, his voice a seductive grumble, “My fingers will be inside you. My tongue will be inside you.” He thrust his erection into my hip. “My cock will live inside you.”
His words were as seductive as the hand moving down my belly. Our mouths connected again as his hand began a slow exploration down my body. Stomach, hip, thighs, his fingers skimming over the flannel of the sleeping shorts before slipping underneath the waistband.
I whimpered as his hand cupped my sex, his thumb circling my clitoris, causing me to arch into him. “So hot.” He groaned against my ear when a finger slipped inside me. “So wet.”
I stiffened.
His finger curled inside me, but it was like all the passion, all the life inside me drained from my system with those two words.
He didn’t seem to notice as his mouth found my breast again, a second finger being added to the first.
This is now, I told myself, trying to stay present. This is Gray. Not them. This is now. I’m safe. I’ve never been safer than right here.
A tear slid down my temple as I tried so desperately to escape the past, tried so hard to believe what I was telling myself.
I found my four-leaf clover with my fingers.
Own luck. Own love. Own life. Own legacy.
But I was trapped in the self-imposed prison of my mind. In that dark place, it wasn’t Gray’s fingers and mouth. It was… theirs.
That’s when he noticed.
Lifting his head, he looked down at me, confusion and concern on his face. “What’s wrong? Did I hurt you?”
More tears came, and I hated them. I hated feeling weak. I hated being out of control. But I was… and god help me, I couldn’t stop from shaking.
He slipped his hand from my shorts, sat up, pushed off the bed. “I’m so sorry.”
I tried to tell him it wasn’t him, that it was me. That I was trapped in that place. Trapped in my mind. But I couldn’t tell him. My tongue was as numb as my heart.
Climbing back on the bed, he stuffed my arms into my robe, closed it, tied the belt. He pulled my head to his chest while also pulling a blanket over me.
“Zoe. God. I’m so sorry. I thought… I didn’t…”
I was shaking my head no. I was digging my fingers into his skin, trying to keep him from moving away from me again.
Shame was a prison. Guilt the guard. My deep self-loathing the hook which held the key to freedom. As much as I tried to reach through the bars and take the keys in my hand, it seemed that only my fingertips could graze them, teasing me with hope. Eluding me constantly.
“I’m s-s-sorry.” My teeth were still chattering, and I sounded pathetic even to my own ears, but he needed to know this wasn’t his fault.
So wet.
“Shhhh… you have nothing to be sorry for, Zoe. It’s my fault. I’m the one who’s sorry.”
He tried to pull away, but I clung to him, my nails biting into him. “Don’t go.”
I felt his indecision. Felt his heart pounding under my fingers. Felt him move, but only to settle us on the bed, pulling the cover over us both.
“Shhhh…”
His voice was so very soothing, the lips kissing my hair so tender.
“Shhhh…”
The calluses on his palm scraped over my skin as he linked his fingers with mine.
“Shhhh…”
Suddenly exhausted, I closed my eyes, but this time, as the darkness closed over me, the abyss didn’t seem so very, very deep.
***
The light was still pouring into the room when I woke, and I wasn’t certain how long I’d slept. Gray was gone, although the pillow still bore the indentation of his head. I pulled it closer to my face and breathed in his scent before rolling off the king-sized bed. Standing, I gave my fuzzy head a few moments to clear before taking the first step, determined not to make a fool out of myself again.
I wrote about damsels in distress, but I didn’t like being one. It felt weak. Embarrassing. Like the woman I so very much wanted to be was outside my reach.
My body burned. It was as if I could still feel the blaze of heat his tongue had left on my skin. With each step, I felt where his fingers had been. Where, had I not pathetically freaked out, maybe his tongue would have followed. His cock.
It would have been so good, I knew. When I wrote about sex, it wasn’t the act of sex that I focused on. That part was easy. Insert penis. Pump a few times. Eyes roll back. Come. Any person with a computer could write about the act of sex, even if they’d never done it themselves. Books, and certainly movies, or a dive into the dark side of the internet would provide all the visual evidence one would need to understand physical intercourse.
I wrote about the emotions I hoped to one day feel. I wrote of the connection, the joining, the words and breaths exchanged as two separate people became one. I wrote of the exploration, the give and take. The power. The submission. The carnal rawness that I intuitively knew was present, even though I’d never felt that myself.
Until Gray.
The times I’d touched myself were evidence to the pleasure sex could provide. I didn’t do it often, afraid I’d turn into a sex addict. Just like my mom.
Most of my life had been spent putting a great deal of energy into being different than her. And now I was afraid I had gone so far onto the frigid side that I couldn’t find my way back to normal.
Taking careful steps to the bathroom, I placed my ear to the door when I heard something on the other side. The shower. Gray was in there. Naked. Standing under the stream of water, doing… what?
Wondering what the hell was wrong with the woman he rescued? Surely he thought I must be bipolar — just like my mom — to have asked him to make love to me in
one breath while freaking out with the next.
I owed him an explanation. No. I didn’t owe him one. I wanted to give him an explanation. I’d never once wanted to talk about that night, but for some reason, I wanted to talk about it now.
My fingers were trembling when I placed my hands on the doorknob.
Own luck. Own love. Own life. Own legacy.
With the blood pounding in my ears, I pushed the door open.
CHAPTER TEN
Gray
Wrapping my hand around my cock, I tried to make thoughts of her go away as hot water pounded against my shoulders. The softness of her skin. The little gasping breaths. The mewling sounds. The passion in her eyes when I touched her. The fear in her eyes when… what?
What happened in the bedroom? What had I done to turn passion into terror so quickly?
I didn’t know. And I hated myself. For so many reasons, I hated the man I’d become.
Raising my face to the shower spray, I punished my cock, trying to force the cum from it hard and quick. Maybe if I got off, I wouldn’t carry such a hard-on for the woman under my protection. Maybe I could get her off my mind.
But even as I stroked, thoughts of her wouldn’t go away.
Her eyes turning dark with need. Her lips swollen from my kisses. Her scent. Her gasping breaths as my finger dipped into her wet core, her body tightening around it. The feel of her nails on my skin, digging into me as if I was the only solid thing she could hold on to.
Maybe I was. On this mountain, in this cabin… she only had me to protect her. And I was doing a shit job of it so far.
Disgusted with myself, I stroked harder, faster, scowling down at my traitorous cock.
Come, dammit.
Over the past two years, I’d hardly touched myself. Even that had seemed like a betrayal of my wife’s memory. But I needed this now. Not for pleasure, but for pure release. Since I seemed unable to control anything else, maybe I could control this.
From the moment I saw the goddess at her cabin down the hill, watched her on the screen as she cried and then began to smile, I knew I was changing. I could feel the change, the need, the longing for something more in my life begin to alter me.
But in that church six years ago, I’d promised to love Jessica forever. Until death us do part, I remembered saying. Death did part us, but the love hadn’t stopped. How could I still love Jess and allow another woman into my bed, my life? My heart.
How could they both fit?
“Jess, honey, I’m so sorry.”
I could so clearly imagine Jessica. Her image hadn’t faded at all. Even now, I could nearly see her mouth around my cock. In this instant, I could close my eyes and imagine her lips closing around me instead of my hand, her skilled tongue swirling around the tip. I could see her on her knees, one hand cupping my balls, the other tight around the few inches she couldn’t take into her throat.
I could also clearly remember the night she laid in my arms, still sniffling after finishing a book she’d just read. She’d threaded her fingers through mine and cleared her throat. “Promise me something.”
We’d been married for nearly four years at the time, together for over six, and I still would have promised her anything. “What’s that?”
“If anything happens to me, promise that you’ll go on. Find someone else to love you as much as I love you.”
At the time, I hadn’t thought losing her was even possible. We were young. We had years and years and years before that would happen, so the promise was an easy one to make. “I’ll promise if you promise the same,” I’d told her that cold winter night.
Then something did happen. Bam.
And I’d broken that promise. I thought I’d forever break that promise.
Until now.
Promise me… I could almost hear the whisper of Jess’s voice.
“Jessica, no,” I rasped, stroking harder, faster, closing my eyes against the pain of remembering. But I knew I was fighting a losing battle. I’d been drawn to Zoe from the moment she stepped onto that deck. And the bitch of it was, I shouldn’t have ever even known she was there.
If those two squirrels hadn’t knocked that particular security camera off its tracks, I’d never have known who lived there. Never seen her. Never… watched. Waited. Worried about her safety.
Fuck. I was pathetic.
I was doing more than a shit job of protecting her. Hell, I couldn’t keep my eyes off her. My hands off her. And what had I done to scare her so badly?
She asked me to make love to her, then froze.
If I looked past my self-loathing, I knew she hadn’t been afraid of me. Something happened in her mind that scared her. Not me. It couldn’t have been me, because she’d so frantically wanted me to stay. She’d curled into me, hung onto me as if only I could save her. Fell asleep in my arms.
My hand slowed as I considered this new insight.
She hadn’t been afraid of me. Something else, yes, but not me.
Standing straighter, the water rained down on my head. I wished I could open my skull and let it wash away the fear and uncertainty that rattled around in my brain. Because that was what this was. Fear.
“Jessica, tell me what I should do.”
Jessica had been an intellectual. A psychiatrist, she and I would have long discussions about anything and everything. We bounced thoughts and ideas off each other, helping the other see all sides.
But Jessica was quiet now, as she was supposed to be. Her brilliant mind shut down by a raving lunatic on a rampage.
It wasn’t until I lifted my face to the water, that I felt her. Not Jessica. Zoe.
Very slowly, I turned to where she stood just inside the bathroom door.
She’d already caught me jacking off, so I didn’t remove my hand from my cock. I didn’t resume stroking either. Through the fog of the shower, I just looked at her. Watched her approach me until she was just on the other side of the glass.
Lifting a hand, she placed her palm against the glass, her eyes not leaving mine. If I’d shocked her by my act of masturbation, I couldn’t tell. All I could see was a softness in her gaze as she looked at me.
Letting myself go, I placed my palm against hers, and we just stood there for what felt like endless moments. She lifted her four-leaf pendant to her lips and kissed it, then began to slowly untie her robe. It dropped to the floor, revealing her perfect breasts. She was breathing hard. So was I. But that didn’t stop her from pushing the shorts down her legs.
Then she was naked in front of me. As naked as I was in front of her. Both of us equally vulnerable as I opened the shower door, welcoming her in if she wanted.
She wanted.
Moving under the stream of water, she pressed herself against me and we stood that way for a long time. I felt her exhale, and then she looked up at me.
“Truth or dare.”
Dare was almost a temptation I couldn’t resist, but I knew we had much to say to each other, so I chose the former. “Truth.”
“Who’s Jessica?”
She’d been in the doorway longer than I thought, because she’d heard me, saw me, begging my late wife for help. It was fitting. After all, I’d watched her without her consent or knowledge many times.
“My wife.” She stiffened, and I immediately added, “She died two years ago.”
Sympathy became a living thing in her eyes. “I’m so sorry.”
I stroked down her spine, feeling the hill and valley of each vertebrae. “Truth or dare.”
She swallowed. “Truth.”
“What happened in the bedroom? What scared you?”
She swallowed again, a cloud of pain coming over her features. “I was raped a few months ago. The man… one of the men…” She shook her head and pressed her face into my chest.
One of the men?
My arms tightened around her, rage building in my chest. Jessica had counseled many rape victims, and she would come home and talk about the range of feelings those women went thro
ugh.
“I’m so sorry, Zoe. And I’m sorry I brought that horrible memory back to you.”
When she looked up at me again, it wasn’t sadness in her eyes. It was something else. Anger. No. It was rage. But not at me.
“It’s not that, Gray. The first man, he… when he was… you know… when he was in me, he said…” She growled in frustration, the sound coming through her tightly set jaw. “Why is this so hard to talk about? I’ve never talked to anyone about it. Never. Not even my best friend. Nobody.”
“Just say it however it comes,” I told her, pushing her wet hair back from her face, careful of the wound. “No filter. It doesn’t have to be perfect. It just needs to come out. Monsters in a dark closet are rarely as scary in the light of day.”
She licked her lips and nodded slowly. “When he was inside me,” the words came in a rush, “he told me I was wet, saying that I wouldn’t be wet if I didn’t want it. He told me that I was a natural at sex, just like my mother.” She was breathing hard after it all spilled out.
I held her closer. Tighter. Remembered Jessica ranting about something similar.
“You couldn’t help that, sweetheart,” I said, then tipped her chin up until she looked at me. “It was a natural body response.”
She frowned, wanting to believe me but uncertain.
I went on, remembering Jessica’s words. “When something comes at your eye, you blink, right? You can’t force your body to not have that reaction. It does it involuntarily. Same thing happens if something scares you. Your body, without your permission or knowledge, dumps adrenaline into your system.”
Hope flared in her eyes. “So, you’re saying that—”
“Yes. When something penetrates you, hurts you, your body’s response will be to lubricate... to protect you. Not because you were turned on or wanted it. You couldn’t have stopped it if you tried.”
She stared up at me for a long time. “How do you know this?”
“Jessica. My wife. She was a therapist. She treated many rape victims and she would talk about things like that. She said that the victims so often blamed themselves. Not just because of what they wore or where they were, things the media plays on to victim blame. It runs deeper than that. Jess said that women hated how their body reacted. They lubricated. Many orgasmed. It created a huge chasm in their minds. How could they have hated something so much when their body responded so differently?”