by Mary Martel
Alright, now he was really freaking me out, because that's exactly how I was feeling most of the time, and he totally got it, got me.
"Can you read my mind?" I asked, sort of joking. At least I hoped I sounded like I was joking with him. People couldn't really read minds, could they? Maybe, for my own peace of mind, I should stop questioning these kinds of things; I didn't really want to know the answer, because I feared the answer might terrify me.
His body shook with laughter. "No," he murmured. "That's not in my skill set."
Now I hoped he was joking because if he wasn't that meant he thought there were some people out there who did have the skill to read minds. I had a childish urge to stuff my fingers in my ears and sing "lalalalalalalala" over and over again until he stopped talking to me on the whole, because I didn't want to hear what he said anymore if this was the kinds of things he had to say.
To change the subject for the better, I hoped, I asked, "What did you tell Quinton that you would tell me he said?" I cringed. That sounded a lot like he said, she said but I didn't have any other way to think to say it.
He stopped laughing immediately. "He wanted you to know that he told Adrian you were done for the week and not to come back until Monday. That should give you a decent break from the Council and the fucked-up situation they've put us in, put you in. And Quinton seemed to think you could use a break from Adrian. I think he should have asked you first, but Quinton doesn't care to ask people beforehand. He's an ask forgiveness after the fact sort of man. You aren't mad, are you? I know you were actually looking forward to your meetings with Adrian because you liked learning things from him. It's not like they are stopping altogether, just until Monday rolls around."
Was I mad?
No, I didn't think I was. Did I want to be contradictory simply because I didn't want to let Quint get away with bossing me around? Heck yes. If I gave an inch, he'd go for a mile. Plus, as an added bonus, I think he really liked it that I didn't let him get away with bossing me around. But, Dash was right about something. I did look forward to my meetings with Adrian as much as I dreaded them some days. I felt like Adrian shared more with me than the guys did because Adrian wasn't emotionally invested in me the way the guys were. And, Quinton should have asked me first, instead of just getting high handed and taking control of my life.
I wanted to call him back just so I could hang up on him again.
But there was something else I needed Dash to explain to me first. Something that had been bothering me since he talked to Quinton.
"Did you mean what you said?" I asked. "Earlier on the phone with Quinton, when you said you came in here because I was making noises, and that you thought I was trying to wake myself up?"
I shivered and pressed myself closer into his body. He let go of my hand.
"Let's lay back down now that we don’t actually have to get up for anything," he said.
He scooted down, and I followed after him. He rolled to his side, facing me. I stayed on my back, with my hands lying flat on my stomach, and just my head turned on the pillow towards him. He scooted closer to me, making the space between us almost nonexistent. His heat crawled over me, and this time I shivered for a completely different reason. He placed his hand on the bare skin of my thigh, right above my knee, and I wished we weren't covered by the blanket so I could see his hand wrapped around my thigh, his skin against mine. His fingers moved in a gentle caress against my leg as he put his elbow in the bed and rested his head in his other hand, the one that wasn't touching me.
I didn't think this was a good idea, us having a conversation while he was touching me like that, but he didn't seem to agree with me. His hand slid up a little higher, and I knew it would be a struggle for me to concentrate on whatever he talked about.
My breath caught in my throat as his hand stopped at the hemline of my short-shorts, and his fingertips slid under. Heat trailed up my thigh, going places I hadn't expected it to go.
"Dash," I whispered urgently, and, even to myself, my voice came out breathless. Any other time and I would have been embarrassed by my voice sounding like that.
Dash chuckled, low and masculine, it was a sound that said he wasn't amused by my voice, but rather he approved, and it had made him happy.
I slid my right hand down my stomach, past my hip. Down, down, down until my fingers brushed against his hand. I covered his hand with my own and gently pressed down. His fingers stopped moving, his hand flattened out and he laid his palm flat against my bare skin. My hand laid flat atop his, only smaller because I had smaller hands than he did.
"Are you trying to distract me so that you won't have to answer my questions?" I asked in that same breathless voice. My chest rose and fell heavier than normal, my heartbeat raced. "Because, if so, it's working."
His hand under mine slid up higher, fingers slowly moving upwards and underneath the hem of my sleep shorts.
"No," he whispered. "Just trying to loosen you up a bit."
Huh.
I didn't think I wanted to get that loose.
"Dash."
His hand stopped creeping upwards. "Am I making you uncomfortable?" he asked.
I shook my head. "No. I'm not uncomfortable... I'm just... It's just... different."
His entire body froze, becoming completely solid.
"Different as in new?" He asked hesitantly. "As in, new undiscovered territory? That kind of different?"
Oh boy.
This was not a conversation I was interested in having. Not at all. But, at the same time, it wasn't one I would shy away from. If you couldn't talk about sex and what it would mean for you to be intimate in that way with another person, then you probably shouldn't be having sex in the first place. Not that I thought Dash wanted to have sex with me or anything. At least, not right now.
Oh boy, was right. I felt my face heat up. Did I want to have sex with Dash?
"Ariel, are you alright?"
No, no and no. I was not alright. I had been having a good time, headed towards maybe and even better time, and I had to go and overthink and put a stop to it for no reason outside of the fact that I was probably a crazy person.
"I'm fine," I lied. And then, for some crazy reason, I told him a scary bit of truth. "Just nervous. You make me nervous. I mean, not you, but... No, that's not right. You don't make me nervous. It's the touching that makes me nervous. But not in a bad way. Just a nervous way. I uhh, you know what I mean." I stammered.
You know what I mean? I needed duct tape for my own damn mouth sometimes. It was highly likely Dash had no idea what I meant. He'd been a bit of a lady’s man, and had slept with a whole slew of females before me. Inexperienced probably wasn't something he was used to. Or awkward. Or people who stammered while trying to explain the obvious.
How did I ruin this so badly? Was it a gift on my part? I hoped not. I figured it probably was, that I would have a knack for ruining good things.
Since I was on a roll, I figured I might as well go for broke and put it all out there, put myself out there. Even if it did make things far more awkward, I had to do it.
"Does it bother you to know that I'm a virgin?" I asked in a rush. "When, you know, you're anything but. Does my inexperience bother you?"
Yup, that wasn't awkward or anything at all.
Word vomit, thy name is Ariel Kimber.
He slid his hand out from underneath mine and rolled his body into me so that he was half laying on top of me with his upper body looming over me.
He leaned his face in towards mine and his gray eyes sparkled.
"Sometimes with the way you stand up for yourself with the guys, I forget just how sweet you are." he said in a quiet, gentle voice. "If you remember, I like sweet things, and I really like that you're sweet. And, Ariel, it's okay to not be experienced. No one is expecting anything from you that you don’t want to give. We will take things at your pace, and if something makes you uncomfortable, all you have to do is say so, and we'll stop. That goes for all of them,
I swear, they will stop when you say it's time to stop."
He leaned further down and rubbed his nose against mine. His eyes were so close it was hard to focus on them. My breath caught in my throat and my chest rose high at the intensity I saw staring down at me from his burning gaze. There was a fierce possession in there and a happy light.
"I didn't think you were a virgin," he murmured, and his hot breath caressed my lips in gentle kiss. "I honestly hadn't thought to ask, and it wouldn't have mattered to me either way. But, knowing it now? I like it. And not just for me but for all of us. I don't care who gets there first, I just like knowing that it will be one of us and only one of us. One of my brothers. Yeah, I like that a lot."
My eyes widened at his words and the heat behind them.
To be honest, I hadn't thought much about the reality of what it would mean for me to have a relationship with seven guys. Eventually, sex would be involved. With all of them. But not at the same time with all of them. Right? Probably?
My face burned.
Why hadn't I thought about the logistics before this?
"Am I embarrassing you?" He asked me sweetly, and he sounded like the answer was incredibly important to him.
I shook my head and my nose rubbed back and forth against his as I did because he hadn't backed up an inch.
"No," I whispered. "I'm not embarrassed. I guess I just hadn't really thought about..." my voice trailed off and I shrugged weakly.
His teeth flashed as he grinned. "Sex?" He said. "You hadn't really thought about sex?" When I shook my head again, he asked, "With just me or with any of us?"
I wanted to not answer him, but I refused to be a coward about this. "Any of you," I croaked out through a suddenly dry throat and lips. I licked my dry lips, and if it he'd been any closer my tongue would have brushed against his lips.
"Yeah," he said smugly, "sweet."
I had no idea what he was talking about, or how that was sweet, so I let it go. I might not have thought about having sex with any of them until now, but I had thought about what Quinton would look like naked, and I hadn't looked away when I'd seen the Salt and Pepper twins naked; I hadn't minded the view even though I'd felt a bit like a perverted Peeping Tom for seeing something they hadn't known I'd been seeing at the time. Maybe I wasn't as sweet as he thought I was. I wouldn't be the one to tell him otherwise, though. I didn't want to disappoint him or take that happy, possessive light out of his eyes because I really liked seeing it there. Months ago, when I'd first met him, I had thought it a miracle to see him smile at all. Now he just did it all the time. And I felt partially responsible for it, because it hadn't started happening on the regular until after I'd moved in with him. He was still serious, and carried around an intensity to him that would likely never go away, but he smiled more when he was around me, and I didn't think I was the only one who noticed.
"If you say so," I grumbled, and his smile got unbelievably bigger.
"I do say so," he said as he titled his chin down and pressed his soft lips to mine.
They were warm, and my lips tingled where he touched them.
His tongue traced across my bottom lip in a slow, unexpected stroke.
I lifted my hand from my stomach and moved it up to his face. I pressed my palm against his jaw and cupped the side of his face. His beard was coarse against the soft skin of my palm. I'd never touched someone's facial hair before. And I'd never kissed Dash this way before, either.
My lips parted, and his tongue slipped inside.
The kiss wasn’t urgent or fast. There was no rush to it. It was a slow exploration of each other. In that moment, with our mouths fused together, we knew one another in one of the most intimate of ways. He knew what I tasted like, and I him. I knew he liked to lead and, in this instance, I had no problem following.
He explored my mouth with his and I let him, gladly, with the front of my body pressed up as tightly to the front of his body as I could get it.
Warmth flooded to between my legs, my most private of places, and I fought the urge to rub myself up against him like a cat. I made a needy noise in the back of my throat, and even I could tell the difference between this noise and the last ones I’d made.
Dash broke the kiss abruptly and pulled away from me. His heat left me cold as he rolled off of me and on to his side, still facing me. He then flopped onto his back, mimicking my position. Both our chests rose and fell heavily, almost in sync with one another’s.
Worried I’d done something wrong because he’d pulled away from me without warning and so suddenly, I peeked at him out of the corners of my eyes, too worried to face him head on. Had I done something wrong? I didn’t think so, and he’d seemed to have been enjoying himself as much as I had been.
"Dash," I said his name in a quiet, uncertain voice.
"Christ," he growled darkly, and I couldn't help it, that one word had surprised me so much I had to turn my head to look at him. He covered his face with both of his hands and rubbed upwards, not stopping when he reached his hair. His fingers weaved into his red hair and he gave a rough tug.
"Dash," I repeated, this time much more urgently, but still quietly. "Stop that; you're going to hurt yourself." I wanted to reach out to him, to touch him, to put a hand on him and make him stop. But I was too afraid to.
He tilted his head to the side and looked at me. What he didn't do was let go of his hair. His mouth was pinched in a tight line, and his jaw was clenched painfully.
"What's wrong?" I whispered. "What did I do wrong?" He finally let go of his hair and reached for me. His fingers smoothed across my cheeks, the thumb on his right-hand tracing gently across my scar. I was past the point of flinching when they touched my scar, it was meant to be a sweet gesture, and I took it as one. Weeks ago, I might not have; it had taken some getting used to. But, then again, so had having people touch me in any kind of nonviolent way, and look at where I was now.
"You didn't do anything wrong," he whispered as his thumb kept gently caressing my scar. "I was trying to distract you because I'd made you embarrassed, and I honestly didn't want to explain why I'd come in here; I didn't want to upset you anymore than I already had."
I leaned into his touch and asked, "Then why did you stop? I thought you liked it."
Some of the tightness left his face and his eyes softened. "I more than liked it, Ariel," he told me. "That was the problem. We had just been talking about how much I liked the fact you're a virgin, then you went and made those sweet noises of yours, noises I hadn't expected to hear come out of your mouth so soon, and I had to stop myself before I took things too far."
I nodded with my head held between his hands. It was hard, and my head didn't move far, but he knew I understood him.
He blew out a heavy breath before moving in and kissing me gently on my forehead. His lips brushed my skin in a whisper of a kiss before he moved back and let go of my face.
He flopped back down on his back. He slipped his left arm, the arm closest to me, underneath my body, between the mattress and myself.
He curled his arm under me and lifted, pulling me into him. I rolled to my side as my body crashed into his. I pressed my hand into his chest, stopping myself from banging my head into his chin. He put pressure on my upper body with his arm and I did what he wanted me to. I laid down against him with the front of my body pressed into his side. I wrapped my arm around his middle as I tossed my leg over his thighs.
"I want you to go back to sleep, if you can." he whispered as he rubbed his chin and his beard against the top of my head. "You don't sleep enough, just like you don't eat enough. When you first moved in here with me, you went to bed late every night and slept in late to make up for going to bed so late. I approved of this. Sleep can be good for the soul, and it's its own form of healing. You've had a lot of bad things happen either to you or around you lately and, I believe you can use as much healing energy as you can get. Now you barely sleep enough; you go to bed just as late as you did when you first got here, but
you no longer sleep in, instead, you get up crazy early even when you don't have anything that you need to be doing. You're going to wear yourself out if you keep going at this pace. And, it doesn't help that you don't eat as much as you should."
I snuggled in closer and wrapped my arm a little tighter around his middle. I wasn't surprised to find his stomach hard; I didn't think Dash had any fat on him. I buried my face in his throat and brushed my nose across the skin just below his jaw.
"I don't think I'm ready to sleep," I told him honestly. "I don't think I will be able to sleep until you explain to me why you came in here in the first place. I know you said that you were trying to distract me from being embarrassed. I think you should tell me what I want to know first, what you've been trying to avoid telling me. Then we will go back to sleep. And, hey, bonus for you, if you stay in here with me, then you will actually get to sleep with your cat for once."
I probably shouldn't have kept poking at him about the cat. I didn't want him to lock Binx in his room with him so I couldn't sleep with the little furball. That would be sad, and I would really miss him, then I would totally have to get a pet of my own, and I didn't know how Dash felt about other animals.
Dash sighed, and I felt his body relax against me. Until that moment, I hadn't realized he'd been holding himself so still, so stiff. I'd ask him if he were uncomfortable, but it had been him who moved me over here to lay like this with him; if he were uncomfortable, I assumed he would have said something.