Need Me (Truthful Lies Trilogy Book Three)

by Dunning, Rachel

  But now...now I could change it. Now, no matter what, I could change it. I screwed up. I have a man who accepts it—by whatever grace of Zen or God but he does accept it!—and who’s willing to forgive me for it. In return, I have to forgive him some things he did as well.

  That’s an OK deal, I figure. I screwed up, you screwed up; let’s do better.

  Vikki says, “OK, I’ll talk to him.”

  And, in my semi-dreamy state, deeply enwrapped in my own “talk” I need to have with Deck, I echo, “So will I.”

  “Huh?”

  “Oh, sorry, no, not Skate! I mean...Deck. I’m gonna talk to Deck...as well.”

  She cocks an eyebrow. “Blaze, please, it’s been four years. Please tell me you’re going to do a lot more than freaking talk! Please tell me you’re going to have sex with the man you love!”

  Only a few hours ago, listening to how this Love has turned her life upside down, caused her to make decisions that were, perhaps, not the right ones (who can really tell?)—listening to her had made me think, You’re so screwed, Vikki. You’re in deep, sista!

  Uh-huh.

  So am I.

  -2-

  In the evening.

  I make it to Deck’s place. I’m standing outside his door, dressed in a sexy black blouse and long coat, tight jeans, knee-high boots. I was never much for dressing up, and I’m still not. But tonight I felt like I needed to do more than just slap on a baggy sweater.

  I’m clutching my tiny purse in front of me, about to knock on the door, looking down at my boots and wondering if he’ll think I went too far.

  Oh, c’mon, Blaze! This is Deck you’re talking about! Not that guy you keep hearing about on TV!

  It’s hard to separate the two these days. To know someone so closely, to have been the one they came to when they’d needed a shoulder to cry on, and then to see their face all over the internet, the TV ads, the magazines, and worst of all, to read other people’s opinions about that person all the time: It makes it difficult to keep a level head about him. I find I need to keep reminding myself that this is Declan Cox, the boy I knew before he became the wet dream of all fertile women across the country—this is the boy who held me when my tears were dry, and who I did the same for. This is the boy—the man—I’m opening the door for again, letting inside, the man I forgive, and who I hope forgives me as well.

  I swallow, shuffle my feet once more, wonder inanely whether or not I look OK, and then I knock.

  Deck opens the door, and suddenly I’m glad I dressed up at least a little bit.

  Because he looks dashing.

  He’s in a dress-shirt, light blue, and dark expensive jeans. He looks a little like a cowboy... His chest stands out like granite. His turquoise eyes glisten when they see me, his lips shine as they widen to greet me. A waft of mouth-watering deliciousness bursts out from the dimly lit penthouse behind him—some type of roast, I presume. Easy music plays behind him.

  He steps back, gestures me in—

  “Oh, my God. Deck!” My hand goes to my mouth because I realize I blurted the words out without thinking. I’m looking at a dining room table, candles on it, wine, sparkling glasses, just beyond the sitting couches, in front of the window-walls to the terrace. Behind it is the dark sky, quiet tonight, but black and all engulfing. Below that sky, the lights of New York City in the distance.

  Deck’s arm is still out, gesturing me in. He tilts his head forward, still smiling proudly. “You coming in?”

  My hand is still to my mouth, and like a real freaking estrogen pumping girl I’m starting to feel a little teary, a little...overwhelmed...by his effort. My legs feel wobbly. I put one foot in front of the other and manage to walk. I’m inside now, on the wooden floor, but I’m still in the way of the door. Deck places a firm hand on my arm, wraps warm fingers around it, eases me away so he can close the door.

  “Deck, I...wow...I...”

  “I never put together a romantic dinner for us when we were together, did I?”

  I feel lightheaded. “You cooked this?”

  He makes a raspberry sound. “No! A friend of Maria’s cooked it for me. But I chose the wine, and the music.”

  Melody Gardot is playing. Baby I’m a fool.

  Apt.

  “You want wine?” he asks.

  “Don’t you have to be sober twenty-four hours before training?”

  “I do. I’ll be on grape juice again.”

  “Then so will I.”

  “The wine is good.” He takes off my coat. “Italian. Expensive.”

  “You trying to get me drunk?”

  He laughs, hangs the coat up, then gestures me to the table. Before I sit, I say, “It’s good to see you, Deck.”

  He closes his eyes briefly. “Blaze, I...I’m so glad you’re here. I...well...after last night—”

  “Shhh. It’s cool. We’re not gonna go there again. I learned my lesson the first time. Although I do think you need to stop getting caught in so many bad photographs, Declan Cox!”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “Or in so many fights...”

  Silence for a second. “Tell me about that, too! Hey, you wanna sit awhile? On the couch? Food will stay warm in the oven for a bit.”

  “Sure.”

  He grabs another of those expensive-looking grape juice bottles that only looks like wine and we go on over to the couch in the sunken living room area, massive TVs looking down at us. He pours us both a glass of the juice. We toast.

  “What happened?” I ask him. “I mean, with the fight.”

  He tells me about the Jets fans, tells me about how drunk Skate was, and how one thing led to another.

  My mind sticks on the seemingly unimportant detail of Skate being trashed to the max. Just like Vikki was. And was he wondering the same things she was last night?

  “Blaze? What is it? You look suddenly...upset.”

  “Oh, sorry, I got caught in a thought somewhere. Nothing to worry about.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah, of course. It’s just...girl stuff. Vikki.”

  “Damn, Skate wouldn’t stop going on about her last night.”

  “Is that so?” My interest rises, and I think Deck notices.

  “You sound quite interested. Did Vikki say something?”

  I shake my head. “I can’t say. You know, the unspoken rules of girlhood.”

  “Right. Well, I can say. Skate’s so madly in love with her, I don’t know why the dude doesn’t just ask her to marry him or something. I mean, they’ve been inseparable for nearly five years now, y’know.”

  “I do know.” I think I roll my eyes here, and I do my best to keep Vikki’s secrets close to my chest, also making sure not to divulge them by facial expressions!

  “Anyway, booze makes a man talk. And damn he talked about her a lot. Got kinda boring after a while, no offense and all.”

  “None taken.”

  “But, damn...anyway, then those idiots came in and...one thing led to another.”

  “Right.”

  We sip our drinks. Melody Gardot sings on. Your Heart is Black as Night. Deck clears his throat.

  “Spit it out,” I say.

  “Huh?”

  “You’ve gone quiet. You’re clearing your throat. What is it? There’s something on your mind. If you and I are gonna...make it...this time round, we can’t hold anything back, Deck.”

  He smiles, but it’s a nervous one. “Right, well, that’s the thing, Blaze. I’ll be honest, I felt that the other night you wanted to, uhm, go all the way. But I wasn’t ready. I...” He licks his lips. “...well, it embarrasses me to say this, but I was...afraid, Blaze.” He stops.

  “And?”

  “That’s all.”

  “No, it’s not! Spit it out!”

  “I don’t like spitting it out. It’s...emasculating.”

  I cock an eyebrow. “Deck, you’re over two hundred pounds of pure muscle. I don’t think anything could emasculate you.”

 
; He leans forward on the couch, swirls the juice in his glass, looks at me sideways. “That’s where you’re wrong. You’re falling into the image they’ve made of me out in the gossips. I’m not ‘America’s Bad Boy.’ I’m me, just playing football because it’s what pulled me out of the gutter after my life was going in a certain direction and then...changed. Abruptly.”

  “And it’s emasculating to tell me about it because I’m the one who sent it in that abrupt new direction?”

  He runs a frustrated hand through his hair, puts his glass down, stands. His huge back is to me and he says, with hands on his hips, “Fuck. Why can’t it just be simple with us!” He turns to me. “Blaze, I’m sorry, the night’s hardly begun and I’m...” He moves quickly back to the couch, closer to me now, grabs one of my hands.

  I swallow.

  “Blaze, you know what it is?” He laughs. “I...” He shakes his head, looks down. “Damn, I can’t believe I’m gonna tell you—”

  “Just say it! I’ll take it!”

  “OK, here it is. Blaze, I...” He hesitates a second. “...I...had no problem with sex with...y’know...other women after you.”

  Yip, this is gonna sting. I breathe in deeply, hoping I don’t forget to exhale after five minutes.

  “It was just sex. Just...meaningless. And then, the other night, you here, I locked up.” His manhood was standing and ready, hard as steel then, so we’re not talking impotence here... “You see, Blaze, we can kiss, fool around, get closer... But sex, with you... Well, that won’t be meaningless. Even if I wanted it to be, which I don’t, not with you, Blaze... But even if I wanted it to be, it’s gonna mean we’re together no matter what happens. And...”

  He stops again.

  I finish for him. “That makes you scared.”

  “You know me well.”

  I squeeze his hand, put my glass down, inch a little closer. I run my other hand through his hair, feel its softness through the webs of my fingers. Just like old times... His tattoo sleeve, peeking out from his rolled up shirt-sleeve, screams from his right forearm, my own tats on my left a reflection of his.

  “Deck...I don’t know how to mend the rift I created in you. I’ve said I’m sorry, but I can see that that isn’t enough. Let’s do our best to not rip each other’s heads off. And then...let’s just see what happens.”

  He grips my hands, the muscles on his forearms bulging. My fingers start hurting. He lets go slightly, looks me deep in the eyes. “You know I love you, Blaze. That isn’t what’s in question here. It never has been. You know that, right?”

  My voice is barely audible. “Yeah, and you know I love you too, right?”

  “I do know. I do know that.”

  “One sorry bunch of freakin misfits we are, aren’t we?”

  We stare at each other for an eternity.

  Fire burns in my soul.

  Need sizzles in my chest.

  And then I can’t wait anymore.

  I clutch his hair, grip it, start pulling him into me. At first he resists, and then I feel him go with the motion and lean down into my lips.

  He kisses me.

  Instinct takes over me. Raw instinct. And him too.

  Before I know it my neck’s being pressed against the back of the couch, Deck’s tongue is far deep into my mouth, and my hands, working out of their own will, struggle against his belt!

  Then he stands, all of it happening in a rush, my legs spreading, his hands all over my hair. My hands fight and grapple and tug at his belt buckle!

  He bends down and kisses me, tongue on lips and teeth almost crunching.

  Hot breaths. Loud, desperate gasps.

  I love you, Declan Cox. So what the hell does anything else matter? Trust me, please, trust me. Like I’m trusting you.

  I can’t get his belt open! I give up, move onto my own jeans button and start fighting with it. The button snaps open. Deck’s hand is instantly pressing at my mound—

  I moan.

  The next words I utter are so low, so instinctive, so needful that merely the act of uttering them nearly sends me screaming over the edge of that teasing orgasm, the one that’s begging for Declan to enter me, to simply take me and damn all the rest! Damn the world and the reasons and the rationalizations and the explanations! The words I utter, slow, as if one syllable is suddenly three, are these: “Oh...my baby.”

  His palm presses down on my mound.

  I almost come!

  I shift back in the seat, decide to wrestle with his belt buckle again. “Caution to the wind,” he mumbles between kisses.

  “Yeah, damn straight. Damn fucking straight.” My hands give up on the belt and reach his solid cheeks, loving him, caressing him, needing him. “I need you, baby. I need you so much.”

  “And I you, Blaze. I, you!”

  He grabs his own damn belt buckle and fights with it, finally gets it open! Then the snap of his jeans, his zip.

  And his pants fall.

  I wrassle with my own jeans. I have to lift my ass to get them off. I went with skinny jeans on top of it and it’s proving majorly difficult! I start pushing them down, wriggling, fighting. Deck starts laughing. I laugh as well. “Could you help me get them off, damnit!”

  He tries to, but he can’t get his fingers in the seams. Too tight! “How did you get these on?”

  “Hey! Don’t comment on my weight!”

  He pulls, I wriggle, shimmy, pull, lift, twist—

  They pass over that make-break point of the upper thighs and Deck yanks them the rest of the way down. They’re at my knees because I can’t get my boots off, but Deck’s eyes are locked on my panties, a hungry wolf to prey.

  Deck, my feet, I need to get them off my feet. This is what I try and say. But all I get out is: “Deck—” and then he swoops down to my center, slides my undies left over my crotch to bare me to him, not even bothering to take them off, and his warm tongue meets my right swollen lip from bottom to top while he thrusts a greedy finger into me. And pushes.

  I lift.

  I moan.

  And then I shatter.

  -3-

  I push his lips into me, pressing, feeling the pressure. His finger, the one inside me, doesn’t pump, just presses up, lifts, holds my butt up off the coach while my voice goes out of control and—“oh-whoa-oh-oh-God!” I tense, tighten, clench.

  And then I blow apart.

  My fingers curl around his beautiful hair, and pull. My boy. My lovely, scared boy. And, on the other side of that: My man. The man who’s other hand is pressed against the small of my back now, holding me while I yowl and howl and pull his hair so hard so that I wonder—in that foggy state of the mind during mid-orgasm—if I’m about to rip all the strands out by the roots!

  I shiver, tremble. My body slams.

  And then...

  Butterflies. Sweet, glittering butterflies against a rising sun. Bright explosions of light behind my eyes and—

  “Oh... ... my ... ...F-U-U-U-U-CK!”

  It rocks me. Waves of hard pleasure hit me repeatedly. Spasms and neck-tightening contractions burst across me. And then—

  Growl. “Oh! Damn! God!”

  —it’s over.

  And I exhale.

  My ass lowers back down slowly to the couch, Deck’s hand, the one that had been at my back, is now underneath my butt. And I smile, feeling the smile stretch across my entire face.

  Deck lifts his head, moisture gleaming from his lips, his face red, his blue eyes cold as water. And he smiles back. A devilish smile, a playful one. One which says, Oh, baby, I want you so bad.

  And I’ve missed you.

  And, in my mind, I respond with: Come to me. Come to me, baby. I’m ready. I’m ready for this again. Ready for the rollercoaster, the threat, the worry, I’m ready.

  He must hear me, because his grin widens. He moves his body up so that his lips touch mine. His hand, the one at my center, stays down below, sliding in under my gray panties (yeah, I dressed up great but got distracted on the panties!
) and plays, tickles, plays, getting me in the mood again, moistening me, warming me up...

  “Oh, God, Deck. God, what you’re doing is so... Oh...”

  He twirls, presses slightly around and in and out but never too deep, just whetting my desire. I can hear it, the liquid, the sounds of my need.

  I’m so ready again.

  And, above, he kisses me. Below, he plays with me.

  The scent of sex, my sex, turns me on ravenously, makes me want him. Makes me want the entire act. Makes me want his colossal weight over me, pushing into me, holding me down while he enters me. Makes me want to widen my thighs for him and push my heels against his butt and pull him into me even when he thinks he can’t go any deeper.

  “Please, Deck. I need you. Please. Don’t make it like the other night. I need you all the way. All the way!”

  “That’s what I was intending.”

  His fingers keep plying me below. I feel the underwear stick to me and then be parted by his moving index and middle finger as he massages and strokes and twirls my sizzling flesh around. “Oh, Deck, you’re driving me crazy.” He smiles. “You’re enjoying this torture, aren’t you?”

  “I am. But it’s not torture. It’s savoring. I’m savoring you, Blaze. It can’t be quick. Not after so long without you. I need it to be slow.” While he talks, he plays, and twirls and plays and twirls...and savors. I feel myself pressing ever more downwards, against him, into him, against his blessed fingers, feeling the build-up already inside me, needing the strokes more and more on a cellular level, a fundamental, human level.

  A raw and basic level.

  Fuses are lit in my mind. Dryness hits my mouth like the parching sun of the Great Basin desert. “If I had more energy I’d—Oh, God, that’s... Mmmmmm. Oh, yeah. Oh.” He pushes in. “Mmmmm.” My eyes are shut tight. Faintly, in the distance, I hear a tat-tat-tat on the windows, as if rain is starting again.

  The scent of our forgotten dinner still wafts warmly through the air, delicious and rich, serving only to increase my lustful appetite. Food and sex. Basic human needs. What a tricky-tricky mind...

  “I want you all night, Blaze. All day tomorrow. All night after that. I never want to let you go. Ever.”