I dragged my hand through my hair and pulled at the roots. Fuck, it felt ten kinds of wrong to be telling Sophie any of this. I should just give her gist of things so she stopped asking. That way I could show her I trusted her with my past without hurting her in the process.
“Anyway,” I said, leaving out a good chunk of the specifics, “I told her she didn’t have to do anything she didn’t want to. I was disappointed since a blow job was pretty tame compared to some of the shit she’d been saying, but I wasn’t going to force her or anything. I’m not sure how it happened, but suddenly she started jerking me off. Figuring I’d misread her reaction, I told her to lick my cock and … she didn’t like it. I should have stopped everything right then, but she begged me to fuck her … so … so I did.”
Natasha had actually demanded I fuck her like “the bad little girl that she was,” but Sophie didn’t need to know that. Honestly, she didn’t need to know any of this.
“Shit, Soph. I’m done. This is done. You don’t want to hear this.”
“No, it’s okay. I do. Go on.”
“Why?”
I had to know why it was so important that I tell her about Natasha. Because if I were in Sophie’s shoes right now, I don’t know that I could handle hearing about her fucking another guy ten ways to Sunday. Shit, I’d barely made it through her telling me about Stephen and that had been rated PG.
“I think … I don’t …” She exhaled, long and slow. “The truth is, you have some hang-ups about it that I don’t want coming between us. So if we talk about it—get everything out in the open—maybe we can lay them to rest.”
Every time I thought to myself this girl can’t get any more perfect, Sophie went and said or did something that proved me wrong. I did have hang-ups about sex, thoughts and feelings that made me ashamed about who I was, that forced me to hold back from what I wanted, what I craved. That she was willing to take this on—take me on—was mind-boggling. She could do so much better than me.
“Are you sure?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said, swallowing loudly. “I’m sure.”
“I need you to know I hate this. I hate saying these words. I hate having you picture me with another woman.”
“I’m a big girl, Declan. I can handle it.”
“Damn it Sophie, you shouldn’t have to.”
“And you shouldn’t have to carry this burden by yourself. You need someone to talk to. Let me be your safe place.”
I wanted Sophie to be my safe place, like I wanted to be hers.
“Okay,” I answered, gathering my thoughts and trying to piece them back together. “So, taking her request as … permission, I ehm … moved things along. After awhile she told me to spank her and I did, but then she demanded I do it harder and harder … until my hand was sore. You’ve seen my hands, Soph, you know what they can do.”
I snorted with disgust. My hands were strong and rough, covered in callouses and scars. It took a lot to bring me pain.
On a ragged sigh, I continued, baring my shame to this woman. “But it felt good too, not having to hold back. That’s one of the things that haunts me the most. That when I was obviously hurting her … I … I enjoyed myself. I enjoyed the pain I gave both of us.”
I dropped my head forward and closed my eyes. There was a heavy silence between us that I hoped didn’t mean I’d scared Sophie off. She knew how I liked things, but I’d never wanted her to know that at first I’d gotten off on Natasha’s need to be punished.
“She asked you to Declan. You said it yourself, you didn’t force her to do anything she didn’t want.”
For several silent seconds, I pictured that night all over again—the things that happened next—and my tension mounted.
“After that things went bad,” I admitted on a strangled whisper.
“How so?” There was no censure in her voice, just a desire for me to unburden myself.
“She told me to fuck her as hard as I could, said she needed to feel like she was going to break. She asked me to hurt her, really hurt her,” I choked out.
Sophie gasped. “What … how … ?” She couldn’t even get the question out.
“Fuck Soph,” I groaned. “Her eyes were so dead and hollow. It was fucking eerie. I jumped off the bed, nearly puking all over her rug. I pulled on my suit and got the fuck out of there. I ran—literally ran from her place. When I stopped to catch my breath, that’s when I did puke.”
“Oh god, Dec, I’m sorry. That’s terrible, but it’s not your fault.”
“It gets worse,” I confided, a sick thread of unease unfurling in my gut.
“It’s okay. You can tell me.”
And the thing was, I knew it was true. I could tell this woman anything and she wouldn’t judge me. She might not love me yet—not how I loved her—but she cared about me and would take on my troubles as her own.
“I saw her a few weeks later and she had bruises all over her neck and arms. When she caught me staring, she smiled this crazy, unnerving smile. I swear I nearly pissed myself.”
“What was wrong with that woman?” Sophie asked.
“That’s what I wanted to know too. At the end of the night, she approached me and asked if she could explain herself. I said yes, even as I wondered if I really wanted to know. That’s when she told me pain and humiliation were what she wanted—what she needed—to feel whole.
“Trailing my fingers over the bruises on her arm, I asked her why she let people hurt her like that. She shook her head sadly and told me she’d singled me out because she thought I needed the pain too, that we could help each other.”
I choked back a sob, startled to find I had tears in my eyes.
“Her words fucked me up Sophie. I didn’t want to be like her, to need the same things she needed. The idea of being that way repulsed me, but the longer I obsessed about what she’d said, the more I recognized there was some truth there too. I tried to convince myself I wasn’t some sick, twisted motherfucker who hated women, but I couldn’t deny sex was more fulfilling when a little pain mixed with my pleasure. I’d embraced that part of me, so why was I fighting the darker, more sinister part?”
I actually had a theory about why I liked it rough, but it didn’t explain the high I got when others hurt too. Every day I took my body to the height of exertion, punished it the way only a rugby player could. I’d gone so many years hurting that I worried it had deadened me, both mentally and physically. On the pitch, if I broke my finger, I kept playing. If I took an elbow or ten to the stomach, I pushed the searing pain away, stood up, and kept on going. When your kneecap felt like it was going to fall off, you checked to make sure it was still attached and then you kicked the motherfucking ball. And now, in order to get off I needed something … more … to show me I was alive and strong and that my body still worked. My pain, hers, ours. It didn’t matter. As long as the fucking wasn’t soft or sweet, that’s what I craved.
“The worst of it is,” I continued, “until you came along, I’d cut myself off from all the other good parts about sex. That’s what I was talking about back at the hotel. All that, ‘I don’t do this’ stuff. Because usually, that’s not the way it goes for me. Get in, get off, get out.” I laughed humorlessly. “Do you know they talk about me? They call me ‘The Machine.’ At first it was this big joke, but then some girl told me why they called me that and even though it made me sick to know that’s what people thought of me, I couldn’t stop the way I was.”
I heard Sophie swallow and then gear up to say something. When the words didn’t come, I said, “Tell me, please. I can hear you thinking.”
“It’s the eyes thing, isn’t it?”
She knew me. This woman got me on a level I hadn’t been prepared for. I’d once thought I knew Sophie better than she knew herself. Now I wondered if the reverse wasn’t also the same.
“Yes.”
“I thought so,” she murmured. “That first time, you disconnected from me. It felt like you went somewhere else.”
&
nbsp; “I had to,” I admitted, humiliation churning in my gut. “I can’t … I couldn’t …”
“It’s okay Declan. You don’t have to explain yourself.”
“But I do,” I answered emphatically. “What I told you afterward was true. It was too intense, my feelings too much. But there was more. I can’t—physically can’t—look a woman in the eye when I fuck her. Not anymore.”
“That’s not true,” she argued, but I kept on as if she hadn’t spoken. Now that the words were flowing, I needed to get them off my chest.
“I tell myself it’s because I don’t want to see what might be lurking behind the facade, but I think it’s because I don’t want to see them looking back at me with the same mixture of horror and disgust that must have been on my face when I was with Natasha.”
It was the first time I’d ever said the words out loud, and now that they’d been spoken, I felt a measure of … not exactly peace, but something like it, settle over me. I’d given voice to my fears and maybe now could stop holding so tight to them.
“But you can look a woman in the eye,” Sophie argued gently. “You’ve done it with me.”
I had. And each and every time I’d warred with myself not to turn away, not to give in to those fears. But with Sophie it was different too. Because it wasn’t that I was actually afraid. The fear was instinctual, a holdover from how I’d been before. When I was with her, the only fear I felt now was that I’d have to give her up someday soon.
“Things are different with you,” I admitted. “It’s not the same when I’m inside of you.”
“Why’s that?” she asked, her voice quiet.
I couldn’t bring myself to say it, to give her the words, so instead I said, “You know why.
Chapter Thirty
Sophie
I was nervous to meet Declan’s friends, even though he assured me I had no reason to be. When I pointed out the hideous sweater I was wearing—complete with blinking red lights suspiciously close to my nipples—was reason enough, he’d laughed and pointed to his own ridiculous sweater—what he called a jumper—complete with a snowman whose carrot stuck out from the material and … rearranged.
“I still can’t believe I let you talk me into this,” I groaned as we waited to be buzzed into a large apartment complex overlooking the team’s training grounds.
Declan wrapped his arm around me and pulled me into his side. Settling against him to absorb his warmth, I felt his laughter vibrate through me. “Relax, it’ll be fine.”
I was being silly, I knew that, but I didn’t love the idea of meeting his friends for the first time wearing an ugly Christmas jumper that drew so much attention to my boobs.
“Besides,” he added, “everyone else will be kitted out just as bad, if not worse. I’m really hoping Aidan shows up as naked Santa Claus.” He rubbed his hands together excitedly, before his face broke out in a sudden scowl, “Just so long as he doesn’t try to get you sit on his lap.”
“Naked Santa?” I asked. I was pretty sure the whole red suit was an essential part of Santa’s get up.
“Well, not entirely naked,” he explained. “He starts off wearing the hat, beard, trousers, and boots. Never the jacket though; gotta show off all those lovely abs.” He ran his hand over his own chiseled six pack. “Two years ago he ended up ditching the trousers sometime close to midnight and Naked Santa was born.”
“Wait,” I exclaimed. “He just walked around the party in his birthday suit all night?”
“No,” he answered. “Thankfully he kept his skivvies on. Red boxer briefs, of course. He won’t admit it, but I’m pretty sure he planned the whole thing.”
I shook my head. Some boys never grew up.
Just then the door opened and three women wearing sexy elf costumes stumbled out in a cacophony of perfume and laughter.
“See, what did I say?” Declan pointed at the retreating group before putting his hand out to prevent the door from closing shut.
“Shouldn’t we wait to be buzzed up?” I asked, looking for any excuse to prolong the inevitable.
Declan squeezed my hand. “I told you, it’s okay.”
“I dunno,” I answered. “I’m not sure I’d like strange people walking into my supposedly secure building willy-nilly.”
“If it makes you feel any better, I’m pretty sure I still have my key somewhere.”
“It doesn’t,” I groaned.
The truth was the ugly sweater I had on was just an excuse. I’d worn much worse to parties before and lived to tell the tale. The problem was bringing a date to a holiday party wasn’t part of Declan’s normal repertoire … nor were girlfriends. That I was the first woman he’d introduce to anyone as such since he’d been 18 wasn’t to be taken lightly. I was excited at the prospect of meeting Declan’s closest friends—really, I was—but I was nervous as hell too. Especially given the setting. One on one I could do; but me against the scrutiny of his whole team? That was a whole other ball of wax.
He’d assured me “the lads” promised to go easy on me, but who really knew what that meant? I could handle some light ribbing—heck, I might even dish some of it out myself—but I dreaded the idea of people who maybe weren’t so close with him mentioning his many previous conquests all night. I liked to think I was doing an admirable job of pretending they didn’t bother me, but I didn’t think I’d be able to remain quite so chill about it if others made a big deal about them.
“Declan!” the room erupted in a cheer when we stepped through the door and people surrounded us from every direction, patting him on the back and shaking his hand. He’d told me this was supposed to be a small party—just close friends—but there were easily over 100 people milling about the large penthouse apartment.
Grabbing a bottle of beer from a passing waitress, Declan cleared his throat. “Everyone, this is Sophie. Sophie, this is everyone.”
“Hey Sophie!” everyone called out in unison.
I waved. “Hi guys,” I answered, ready to make small talk, but everyone had already gone back to their conversations.
I was surprised by their lack of reaction to my presence. I’d geared myself up for more … shock or something, I guess. But this wasn’t shock. It wasn’t even much of a reaction at all. I didn’t know whether to be relieved or feel snubbed. I didn’t consider myself a vain person, but the complete lack of warmth I’d been greeted with came off as uninterested and, quite frankly, rude.
When another waitress sailed past with a tray full of champagne cocktails, I helped myself to a drink as well. In the few seconds I’d turned away from Declan, a guy who might have legitimately been seven feet tall had engaged him in conversation. With Lurch’s hand on Declan’s shoulder, the giant leaned forward so as not to be overheard.
I didn’t need Declan to hold my hand the entire party—either literally or figuratively—but I was a bit put out that he’d left me to fend for myself so quickly. I was used to being a stranger in a room full of other strangers and having to make friends quickly, but I’d expected a bit more from him. Especially since everyone here seemed to already know everyone else.
As if sensing my thoughts, Declan slid his eyes my way and smiled. Stretching his hand out for me to take, he mouthed, “Come here.”
When I placed my hand in his, Declan pulled me close and introduced me to the behemoth at his side. “Sophie, I’d like you to meet Sean. He plays lock.”
“Nice to meet you, Sophie.”
In preparation for the party, I’d spent the morning studying Declan’s teammates and the positions they played. “Ah, the guy who goes for all the line outs,” I answered, extending my hand. “Nice to meet you too, Sean.”
“Ah, a lass who knows her rugby,” he answered and Declan snorted.
“I think you’ve just taxed the extent of her knowledge,” he answered good-naturedly and I pinched him.
“Shut it. I’ve been studying,” I admitted.
“Have you now?” he asked, his voice dropping a few sexy octaves.
It was obvious Declan was delighted I’d made an effort to learn more about his sport. I figured since it was important to him—and Declan was increasingly important to me—taking the time to learn the basics was a worthwhile investment.
“Yes,” I replied. “And I’m guessing that lot over there—” I pointed to three men best described as human tanks “—are your props.”
Declan and Sean’s eyes followed my hand and Sean chuckled, a deep rumbling sound. “Speaking of props,” he said, “that lightweight Mick needs someone to hold him up. Nice to meet you Sophie,” he repeated and walked away.
When he was gone, Declan kissed me, slow and deep. “Thank you,” he whispered in my ear.
“For what?”
“For showing an interest in what I do. It means a lot.”
I shrugged noncommittally. “I figured with all the matches we air at Fitzgerald’s it’d be more pleasant knowing what was happening and why everyone was screaming and cheering.”
His eyes flicked between mine. “Really, I mean it. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. Rugby’s important to you and you’re important to me, so …”
For the next hour, Declan introduced me to his closest friends on the team and their wives and girlfriends. Some of the women were nice and friendly, while others were … not so nice and friendly.
“Ignore her,” a woman named Claire whispered as she sidled up next to me with a glass of cider in one hand and one of those vaping sticks in the other. When she saw me eyeing it, she laughed. “Disgusting habit, I know, but it’s supposed to be better than the pack of cigarettes a day I used to smoke. I’m trying to wean myself off nicotine entirely and social vaping is my last concession to the party girl I used to be.”
“Good luck to you then,” I said. Then, eyeing the leggy red head across the room shooting daggers my way, I leaned close to Claire and asked, “What’s her problem anyway.”
Trying Sophie: A Dublin Rugby Romance Page 28