When We Met

by A. L. Jackson

  His words nearly tore me apart.

  I wanted that so badly, to really mean something to someone.

  He’d just reflected it back.

  And the truth was, I wanted to mean something to him.

  “I’m scared,” I admitted, stretching out a shaky hand and tracing the lines of his face. I trembled doing it, disbelief radiating to my bones that I was touching him. That he was here. And he wanted me.

  “I can’t just jump into something with you, Darryn. I don’t even know you . . . a-a-and . . . and . . . I’ve been . . .” I paused, looked to the wall as I chewed at my lip and the red flushed hot. Maybe one day, as my trust grew, as he showed me what was happening between us was real, I’d tell him. Tell him everything. He needed to know. But for now, I settled on what I could bear. “I’ve been hurt.” I cast it from my mouth like a dirty confession.

  A soft sigh filtered from his mouth, and he lifted himself up higher on his knees, bringing us level, nose-to-nose and face-to-face. He smiled slow. “We don’t have to rush, Misha, but we can’t ignore this, either. Just tell me . . . tell me you’re mine. That you want to be. Be my girl . . . and I’ll be satisfied to take whatever comes along with that.”

  I didn’t mean to cry, but I couldn’t stop the wetness that gathered in my eyes and streaked like a deluge of relief down my face. I’d cried so much these last months, but this was just a rush of emotion, all this sweet joy that was mixed up with all my fear.

  I nodded through a soggy smile. “I want to be,” I whispered breathlessly.

  God, I wanted to be.

  His.

  Satisfaction danced all over his beautiful face, before Darryn branded me with a searing, close-mouthed kiss.

  It stole my breath.

  He chuckled a little, pecked my lips again and ran his fingers through my hair. “You are perfect.”

  “Hardly.” But I couldn’t help but smile, and that smile only grew as he slowly rose, crawling over me and onto my bed, taking me with him.

  Laying us down, he tucked me into his side. The warm breath from his mouth seeped out at my temple when he exhaled and splayed his big hand wide across my belly.

  Those butterflies swayed in a lazy dance.

  Never in my life had I felt so secure.

  “Tell me about where you went tonight,” he said, nudging the side of my face with his nose.

  I frowned, but really, I already knew. He’d been there. I’d thought I felt him following me, but I could never catch a glimpse of him among the roiling throng of bodies that had flocked along the busy sidewalk during rush hour.

  I should have been angry. Offended that he would be so bold as to follow me.

  But again, it made me feel special. Like I meant something to him, the way he wanted to mean something to me. And he did. God, he did. That scared me, too.

  “I—I—I . . .”

  He gave me a squeeze of reassurance. “Hey, it’s okay. You can trust me.”

  I swallowed and found my voice, but I had to press my face into his chest to make the words form, and even when they did, they were barely more than a breath. “Have you . . . did you notice I sometimes stutter?”

  He hooked his finger under my chin and pulled my face up, forcing me to look at him. A quirk of his brow told me he had indeed. “Yeah, and it’s really fucking cute.”

  Sadness shook my head, because I knew he really didn’t understand. “It’s not cute, Darryn.” I licked my lips. “For years my parents tried to have a baby. They’d given up, and then there was me. They were older when they finally had me, and of course they became super protective. When I was four, my mom had to go back to work, but they didn’t want to put me in day care. They thought the best solution would be for me to stay with our neighbor next door, a woman they’d known for several years.”

  When my voice got choppy, Darryn pulled me closer, like he knew I was having a difficult time getting this out.

  “They wanted me close to home, where my mom knew I was safe. But I wasn’t safe,” I whispered, the words sounding like my darkest secret.

  Gentle fingers brushed up and down my arms, silently encouraging me to go on.

  “I really don’t remember everything that happened. . . . I just see these little blips . . . pictures that flash through my mind that are hazy and unclear. The woman . . . sh-sh-she was just . . . cruel-hearted. She liked it when I was scared and when I’d cry. She’d make me sit in the dark closet all day and when I’d cry she’d smack me around. What I remember best is the anxiety I felt every time my mom dropped me off at her house. And how she threatened me not to tell my mom and dad.”

  Darryn pulled back, leaving a fraction of space between us as we lay on our sides. He just stared across at me, everything in his gaze protective. “I’m not sure I want to hear this story,” he admitted, sadness coloring his tone, though he smiled a sympathetic smile. He brushed his thumb along my jaw. “But I need to . . . just don’t blame me if I run out your door and have to kick someone’s ass.”

  I laughed quietly, a sound that I hoped somehow told him that I was okay, that this woman hadn’t scarred my heart even if she had scarred something in the deepest recesses of my mind. “N-n-no . . . my parents already took care of that. It didn’t take long for them to realize what was going on in that woman’s house because I started acting so differently. But that was the problem . . . I just . . . stopped talking.”

  Lines creased Darryn’s brow as his eyes narrowed, like he was slowly catching on.

  “The therapist said it was because of the trauma and s-s-something was triggered in my brain that wouldn’t allow me t-t-to talk.” Attempting a joke, I lightened my voice, hating that my tongue was so tied. “Guess her threats to hurt me if I told worked just fine. Apparently if you get annoyed with my voice, you can smack me around a little bit and I’ll shut right up.”

  Darryn just frowned. “Not funny,” he scolded.

  Okay, so maybe not, but I hated the thought of this boy who’d chased me down as if I was something special, something he couldn’t be without, instead looking at me with pity.

  “M-my parents . . . they got me into therapy, both to help with my emotional trauma and to help me to begin to talk. But once I started talking again, I stuttered. Badly.” I shrugged, embarrassed but somehow still at ease with baring myself to him. “In some ways, the worst part was watching my parents worry about me. They loved me so much.”

  Softness pulled at his lips. “How could they not?”

  Palpitations rocked my heart. This boy-man-god and his glorious body had even sweeter words, words that teased me with what sounded like a promise. I was done for.

  I pressed my hand flat to his chest, just because I wanted to feel him, to connect, because I was intent on finishing my story. At least the part I could tell him. “I . . . I think they felt so guilty over what happened to me, they overreacted. They pulled me out of public school and my mom homeschooled me. I grew so comfortable in the shelter of my parents’ house with no other kids around, I got to the point where I was afraid to leave it. The truth is, I never really learned how to function comfortably in public situations. I learned to control my stuttering for the most part, unless I’m excited or nervous. But still, I stayed under my parents’ protective wings, until I came here for college.”

  He kissed my forehead, and I snuggled farther into him, resting my head in the crook of his arm. “It was a big deal for me to come to Michigan. My parents were terrified they wouldn’t be close to keep an eye on me. But I knew I had to make a change or I’d always be dependent on them. The first year here, I barely spoke to anyone, just watched and observed and went to my classes, but my confidence slowly grew. Then when I moved in here, Indy became my first real friend. It’s been so good for me.”

  Remorse left me with a heavy sigh. “But that doesn’t mean I haven’t let people take advantage of me. I always see the best in people. T-trust them when they don’t deserve it. That’s why I’m scared,” I emphasized, twin
ing our fingers together with our free hands, praying he could understand where all my reservations stemmed from.

  Because I hadn’t had a bad life. I’d just had circumstances that made me different.

  “And the center today?” he asked, lifting our hands up between us, studying the contrast of our skin in the dim light of my room, mine almost white against his golden tan.

  A wide smile took over my face. “Those are my kids . . . they all have hearing or speech disorders of one kind or another. It’s a support group I run . . . more fun for them than anything, a safe place where they all feel they belong. But it’s my internship, too, part of my schoolwork for my degree.”

  “Your degree?”

  “Speech pathologist,” I said, almost shy. “For children. I just want to help them. . . . I overcame so much when I was little, and some really wonderful people helped me. Now I want to help other kids the same way.” I drew my shoulder up to my ear in a self-conscious shrug. “It fits, don’t you think?”

  A low chuckle rumbled up his chest, and he kissed the back of my hand, our fingers still twisted together. “Yeah, it definitely fits.” The intense emotion in his hazel eyes deepened, flashed with something I didn’t quite recognize, almost a blend of anger and devotion. “It all makes sense now.”

  Darryn pushed his weight to one of his hands, moving over me. Slowly I rolled onto my back, led by his motion, that strong chest hovering over me with his body still off to my side. My nerve endings ratcheted up, all those darts of energy rapid-firing across my skin as his eyes changed and everything between us became charged, heightened to a level I’d never experienced. One that had me trembling below him.

  He touched my face. “You’re amazing, Misha.”

  Heat blazed up my throat, and Darryn dipped down, pressing his mouth to the oversensitive skin. He trailed kisses up and down along the hollow of my neck, up to beneath my ear.

  I whimpered, and he brought his mouth to mine, shifting his weight over me, his knee wedged between my thighs. “Is this okay?” he asked, leaning back to run his hands down my sides.

  “Yes.”

  He continued his assault, kissing every exposed inch of skin on my chest and shoulders, moving to my face, trailing sweet kisses over my closed lids. He ran his nose down between the swell of my breasts exposed over the top of my tank.

  “And this?” he whispered, almost urgently—almost as urgently as the need stampeding through my veins. “Tell me when to stop, because I don’t know if I can trust myself not to push you too far. You have no idea how badly I want you.”

  And the crazy thing was I didn’t want him to stop, but I needed him to. I pulled back, tipping my head to force him to look at me. All that shyness came rushing to my face, flaming with the fire he’d set inside me. I blinked, murmuring my plea. “Just . . . respect me . . . Be patient with me.” My tongue darted out to my lips. “Above all, be honest with me.”

  He hefted the air from his lungs, and again I was slammed with all that was Darryn—all soap and sex and man.

  He pulled back and settled down at my side. And right there, in that one action, he earned a huge piece of my trust. Because he did know when to stop. He could have continued, and I would have let him. But he didn’t.

  He pulled me into the sanctuary of his arms, right up against his beating heart. “I’ll take care of you, Misha,” he said. The words sounded like the most solemn of promises.

  Maybe my boy-man-god really was my avenging angel. Darryn the Destroyer. Sent to rescue me. To slay all the beasts that had held me captive.

  I guess I really wanted a fairy tale, after all.

  chapter ten

  Misha

  “Oh my gosh . . . stop!” I pled. Breathless giggles built up in my belly and rolled through my entire body before they spilled from my mouth.

  My cries only encouraged Darryn. Hazel eyes gleamed with all that mischief, and his deft fingers made another assault on my sides, tickling my ribs. It might have hurt if being near him didn’t feel so good.

  I flailed and kicked my legs, howling with laughter as I twisted and turned and tried to pull myself out of his reach.

  Darryn only leaned in farther, pinning my back to the small table in the nook of his kitchen. “You asked for it.”

  “You’re going to make me pee my pants,” I yelped, thinking that just might do the trick considering that our bodies were in a very compromised position, his overpowering mine as I struggled under him.

  No such luck.

  “Really?” he dared, leaning in a little farther, digging in a little deeper. “Come on, let’s see it, Misha.” His smell enveloped me like a big, huge hug. A hug that came with an overwhelming surge of desire. Because who could blame me?

  This boy-man-god was mine.

  He’d been mine for more than a month.

  Was it wrong it’d been the single best month of my life?

  Darryn pulled back a fraction, just enough to allow me to drag a gulping breath into my lungs. Even though he had me at his mercy, there was so much softness in his eyes, so much restraint in his hands, so much goodness in his heart, I knew he’d never hurt me. There was no mistaking it.

  He pushed back and dragged the hem of my shirt up, exposing my stomach. His mouth went for my side, tickling me in a whole new way as he suckled at my skin.

  I squealed, my hips doing their best to buck Darryn from me, but there was nothing I could do to stop him from leaving his mark.

  He pulled back and glanced up at me with a smirk before he turned back to his handiwork. “Perfect,” he said, rubbing his thumb over the flaming skin that he’d exposed just above my hip.

  I wondered if it could possibly be as red as my face.

  So yeah, he was still a total punk. Arrogant and sly. But God help me if I didn’t like that about him, too.

  He’d told me a month ago he just wanted to mean something to me.

  Little did he know he was slowly becoming everything.

  I sobered a little, reaching out to brush my fingers through the flop of hair that had fallen on his forehead. Slowly he helped me up to sitting, and he plopped down on a chair in front of where my legs dangled off the side of the table, wedging himself between my knees. He looked up at me, his expression so sweet it twisted something loose inside my heart. A smile pulled at his mouth, and he touched my chin, tilting it, quietly inspecting my face. “I love that blush,” he whispered, fluttering his fingers over it like he wished it were palpable, something tangible he could ball up in his hand and hide away.

  I felt so exposed, yet so adored. “Do you know what I love?”

  His eyes glimmered. “What?”

  I ran my thumb across his bottom lip. “This mouth.” I leaned in and placed a kiss on it, so soft I hoped it spoke a thousand words that I wasn’t ready to say. Or maybe it was just three.

  I love you.

  It was there, screaming out from my heart. But even as I thought them, all those feelings of vulnerability came barreling in, warning me against feeling something so strong for someone I’d only been dating for a month. But I couldn’t stop my feelings or change them. I couldn’t help the way he made me feel. Couldn’t help that his arms were my favorite place. Couldn’t help that his mouth was my favorite flavor and his voice was my favorite song.

  His tongue was all warm when he swept it against my mouth, and tingles spread through me like a wildfire. “Mm,” he moaned, “not as much as I love yours.”

  I tilted my head and parted my lips, welcoming the rush of his heat as he took over my mouth, the way his tongue danced and played before he closed his mouth over my lips, before they opened again and the kiss only deepened.

  With both hands, he palmed my breasts over my T-shirt, urging a moan from somewhere in the deepest part of my spirit, before his fingers hooked in my collar and pulled my shirt down to expose me.

  I gasped.

  Sure, I was wearing a bra. But that didn’t mean I didn’t feel laid bare.

  I cou
ld feel the heat emanating from my chest, the burning red I knew was flaming on all that skin Darryn had just brought out into the light.

  Darryn looked up at me, wetting his swollen lips with his tongue, hunger and hard-won restraint so vivid in his eyes. “Too much?” he asked as the worry floated into his strained voice, his question guarded as he let his hands wander over the lacy cups of my bra, so slowly, giving me time to react. Time to clamp my hands over his to stop him the way I usually did, when I’d beg him to be patient even though he’d never given me any reason to feel I needed to plea.

  He always understood and never pushed me any further than where I wanted to go.

  And I knew he probably thought me a blushing virgin, the reason for all these pesky layers of clothing we had to maintain.

  Which really wasn’t all that far from the truth. Except for that one monstrous mistake I’d made. As much as I wanted it all swept up and tossed away like forgotten litter from my past, I knew he needed to know, and things couldn’t go much further between us before he did. How deceitful would that be? Me leading this man into thinking I was some kind of unsullied damsel. Pure and clean. What a joke.

  Darryn ran his hands up my sides, all those little darts of energy injected directly into my skin.

  Oh God.

  Did I ever want him to touch me.

  Every day Darryn made me trust him more. Showed me why it was okay to give in.

  Today, for the first time, I didn’t stop his exploration. I welcomed his hands that touched and caressed. Hands that I thought maybe even loved. Even if it were over the constraints of a flimsy piece of fabric.

  But just then, I heard the sound of the front door banging open, and I stiffened. My hands clapped over my chest to cover myself up as one of Darryn’s roommates walked into their house. He was still in the front room, but he was close enough to burst the bubble Darryn and I had been floating in.

  Darryn groaned and dropped his head to my chest, the chest that he’d discreetly covered back up. “Maybe we should take this up to my room,” he mumbled.

  “I . . . I—I’m s-s-sorry. I can’t go up there.” I fumbled over words I couldn’t seem to form, searching for an explanation for why I was such a freak. “I—I . . .”