“Something happened when I was still in high school,’’ I mumbled between sips, my eyes locked outside where the infinity pool was.
“Okay.’’
I gripped the glass tighter and threw back the rest of my drink. I poured myself another one and glanced at Harley to see if she needed a refill, but her drink was barely touched. “I was with a girl.’’ My voice started to catch, but it wasn’t sadness. I was fucking scared. I hated revisiting that place, but hell. I was deluding myself in thinking I never did. I had been avoiding women like the plague for years because of this.
“If you’re not—‘’
“Let me finish the fucking story, Harley. It’s not easy for me, okay.’’
“Alright. Sorry.’’ She took another sip of her drink and leaned against the bar, still facing me.
“So, I was with a girl. We weren’t exactly dating. You know how it is in high school.’’ I sighed and shook my head, frowning at nothing. “I wasn’t the kind of guy parents welcomed as their daughter’s boyfriend. I was considered a bad boy, but it was all bullshit. I wasn’t very different than the other kids, but I didn’t have a stable family or nice clothes. And I swore a whole lot.’’ I scratched my cheek and put down my almost empty drink on the bar. “So this girl’s parents were very strict. She wasn’t the kind to go out a lot and when she did, it was behind her parents’ back with her cousin’s help. She was a good girl.’’ Yeah, and I had been seen as a scum. Funny how it had turned out, though. “We went out a few times and one time we had sex. It was nice. I mean, there wasn’t much to talk about.’’ I rubbed at my temple when a headache started to take residence. “I wasn’t in love and she wasn’t either, but we were attracted to each other. It was fine by me and she wasn’t a virgin contrary to what I thought. Apparently she had been with a guy the previous summer, but that’s not the point.’’ I cleared my throat and had to fight the urge to run away and stop talking. But at this point, I should just finish. And I was beginning to think that Harley wouldn’t give up easily. She was the kind of woman who wanted the whole story, not a piece. “We’d had sex a few times after that, maybe four or five, I don’t really remember. And then, one night the police knocked on my door. I was alone and sure something had happened to my mother, but no. They were there to arrest me for…’’ I took a deep breath and slowly released it. “For rape.’’
She choked on her drink and croaked out something I didn’t get, but I nodded. I knew it must be something showing her disbelief. Yeah, I still had a hard time believing it some days. Yet, the scars were still there, fucking up my life.
“Yeah, I know. Crazy stuff, huh.’’ I dried my chest with the towel when more drops of water fell down my face from my still damp hair. “Apparently her parents had found the open foil packet of a condom in her backpack and confronted her about it. She ended up saying that she had been raped. They called the police and…’’ I trailed off.
“But…what happened after that?’’
“I went to jail for a few days until they questioned her, her parents and cousin and a few friends. They did the same with my friends and my mother. I was lucky that the cop in charge smelt something off about the story and pushed her until she finally broke down and told them the truth.’’ I faced her and walked to her. “I swear Harley, I had never forced her or anyone else. Ever.’’
She nodded. “I believe you, Dex. You don’t need to convince me.’’ She tilted her head to one side and put her drink next to mine on the bar. “That’s why you can’t go all the way with a woman. You’re scared some shit like that will happen again.’’
“We always hear about scandals with famous people. It could happen again. And I…’’ I cringed. “I can’t trust enough to…be with someone.’’
“We’re not all like that.’’
“I know that.’’ I walked to the bay window and faced outside. “I can’t stop thinking. I can’t stop doubting.’’
“I get it. I mean,’’ her voice came from close behind me. “I can see why it’s so difficult for you. But you’ve tried since high school, right?’’
I nodded and felt my ears getting hot. It was so fucking embarrassing. It was like giving away my man card. “A few times, but I couldn’t get into it. Or I got into it, but it wouldn’t last. Maxen paid a hooker once to try and see if that would work.’’
“And it didn’t.’’
“It didn’t. That was two years ago.’’
She walked toward me and stood next to me. Her shoulder brushed my arm and I glanced at her. She wasn’t looking at me but gazing at the backyard. “Thank you for telling me this, Dex. I’m sure it’s not easy for you to talk about it. I’m glad you trust me with this.’’
I sighed and ran a hand through my damp hair. “To continue with the truth, I don’t know if I would have told you this if I didn’t know the label made its employees sign a NDA.’’
She chuckled good naturally and it relaxed me enough to smirk at her. She turned her face sideways toward me and her eyes went straight to my mouth. I sucked in my breath.
“I can’t blame you. Better safe than sorry, right?’’ She put a hand on my arm and my skin broke out in goosebumps. I was far too in tune with her touch, with her closeness. “I’m not very experienced with men.’’
I arched an eyebrow at her. She bit on her lip and looked down where her hand was touching my biceps. With her fingers she traced the lines of one of my tattoos, a black tribal tat with thick lines. “I had two boyfriends and I never had a one night stand or casual sex. I broke up with my last boyfriend last year. I suck when I have to flirt back or when someone shows me some attention.’’
“What are you trying to say?’’
“We both have our issues when it comes to this.’’ She fixed her eyes on mine and I lost my bearings. “You can’t lose yourself to someone else and I can’t seduce to save my life.’’
I chuckled and rubbed at my neck and made sure not to move the arm she was touching. “It’s hard to believe considering what happened today.’’
“I didn’t do a thing, Dex. You led me to that room. You pushed me against that door. You kissed me.’’
“And you tilted your hips to push against my cock, Harley. That was fucking hot.’’ I clenched my jaw and kept on looking at her.
“Yeah?’’
“Fuck, yeah.’’
Her eyes fell to my lips and I ached to run my thumbs on her pouty lower lip. But I refrained.
“What now?’’ she asked in a whisper.
I turned completely to face her and she did the same, her eyes still on my lips. I let mine take her in from her small waist to the swell of her breasts and her nipples peeking underneath her top and her bare delicate shoulders, her collarbone, her graceful neck and her face. She didn’t have a damn thing to do to seduce me. Her breathing did the trick.
HARLEY
I had never found a man sexier than Dex at this very moment. It wasn’t because he was only wearing swim trunks or because he was so close to me, watching me like he wanted to do things to me I had never craved so much in my life.
No, it wasn’t because of that. To me, he was the sexiest man alive right this second because he let his vulnerability, his fears show. That was a real turn on to me, as strange as it was.
“It’s your call, Harley. I…’’ He sighed again and went to turn away, but I grabbed his head between my hands to keep him there, to keep our eyes locked. I had to be on my tiptoes to do so, but I didn’t care. I needed to keep that connection while he let me in a bit. I wasn’t ready to give that up. Not yet.
“We can…We can, maybe…’’ I stuttered and blushed harder. I closed my eyes tightly, wishing I’d have smoother moves. I wanted to hide and curse myself, but I couldn’t move away from him. Under my palms, his thick beard tickled. His breath grazed my face softly and smelt faintly of the rum. His body was an inch away from mine and while I was ready to close the space, I didn’t want to spook him.
“What?’
’ he whispered, his smoky voice doing things to me I couldn’t voice.
I re-opened my eyes slowly and fixed on his mouth. Damn, if there was one magazine that had it right in awarding him the most kissable lips, that was it. “Maybe we should try things slow. You know.’’
His throat worked nervously and he sucked in a breath. I glanced down and saw his hands clenched into fists. Usually, if I would see a huge man like him with tight fists I’d cower thinking he’s ready to swing, but not Dex. I didn’t doubt he had a temper, but I didn’t feel threatened. Strangely, I felt the opposite; safe. He could make me mad, frustrate me or annoy me, but in the end, when all was said and done I knew I was safe around him.
“Harley…I can’t.’’
I looked up and saw his dark brown eyes on me, sad and frustrated. His jaw was locked so tight I wondered how he was able to speak at this point. The muscles in his arms and chest bunched and it was a mesmerizing spectacle. I had never seen a man like him up close before. I wanted to kiss the ridges, lick his perfect six-pack, not photoshopped as I previously thought they were. I wanted to touch him, all of him. Starting with the growing bulge in his swim trunks. I bit on my lip.
“Don’t look at me like that. Fuck,’’ he growled, his words coming out slow.
“I can’t help it.’’
“I don’t get why you’re still here.’’
I frowned at him, taken aback. “What? Are y—‘’
“Sorry, it came out wrong.’’ He grabbed my wrists and took a step back to put some distance between us. My wrists were still in his big hands and somehow, being restricted by him made me burn hotter. What was he doing to me? “It’s just that now you know why I can’t…Oh, fuck.’’ He released my hands and turned away to start pacing in front of me. He breathed troubled energy. “What’s the point, huh? I can’t fuck a woman, Harley. We can’t even have a damn fuck buddy relationship. Do you know how fucking humiliating this is?’’
“I’m sure it’s more frustrating than humiliating.’’
“When you’re a man my age, it fucking is humiliating,’’ he retorted, stopping his pacing to glare at me. Then, he paced again and I let him.
“Dex, you’re attracted to me and I am to you.’’
“So what?’’
I brought a hand to my forehead, suddenly unsure of myself. When he had been close to me, looking in my eyes, it seemed easier, clearer if not scary. Now that he was bursting with that negative energy and pushing me away not so subtlety, I didn’t know how to say this. God, I had never been in that position before and I honestly never thought I would be. In my mind, I thought that the day I would have sex with another man it wouldn’t be me making the first step or explaining how we’d go step by step.
“Have you ever tried…uh…slowly?’’
He stopped again and glared, pursing his lips and crossing his arms. “What do you think? I once spent three hours with a woman doing foreplay, wishing my cock would finally get up. That didn’t work for shit.’’
Three hours? My mouth opened and then closed like a fish. I was pretty sure my eyes were bugging out. I blinked and cleared my throat, feeling my skin heating up at the visual. “That’s not what I meant by slow.’’
He frowned even more. “What then?’’
I licked my lips and waved between us. “We could, maybe…’’ I cringed at the hesitancy in my voice. “Okay, here’s the thing,’’ I began again with forced assurance. “Maybe if we take it slow and ease into it, you’d be able to…hm, you know. And when I mean ease into it, I mean we start by kissing and maybe in a few days go further and so on. I’m not leaving right away because the label and my father think me shadowing the band is a good PR stunt for the upcoming tour. We have time.’’
He uncrossed his arms and strode towards me, stopping a breath away. He towered over me and I tilted my head up to catch the look on his face. But I couldn’t decipher it.
“You don’t want to get away from me.’’
“No. Why would I want?’’
“Because there’s no guarantee I’ll ever be able to be with you that way, because it’s been years and I have the experience of a damn eighteen-year-old.’’
I slowly brought a hand to his left pec and when he didn’t try to move away from me, I put my palm on his skin. Under the soft flesh and his heat, his heart was beating wildly, betraying his somewhat collected exterior. He was nervous, or maybe scared.
“I don’t care about that.’’
“Why?’’
I kept my eyes on his chest, wide and well-muscled. My eyes caught the silver barbell in his right nipple and I wanted to toy with it, see if it would be pleasurable for him or not. “Because I had never been so overwhelmed by a simple kiss before.’’
*
DEX
Fuck. I didn’t know what to do at this very moment. I felt so much at once; fear, excitement, impatience, hope even and so many more things I couldn’t put a word on. But that didn’t erase my doubts. If there was one person, one woman I didn’t want to mess up by showing no lasting activity in my pants, it was her.
I brushed away her too long bangs from her face, making sure I didn’t miss a thing in her big green eyes. She was fucking beautiful with that apprehension marking her traits, with the lust dilating her pupils and the heat in her cheeks showing both innocence and a dirty mind she had yet to unleash.
“I don’t know what I’m doing, Harley.’’ I cupped her left cheek and put my forehead against hers. She was so short I had to crouch a bit. “But I don’t want to let you go.’’
She smiled at me, shyly and it went straight to my cock, already getting hard in my swim trunks. Her small hands explored my chest, slowly, but her eyes didn’t waver.
“Let’s take things slow, then. Okay?’’
I took a deep breath, inhaling her vanilla scent that always got to me and I closed my eyes, making sure to keep in my mind how her small hands felt on my body. I had missed that kind of touch, but I didn’t remember it being so…fucking good.
“You drive me crazy,’’ I mumbled roughly and grabbed her waist, pushing her against me and my hard cock. I wanted her to know she had have an effect on me. For the first time in years, she was the first woman who could get me hard without doing much of anything. After all, maybe I could do this. Fuck. I hope I could do this. I’d pray for it to work out.
“You do too, Dex,’’ she whispered back, her lips brushing mine lightly.
“Good.’’ I tilted my head and finally kissed her again. Slowly, lightly at first, but when the feel of her lush lips against mine became too much to bare and not enough at the same time, I bit on her lip until she gasped and grant me access. I didn’t waste time and slipped my tongue in and groaned when hers entered the dance.
Nothing was like this. I played and sang in front of hundreds of thousands of screaming fans, received awards for my music and had had literally girls falling at my feet, but nothing could be compared to this. Nothing.
My hands on her hips tightened until I knew I must be hurting her, but it didn’t stop her from kissing me back. If anything, it drove her to another peak. Her hands went from my chest to around my neck, bringing me tighter against her body until we were molded to each other, kissing with another fever, with an urgency I barely remembered ever feeling.
When she moaned in my mouth, I tensed, sure I’d come in my fucking swim trunks. But I didn’t. Instead, my cock got even harder and it was painful. Without consciously doing so, I pushed my cock into her, my hips shot forward until she trembled in my arms and I growled out loud.
One of her hands went to my ass and squeezed. I saw stars behind my eyelids and I had to break the kiss. Now. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t bring myself to pull away and stop that fucking onslaught of feelings.
She nipped at my lips and mumbled my name in my mouth before pulling away, breathless and shaking. Her eyes were glassy and huge on her face. Her lips looked puffy and redder than usual, glistening from our kiss.
“Wow,’’ she mumbled, blinking slowly. She trailed her hand from my ass to my waist, but kept her other one on my neck, playing with my hair. It was both soothing and arousing. I didn’t know it could be both until now.
“Yeah.’’
She blinked again. I should put some distance between us and stop invading her personal space, but I didn’t want to. I wanted her hands on me a bit longer, her scent all around me. I wanted her and for once, it was simple. But I knew breaking that connection would bring back all my shit to the forefront.
“Dex…’’
“Shh…Let me soak up this moment, Harley.’’ I closed my eyes and pulled her closer to me until her body was completely plastered to me and I wrapped my arms around her small frame, letting my hands explore her back, from the curve of her hips to her delicate shoulders. She shivered and tightened her arms around my neck and waist. “You feel amazing.’’
“You too.’’
I let myself smile even though she couldn’t see me. I kissed the top of her head and kept my eyes closed. Fuck, I had never felt so good in my life. Ever. I was oddly calm and full of restless energy coming from the sexual tension between us that made it impossible for me to forget that part of my life I had denied for so long.
“This is crazy.’’
“I know, but it’s the good crazy, Dex. Doesn’t it feel good?’’
Dex (Kinky Shine #1) Page 10