She trailed kisses down his neck and his good hand snuck up her shirt, his palm running up the warm smooth skin of her back. He fidgeted with the clasp of her bra with his clumsy left hand, but couldn’t get it to snap open. Groaning, he asked, “What’s with the damn Fort Knox bra?”
“Here, let me.” With a sultry smile, she guided him to the edge of his bed and gave his chest a shove to make him sit.
Standing between his legs, she leaned down and kissed him, her tongue boldly exploring his mouth. Unable to stay still, he let his good hand wander up her shirt to massage one of her breasts through the lace of her bra.
She stepped back from him, a confident smile lighting her face, and pulled the t-shirt over her head. Slowly, she unclasped the Fort Knox bra. His brain flashed back to the very first time she’d stripped for him at her brother’s wedding. She’d been nervous at first, her hands trembling as she inched her dress down.
But there were no nerves now. His Victoria was fucking sexy and she knew it.
The bra came off and Jason groaned, leaning forward to take one of her breasts into his mouth.
“Ah, ah, ah.” She danced out of his reach. “Not yet.”
She drew out the striptease, slowly removing her shorts, tantalizing him by skimming her hands over her breasts, her belly, between her legs, over and under the silk of her panties until she removed them completely.
Jason was burning up, dying for a taste of the skin she displayed for his eyes only.
She walked slowly to his nightstand, smiling and sashaying her hips to tease him. She pulled out a little foil packet and finally came back to him. Slowly, torturously, she removed his shorts and boxers then moved the condom down his cock while he kissed whatever piece of exposed skin came his way.
Running his tongue over her butterfly tattoo, he noticed her necklace. The St. Michael pendant she sometimes wore. Patron saint of police officers.
And paramedics.
The reminder that she might actually need those prayers from her mother to keep her safe sent his head reeling. He couldn’t stand to think of her in harm’s way, couldn’t handle the thought of her being hurt.
A need born of fear made the pressure inside him build, and he grabbed Victoria around her waist with his good hand and pulled her to him until she straddled his cock. “No more teasing,” he said, his voice gravelly. “This is mine.”
Her breath caught when she took him inside her, and Jason latched on to the hard bud of her nipple. It wasn’t enough to be inside her. He wanted to consume her. He suckled at her breast, and she quickened her pace on his cock.
Moving up her body, he kissed her neck and breathed in her orange-vanilla lotion—a smell that was everywhere these days. In his bathroom. On his clothes. A constant and arousing reminder of her presence.
With his bandaged arm at the small of her back, he squeezed her hip with his good hand and guided her into a furious rhythm. To prevent himself from voicing his possessive thoughts, he took her mouth with his.
You’re mine. With every thrust of her pelvis, his body screamed, Mine. Mine. Mine.
Knowing he couldn’t hold out much longer, he reached his thumb between them and massaged her slick center. She cried out and rode him harder, her body tightening around his, her ecstasy pulling forth his violent climax.
He struggled to catch his breath, and in the sweet aftermath of their release, her movements slowed, but the refrain in his head continued. Mine…Mine…Mine.
*
“I think you should know that you’re really bad at this.” Smiling, Victoria lay on her side next to Jason and massaged his scalp with her fingers.
“Bad at what?” he asked.
“Relaxing.”
“What are you talking about? I’m not doing anything. I’m just laying here.”
“You’re tense. Even your scalp feels tense.”
“How can a scalp be tense?”
“I don’t know, but yours is. You’re thinking too hard.”
Smiling, he asked, “And how do you know I’m thinking too hard?”
“I just do. You can’t stop thinking about the case, can you?”
He sighed. “No, I can’t.” He unfolded his arm from under his head and put it around Victoria. She curled into him, resting her head on chest. “I can’t help thinking he’s spelled it out for me, and I’m just not seeing it.”
“It’s like a riddle. If he gives you all the clues and you don’t get it, then he proves he’s smarter than you.”
“Exactly.”
She tilted her face up to his. “He’s not smarter than you.”
“How do you know?”
“I just do.”
“Your blind faith is flattering, but I’m not so sure.”
The arm around her remained tense.
“It’s driving you nuts to lay here with me now when all your research is downstairs, isn’t it?”
His chest rumbled with a surprised chuckle under her cheek. “Little bit, yeah.”
She sighed dramatically. “All right, I suppose this ends our post-coitus bliss. Go forth and do whatever it is you arson investigators do.”
She laughed when he sprang up from the bed like a kid who’d just been let out for recess.
He pulled his boxers on one-handed. “I’m sorry,” he said, smiling sheepishly. “I know I’m no fun, but September twenty-seventh is just days away.”
“I know. It’s okay.” She finished pulling on her panties and slid her t-shirt over her head. “I can hardly be mad at you for being tenacious when it’s one of the reasons I love you.”
Jason froze. His t-shirt was only halfway on, leaving his torso exposed until he snapped out of it and pulled it the rest of the way down.
“I mean…” Shit. Shit. Shit. Too soon, Victoria. Too damn soon. “I meant one of the things I love about you. Because I love things…about you…I’m not saying I love you.”
“Right.” The panic in his voice was palpable as he pulled his shorts on. “It’s too soon. You can’t know something like that so quickly.”
Except that she did.
“Jason, listen.” Unwilling to have this conversation pantsless, she quickly pulled her running shorts back on. “The thing is…I do know.”
She wasn’t going to back down because it made him uncomfortable. Her fate had been sealed the moment the words came out of her mouth. She’d ended their friends-with-benefits relationship the second she’d said I love you. So, she could either let him push her away now, or she could stay and fight for the real relationship she knew was possible.
Even if he didn’t.
“I didn’t misspeak just then. I love you. I am in love with you.”
“No.” Shaking his head, he let out a humorless laugh. “No. You can’t be. It’s…infatuation…the sex…it’s really great…and you think you’re in love with me, but you’re not.”
“I am.” It was strange how the more agitated he became, the more calm she felt.
“But how can you be sure? How can you know?”
She laughed and repeated the words she’d been saying all night. “I just do.”
“But…” He sank back on the edge of his dresser. “You don’t know everything…about me. You could change your mind.”
“I won’t change my mind.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Okay, then tell me everything. Tell me all the things about you that I’m not going to like. And I’ll let you know if I want to take back my I-love-you.”
Looking down at the floor, he shook his head and said nothing.
“Want me to go first? I sometimes snort when I laugh. And I hate doing laundry, so much so that I’ve been known to buy new underwear before I bother with it. Which is pathetic since I’m lucky enough to have a washing machine in my apartment. Which brings me to my next flaw. I’m sometimes seriously lazy about housework—”
“Victoria.”
“What? Now, you know. Are any of those deal breakers for you?”
/> “This isn’t a game.”
“No, you’re right. It’s not.” She waited until he raised his gaze to hers. “It’s not a game, Jason. It’s my heart. Don’t hand it back to me when I try to give it to you.”
He winced and looked away. “Victoria, don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
He pinched the bridge of his nose with his good hand and closed his eyes, shutting her out.
“You think I’ll change my mind about you, huh?”
“I know you will!” He dropped his hand from his face and looked her directly in the eyes. “You have no idea, Victoria. No idea what kind of person I am.”
“Don’t I? Well, let me tell you what kind of person I think you are, and you tell me if I’m wrong. I know you’re the type of person who can’t stand to see people hurting. I know you’re the kind of person who would kiss a bridesmaid in a courtyard to spare her ridicule from some small-minded people—”
“That’s not the only reason I kissed you. I wanted you. Plain and simple.”
She almost smiled. If he thought that made him less desirable in her eyes, he was mistaken. She’d much rather have been desired than pitied. “I also know you’re the kind of person who fights for what you know is right. Like when that reporter accused me of incompetence.”
“That was nothing.”
“Not to me. It wasn’t nothing to me. And I know you’re the kind of person who protects the people you care about. Like when you decked Flaherty—”
“Don’t put me on a fucking pedestal for that. I was way out of line.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. But the fact is, you did the wrong thing for the right reasons.” More softly, she added, “You’re a good person, Jason.”
“Victoria, just stop.” He started pacing the small expanse of carpet between his dresser and the bed. “You do this with everyone. You always see the best in people. But you need to see the reality.”
“And what’s the reality?”
“The reality? The reality is that you see that painting—” He stopped pacing and pointed at the butterflies still hanging over his bed. “—and you see survivor butterflies. You see butterflies rising up from the flames. You want to know what I see? I see a bunch of moths about to fly to their deaths, because they’re too stupid to realize the light they’re attracted to is exactly what’s going to burn them the fuck up.”
“I see,” she said softly.
He nodded. “Good.” Sighing, he gentled his tone. “On some level you must’ve already known that someone as bright and optimistic and full of hope as you would just get pulled down by someone like me.”
“You’re right. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
Nodding again, he sat back on the edge of the dresser and crossed his arms.
Obviously, he wasn’t picking up on her sarcasm. She laid it on a little thicker. “I don’t know how I ever thought I could be with a man who didn’t share my interpretation of a mediocre piece of abstract fucking art. I guess we’re lucky to have this Rorschach test for our relationship to let us know that we are not simpatico. Totally incompatible. Not gonna work. Wouldn’t be prudent at this juncture—”
“Okay, obviously, you’re not taking this conversation seriously—”
“Oh, don’t you dare.” Blood beginning to pump furiously, her previous calm disintegrated. “Don’t you dare take that mature, high-road tone of voice with me. If I’m not taking this conversation seriously, it’s because you’re not throwing anything out here except for bullshit excuses.”
Pulse thundering in her ears, she took a breath to calm herself and sat down on the bed, putting her head in her hands for a moment. She needed to think. She needed to get straight to the root of this issue and attack.
She needed to throw Preston under the bus.
Sorry, Preston. Let’s hope it’s worth it.
“I’m not like the other women in your life, Jason.” She raised her head from her hands, speaking more calmly now. “I won’t use you. I won’t say I love you and then send you away. I won’t change my mind about you.”
Color draining from his face, he whispered hoarsely, “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Preston told me about your mother. He told me about the night his father found yo—”
“No. He had no right to tell you that.”
“And he told me about how his mother changed her mind after his father died, after she’d told you she loved you.”
“This is bullshit. You think because you know some things about my past that now you know it all? You don’t know shit.”
Sinuses burning, Victoria beat back a wave of emotion. And not because he was speaking to her harshly. He could swear at her all he liked, but seeing the pain in his eyes, hearing the hurt, humiliation, and heartache in his voice? It killed her.
“You want to know what’s fucked up?” he asked, walking away from her and staring out his bedroom window. “I actually wanted to thank her sometimes. I wanted to thank her for drugging me out of my mind before she sold me to the men who brought her drugs.”
“Oh, Jason.” She wanted to go to him, but she wrapped her arms around her twisting stomach instead, knowing he wouldn’t accept her comfort right now.
“At least I didn’t remember it, right? I mean, maybe that was her sick twisted way of protecting me. So stupid. So fucking stupid how bad I wanted to believe she loved me.”
Biting her lip, Victoria tried to remain calm. Jason had gone someplace else, staring out the window and talking like he was talking to himself. She couldn’t let her crying bring him out of this trance. He needed to tell his story.
And she needed to hear it.
“When I was seven, I woke up one morning with a headache and a pain in a place that didn’t make any sense to me. I couldn’t remember anything from the night before, and my mother was high as a kite. Not that I knew that at the time. I just thought, Oh, here’s nice, happy mommy again.”
Bracing his good hand on the wall and still looking out the window, Jason continued his trancelike confessional. “She used to tell me I was such a good boy. That I deserved a treat. Chocolate cake for dinner. Sometimes it was Ho Hos or Twinkies. All laced with a little something extra to knock me out. I didn’t really understand what was happening to me during those blackouts…Not until the day I walked in on her and one of her johns and saw him going at her from behind.”
Waves of nausea rolled through Victoria’s stomach and she hugged her middle tighter. She’d give her last breath if it meant she could go back in time and undo all the wrongs that had been done to him.
“I finally understood,” he said, his voice frighteningly monotone. “I just knew. I knew what must’ve been happening during those long blackouts. And I ran away.”
Pressing her fingertips to her lips, Victoria stopped herself from speaking her thoughts out loud, still worried that any sound from her would break the truth-telling spell he was under. But someday she’d tell him how resilient he was. How brave he was to face the world on his own.
“The night Luke and his partner McCann got me out of there for good was the night my mother had a customer who didn’t care for complacent little boys. Nah, he wanted them to fight. And that’s when I knew. I knew that every time she said she loved me, it was a goddamn lie. A lie she told to get what she wanted. She gave me the drugs to make it easier on her, not me. And when someone wanted me awake, she was more than happy to make that happen.”
“Jason…” She cleared her throat and tried again to push words past the burning in her windpipe. “I’m so sorry…”
“Yeah, well. Now you know.” He turned away from the window and leaned back on the wall, but still didn’t look at her. “When most kids were getting back-to-school check-ups, Luke was taking me to get tested for AIDS and Hepatitis—I’m clean by the way, so don’t worry about that.”
“I wasn’t worried about that. I know you’d never put me at risk.”
Arms crossed over his chest,
gaze glued to the floor, Jason remained silent.
“I’m so sorry you went through all of that. You didn’t deserve it. You…” Words failed her. What could she possibly say? She’d never fully comprehend the horrors he’d faced. All she could tell him was her truth. “Did you think telling me this would change things for me?”
He didn’t move a muscle. Didn’t look at her. Didn’t say a word. Not even a grunt.
“Because it did, Jason. Before you told me this, I didn’t think I could love you any more than I already did. But now that I know…”
She might have thought he was a statue, if not for the muscle ticking in his jaw.
“Now that I know…I realize there’s so much more about you to love. Your strength—”
“Please, just stop,” he said, his voice rough. “Every time you look at me now, this is what you’re going to think about. This ugliness. I don’t want that.”
“That’s not true. Do you think about me as a traumatized veteran every time you look at me?”
“No, but it’s not the same.”
“How is it not the same?”
“You weren’t weak. It wasn’t your…”
“Wasn’t my what? My fault?”
He didn’t confirm her guess, probably because he knew it sounded ridiculous. But that didn’t mean he didn’t still believe it deep down.
“Oh, Jason. It wasn’t your fault either. Something awful happened to you, but it doesn’t define you. It’s not who you are. It’s not what I see when I look at you.”
“Then what do you see?” He finally brought his blue eyes up to hers, his gaze boring into her, as if he was prepared to read her reaction for any trace of dishonesty.
“What do I see?” she asked, meeting his scrutiny. “Just the man I love.”
He sucked in a breath and turned back to the window.
Unable to read his expression, Victoria sat frozen on the bed. An uncomfortable space of time passed in silence, and with each second, the burning in her eyes grew stronger. She was losing this fight.
Finally, he cleared his throat. “I think you should go.”
The tears fell. Silently and fast, they fell down her cheeks and rolled down her neck, but she kept her composure as best she could, holding back the sobs and answering him in a calm, controlled voice. “No. I won’t leave you. I won’t be the one to walk out on us.”
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