by Kitty Thomas
“Well? Were you ever kissed before tonight?” he asked.
Julie was flushed and breathing hard. “N-no, never.”
In his imagination she completed that sentence with sir. Of course in real life she would never address him that way without prompting. Maybe not even then. Besides, he got sir from the girls at the house. He wanted master from this one.
Gabe turned to go. This was probably the best time to leave, all things considered. He had a lot to think about where Julie was concerned. He’d assumed he would have a war with himself over his next move. He hadn’t expected the situation would turn out to be this extreme. She was so inexperienced he was sure it would be nearly impossible to be sure she could ever really want to give him the things he wanted. She needed a nice normal man who wouldn’t demand too much of her. If Gabe was smart, he’d stop going to the bar and break off all contact.
It might hurt her. It might seem cruel to her, but it was mercy.
“Gabe, wait. Do you want to come in?” she asked, still a bit breathless.
He turned back to her. “Do you know what asking a man if he wants to come in after a date generally means?”
“Yes. God, I’m not stupid. And I haven’t been cloistered away in a convent. I’ve read books. I’ve watched movies. I have a roommate, though Stacy’s out right now... doing all this carnal stuff I’m apparently too innocent to understand. But I really mean... for coffee. Real coffee. Not coffee.” She used air quotes. She was so adorable.
He chuckled. “Yes, I’ll come in for coffee, but then I have to go.”
She fumbled a bit with her keys and then unlocked the door and led him inside. If he were the smallest percentage point more evil, this one act would have sealed her doom with him.
Julie flipped the light switch on and headed for the kitchen. “It’s late. Do you want decaf?”
“I’ll have whatever you’re drinking.”
The apartment was extremely tidy but sparsely decorated with cheap furniture that required assembly out of a box.
“Okay. Do you take cream or sugar?” she called from the kitchen.
“Black for me.”
While she busied herself in the kitchen, Gabe took a look around her apartment. School books lined the shelves. All the basics of math and science and history.
“You don’t sell your books back to the bookstore when you’re done?” Her apartment wasn’t in the worst part of town, but it also wasn’t in the best, and school books were expensive.
Julie poked her head out of the kitchen. “Oh, no, those are Stacy’s. She’s such a hoarder, I swear. But then... her parents are paying for most of her stuff, so I guess she can afford to be.”
Gabe wandered back through the apartment. “Which room is yours?”
“Oh God, it’s a mess, don’t go back in there.”
“I’m a nosy bastard. Indulge me.”
“Fine. Last door on the right, beside the bathroom. But I warned you.”
He expected to find a huge mess, but all he found was an unmade bed and some clothes draped over a chair. This was a mess to her? The room was simple with a few posters on the wall. Pictures of old world architecture, mostly. On the desk were some books and CDs.
When the coffee was ready, Julie brought it back to the bedroom and handed a mug of it to Gabe. It was a rich espresso roast.
She seemed to realize suddenly that they were alone inside her apartment in her semi-darkened bedroom. She turned on a lamp as if that could change anything.
He took the coffee cup from her hand and put it on the desk. Julie looked nervous, as though she might dart from the room like a scared rabbit. She worried her bottom lip and took an involuntary step back. Despite the thoughts running through his head, Gabe had a rational side of his brain that knew right from wrong and all the proper social conventions.
For example, he knew that when a woman looked frightened of him, the correct appropriate response was to back off immediately and find a way to make her feel comfortable and safe again. However, despite this social training, the reality was that when he saw her like this... nervous, unsure, taking steps out of the room, all he wanted was to take her. The primal, predatory, uncivilized part of his brain knew exactly one formal word: Mine. The rest was a series of indecipherable grunts and growls.
Before he could stop himself, he’d backed her into the living room and up against the wall. He kissed her, and grabbed her wrists, pinning them over her head.
“I want to tie you up,” he said, barely conscious those words had escaped his mouth. He loosened his grip on her arms but now pinned her waist as he rained rough bites and kisses along her neck, pulling back the sweater to get at her collarbone.
He wanted to take her back to the house where he had proper equipment. He wanted to put a collar around her throat even though a more sane and rational part of his brain tried to remind him quite reasonably that she wasn’t like him. And besides all that... she was so innocent.
“No! Stop it!” Julie shouted, shoving at him to get off her.
On reflex, Gabe covered her mouth and pressed his full weight against her to stop her thrashing. “Shhh. You’ll call all your neighbors to this door.” She’d gone tense and terrified beneath him, her hazel eyes wide. This went well beyond the level of light fear and trepidation that excited him. This was exactly the look he was afraid he’d get from her. You stupid bastard. She’s so inexperienced. This is way too much for her with a stranger. Think about what this looks like to her.
Even if he’d been coming to the bar for eight months... being in a public place together was very different from being alone with a man she didn’t really know. He had half a mind to turn her over his knee and spank her for letting a man into her house this soon. Even if he was that man.
He moved his hand away and took a few steps back. She looked trapped and was shaking like a poorly socialized chihuahua. Definitely too much fear. He didn’t want her this way with him. He wanted her to want this.
“W-what did you mean when you said you wanted to tie me up?”
“Forget it. It’s not important.”
“It is important if you wanted to rape me!”
“That’s not what I meant. Some people like to be tied up,” he said. Great way to introduce this to her, you stupid asshole.
“Not me,” Julie said.
He didn’t bother asking her how she knew what she was and wasn’t into when she couldn’t possibly know what her body could crave at his hands—what he could make her body crave with proper training. She might be willing to be led through a parking lot and ordered for at a restaurant, but she wasn’t willing to be led into his chains or ordered to call him master.
Gabe scrubbed a hand through his hair. “Julie, I’m sorry. That was far too much. I knew you weren’t ready for that and I would never...” He paced across her floor in brooding silence for several minutes. Finally he said, “I knew better than to ask you out.”
“What?” She sounded hurt and when he looked up, she was crying.
He moved back to her, and she shrank away. He’d never regain her trust. He brushed the hair out of her eyes with his fingers, but she flinched at what was intended as a soothing gesture. “I didn’t mean it like that. This isn’t your fault.”
“I’m sorry. I need to go slower than this. I-I really, really like you.”
He sighed. “I really like you too.”
“Then, will I see you again?”
He couldn’t believe she wanted to see him again after this. She was scared, probably a bit embarrassed, and yet...
“No. This was a mistake. I won’t be back at the bar. I’m sorry but this has to be goodbye, Julie.”
She began to cry harder, and everything inside his soul clenched in pain at that look on her face. She looked like she thought he was punishing her. Why couldn’t she understand he was sparing her? Sparing her... him. He was so tempted to lay it all out on the table—all the gory details of what excited him, what he demanded in a relatio
nship. Then she’d run from him all on her own. But this was enough. He couldn’t handle revulsion from her on top of everything else.
It was bad enough the universe had teased him with the possibility of this girl he could never have because to take her would be to break her and pull her into what, for her, would be a dark and twisted world.
Gabe touched the side of her face gently and smoothed away her tears, then he put his hand under her chin and raised her gaze to his. “I’m sorry if I’ve hurt you. It wasn’t my intention. We aren’t a good fit. Trust me, it’s better this way. I’m a very bad man that you don’t need to know.”
He turned and went to the door, steeling himself against her tears.
“Wait. Please, Gabe. I do want to know you. Please, I’m inexperienced. I just need... I need time. Don’t leave like this.”
There wasn’t one in fifty women who would respond this way. Most would throw things at him or yell obscenities. But this girl? Every cell in her body demanded sweet submission. He was sure she wasn’t a doormat. He’d seen her yell at the drunk in the bar. But as far as she was concerned, fuck her dignity, she just wanted to please him. Most women would have gotten angry, and the few who cried like this wouldn’t have thrown their dignity at his feet to be trampled further.
For the smallest glittering moment, Gabe considered taking her with him. He knew enough of her story to know that while someone might file a half-hearted missing person’s report, nobody would be scorching the earth to find her. He could take her to the house. Keep her with him always. She’d come around to his ways. There was too much of the submissive inside her not to.
But what he’d almost said earlier was that he would never force her, and that was true. He might be a sick bastard who made endless moral justifications for his crimes, but he knew a woman who wanted what he had to offer from one who didn’t. And he couldn’t lie to himself about the kind of woman Julie was... and wasn’t. He cared about her too much.
“Julie, I’m sorry. I won’t bother you again.”
31
Julie wiped down the counter at Dani’s in a daze. It had been two and a half weeks since she’d seen Gabe on their one and only disaster of a date. She kept hoping like a fool that he’d walk through that door, but he never did. She was never going to see him again.
It had taken nearly a week for the bite marks he’d left on her to fade. Some fucked-up part of her held onto them, like it was the last piece of him, and once it was gone... he was gone. But that was crazy. He’d practically attacked her like a wild animal. If that was how he behaved on the first date... and to beg him like that... after the way he’d treated her...
She wiped her face with the back of her hand. She couldn’t start crying at work again. Danika had sent her home twice last week. It was humiliating. She didn’t want people seeing her like this, but it wasn’t as if she could take a leave of absence from bartending. Who did that?
And it wasn’t as if Gabe had done anything wrong really. He’d stopped when she finally pushed around the shock of what was happening and found her voice. Maybe he should have stopped before then. Maybe, knowing what he knew about her lack of history with men, he should have asked her direct questions about what she wanted like a civilized human. He’d seen her backing away. Surely he hadn’t thought that was some kind of foreplay.
But the important thing was... he’d stopped. He’d been so intense. It scared her a little. Maybe she’d watched one too many woman-in-peril movies. It had seemed for the briefest moment that he would take no matter what she wanted or didn’t want to give. She’d just gotten scared. Sure, she’d known him for a while, but she knew him like any employee knows a regular at a business—in the most casual way, possible. She shouldn’t have invited him in to begin with, no matter how much she liked him. If things had gone badly, no matter whose fault it truly was, she would have blamed herself for asking him in.
But when he’d immediately backed off with that look of horror in his eyes, she knew he didn’t plan to hurt her. Then she’d been mortified. She was sure that if it had been Danika in that situation she would have told Gabe to fuck off and get the hell away from her. But Julie had practically begged him not to leave. How pathetic. How fucking pathetic. He must be so glad to get away from someone so clingy.
It wasn’t like she hadn’t heard guys talk. In college she’d overheard a few guys talking about how it was all fun and games with a virgin until she got all clingy. Julie was sure that was how Gabe saw her—someone so inexperienced she’d latch onto the first man who seemed to know his way around a woman’s body—or clinging as if she absolutely must make sure the man she gave her virtue to was the only man who would ever have her.
That last idea felt a little too true. It was the goddamn religious upbringing that had rooted around inside her head. Maybe she had been saving herself for marriage. It wasn’t a conscious plan, but it was pretty weird she couldn’t seem to find the time to get into a relationship with anyone. And maybe she was old-fashioned. So many men wanted sex on the first date now, and she couldn’t imagine doing that. It was too intimate and personal. Like, Hi, I just met you three minutes ago, let me stick the most personal part of my body inside the most personal part of your body. All the cool kids are doing it. STD’s, pregnancy, and emotional vulnerability? What are those? Don’t be a buzzkill!
God, if she ended up married to a preacher, and trapped right back in that spiral of nonsense—oh how her parents would gloat like she was the little lost lamb being dragged back into the fold.
As much as she watched the door, hoping Gabe would walk through it, an equal part of her was almost relieved he’d kept his word and kept his distance. Maybe she could find a way to salvage her pride after all. Nobody but Danika knew the gory details.
Speaking of... her boss emerged from the back then. “Julie, I swear to God, if you start crying again, I’m going to—as my mother would say—give you something to cry about.”
It drew a laugh out of her.
“That’s better,” Danika said. “Look, I know you really liked Gabe. It would be hard for any sane heterosexual woman not to be attracted to him. He was hot, no doubt. And he had charisma.”
“I hope there’s a ‘but’ in all this because right now you’re making it worse.”
“The ‘but’ is... he’s too aggressive. Especially for a first date. The way he manhandled you? Seriously, Julie, I’ve been around a bit. I know guys like this. He might have taken no once or twice, but in the end guys like that are bad news. It starts out very romantic, but they turn dark on you fast. And you end up trapped somehow, where you can’t get away from them even though you once thought you were strong enough to walk away.”
Danika was talking about her ex. Joe was serving time in maximum security for killing a guy that had done little more than look at Danika wrong. On the outside, to some women, that might look romantic and protective, but how protective could it be when he was beating her at home? Right now he had a life sentence, but there was a possibility of parole. Danika lived with that possibility hanging over her head all the time. Because she knew if he ever got out, he was coming back for her, and there was no restraining order that would help her then.
But even if Danika was talking about Joe and not Gabe, Gabe had said himself that he was a bad man she didn’t need to know. A kind of danger had radiated off him that made Julie think he could be another Joe.
She didn’t need that. He was doing her a kindness staying away. But she couldn’t get him out of her head—or the romantic fantasy version of what things could have been like if she hadn’t freaked out.
“Speaking of dangerous assholes,” Danika said, “Watch out for this one.” She pointed to a guy with dark hair, dark navy jeans, and a leather jacket oozing into the bar. Yes, he oozed in. Walking would be far too pedestrian a description of the act. He had a tattoo of a snake on the side of his neck—like he’d just been stamped fresh with evil.
The phone in the back rang and Dani
ka excused herself to answer it.
“Vodka,” the man said when she’d gone.
With that one word, Julie could tell from the thick accent that he was Russian. She poured the drink and put it on the bar in front of him.
“What’s your name, beautiful?” he asked, his accent lilting and curving delicately around beautiful.
She hesitated. Usually she told people her first name, but this guy... Danika was right about him. This guy looked like he’d just gotten out of prison. Before she could decide a delicate way to not give him her name or make up a fake one, Hank shouted from the other end of the bar.
“Hey, Julie! I need another beer.”
“You need a fucking liver transplant, Hank!” she shouted back.
The Russian laughed. “Feisty. I like that. I am Aleksei, Julie.”
“I’m sorry, excuse me,” she said. Julie took the opportunity to move to the other end of the bar and take care of Hank’s refill, wishing he ordered something more complicated than beer. She lingered at the other end of the bar, wiping it down, straightening some bottles until finally Aleksei called her back over.
“Julie! Another.”
She came back and poured him another vodka.
“You look sad,” he said. “Very sad. Did some bad man break your heart? I could kill him for you.” When Julie gave him what she was sure was a horrified look, he held his hands up in mock surrender. “Only joking, of course. I kid. I’m a joker. But seriously, I could make you... not sad anymore. We will go on date. I will take you to nice restaurant and you will be happy again.”
Yeah, asshole, you can magic my life into wonderfulness. If only we’d had you here sooner.
“Excuse me.” Julie went to the back where Danika was just getting off the phone.
“Problem?” she asked.
“That guy that just came in. He’s giving me the creeps. He’s hitting on me pretty hard and doesn’t seem to read disinterest. And really, I don’t think he cares.”