She nodded. Slid closer to me, so our thighs touched. Looked up at me. “I think you’re perfect.”
I laughed. “That’s subjective, I think.”
“Well yeah. But you know, when I told my sister about you, she was like what? You’re not my type.”
I laughed. “No shit, Cass. I’m not anyone’s type.”
She frowned at me. “Not what I meant.” She leaned closer. “I’ve always gone for the tall, lean, shredded, clean-cut pretty boy type.”
I snorted, and then burst into laughter. “Well that sure as shit is about as opposite of me as you can fuckin’ get.”
“I know.” Her eyes bored into me, silenced my laughter. “Wasn’t expecting it, but somehow, there it is.”
“There what is?”
“Me. Being attracted to you.”
“You are?” I blinked, stunned. “Why?”
“Just…you. Who you are. And it’s not just your personality, like, making up for your looks or some bullshit like that. I am physically attracted to you even though you’re the polar opposite of every guy I’ve ever dated, slept with, or been attracted to. Complete opposite. And maybe that’s part of it. Those guys have mostly all treated me like shit. You treat me like…” She swallowed hard. “Like you really like who I am.”
“Because I do.”
She reached out, withdrew the drawing pad from my hands, the pencil, and set them on the coffee table. She held my hand, my huge paw in both of hers. “Why did you seem so surprised that I like you? That I’m attracted to you?”
“I don’t know.”
“Bullshit. You’re a good-looking guy, Ink. You just are. I know not everyone likes tattoos and beards and all that, but you’re just a handsome man.” She smiled. “Just like not everyone likes tiny athletic girls with no boobs and no butt.”
“You have boobs and a butt.”
“Well, yes, I have them, but they’re just small.”
“Exactly perfect.”
“Am I your type, Ink?”
I shook my head. “Don’t have a type.”
“You don’t.” She sounded disbelieving. “You’ve had girlfriends, yes?”
I bobbed my head to one side. “Sort of, but yes.”
“And what did they look like?”
“One, my very first girlfriend, was Yu’Pik, like me. So short, dark hair, kinda curvy I guess.” I sighed. “My first and only serious girlfriend, as in a real, lasting long-term relationship, was interracial. Her mom was Vietnamese, and her dad was African.”
“I bet she’s beautiful.”
“She is.”
She waited. “And?”
I shrugged. “And that’s it.”
“You’ve dated two girls your whole life?”
I nodded. “So I don’t think that’s enough to say I have a type.”
“Well, you’re still a guy. So when you go, ‘hey, that girl is hot,’ what do they usually look like?”
“Why does it matter?”
“It doesn’t. I’m just curious.”
How the hell was I supposed to tell her I’d been so hurt, so damaged by trauma, so viciously rejected and shamed that I turned off my sexuality?
I stood up. Paced away, stood facing the wall, hands braced wide on the wall… Fought for some kind of explanation that wouldn’t leave me totally emotionally naked.
“Ink…what? What aren’t you saying?”
I shook my head. “A fuckin’ lot, Cass.”
“So say it.”
“It’s a lot, and it’s old, and I don’t know how to fuckin’ say it. Never told anyone about it.”
She stood up and moved to slide between me and the wall, gazed up at me. “Secret pain.”
I nodded. “Yeah. That shit sucks.”
“So let’s trade. I’ve got secret pain, you’ve got secret pain. Let’s trade.”
“Why?” I asked. “Why you wanna know?”
“Because I like you. I want to know more about you.” She leaned her back to the wall, framed in by my arms and my body. Stared up at me, eyes wide and deep as the universe, drawing me in, closer and closer. “We can make a game of it. Secret for secret.”
“I don’t know.”
“I’ll start.” She ran a hand through her hair, drew it over her shoulder. “Not a secret, since I talked to my sister about it, but I just found this out and it’s as good a place to start as any. I just found out that my fiancé is gay, and was cheating on me with men during our entire relationship.”
“Whoa.”
“Yeah.” A shrug. “Your turn.”
“My parents couldn’t afford to feed me when I was a kid. As a teenager, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, I ate so much it was impossible for them to afford the amount of food I needed. I joined the football team just because the other parents would feed me. I was popular on the team because I was the star lineman on the offense and defense. I was big, but I could move. So the guys let me hang out with them so I’d stay on the team and help them win. It worked for me because the other guys’ families could afford shit. I played all the way through high school just so I could eat.”
“Wow. I can’t imagine how much food a six-foot-seven teenager must eat.”
“Well, I didn’t reach my full height till I was like eighteen. I was six-four freshman year, six-six by senior year, and topped out at six-seven when I was nineteen. But yeah, you really don’t even know how much food I’d eat. They’d order pizzas, like a dozen of them for the team, and I’d eat three by myself, and that was holding back to not be too greedy.”
“Three large pizzas, just you?”
“Breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks required a lot of food.” I shrugged. “Of course, while I was active and athletic I was eating a lot and working out like crazy, but after I graduated and quit playing ball, I got fat as hell because I kept eating like that but stopped the intense exercise.”
“You obviously figured that out.”
I frowned. “Obviously?” I patted my stomach. “Ain’t exactly rockin’ an eight pack here.” I poked her stomach, which was a clearly defined, even at rest, eight-pack, vascular and striated. “Not like this.”
She looked at my stomach, explored my torso from chest to sides to waistband. “You’re strong, Ink. Really, really strong. There are many, many different kinds of healthy, different kinds of bodies. Having ultra-low body fat percentage isn’t the only kind of healthy and attractive there is.”
“But that’s your type. You said so.”
She sighed. “Yeah, and maybe I was an idiot.” She touched her own stomach. “This is the result of a lifetime of dedication and sacrifice. Hours and hours and hours of work, every day, to achieve and maintain this, because it’s what I had to be. How I had to look to be lead dancer. Visually, as well as in terms of ability. It was functionally necessary to be like this.” She frowned. “It’s not necessary anymore, and I’m not sure how much longer I’m going to look like this. For one thing, I can’t work out, and for two, I’ve been eating like shit. So you can say goodbye to this in the next few weeks.”
She hesitated, and then reached out once more, this time running her hands up my chest to my shoulders, letting her hands rest there.
“So…” she said, as she looked up at me, as if perhaps to gauge the effect of her hands on my shoulders. “Body image.”
“It wasn’t really image, for me. It was…just the absence of food. The lack. Being too poor to literally afford to stay alive, just because I was so fuckin’ giant. Made me feel like…like a burden.”
Her face crumpled in pain. “Aww, god, Ink. That’s awful.”
“It was a fact. I was a burden to them.” I felt my fists clench. “They’re not bad people, my parents. They did the best they could. Loved me, in a parental sort of way. But they never understood me. I was never…what they expected. What they wanted. I mean, I liked being outside, hunting, hiking, fishing. But I wasn’t…like them. They made ends meet all right, but when I started really skyrocketing in size ar
ound puberty, they couldn’t afford me. I was a burden on ’em, and I knew it. I was on my own by fifteen, for all intents and purposes. Slept at their house, but I was fending for myself.”
She sighed. “Wow, Ink. That’s rough.”
“But that’s just background. That ain’t a secret.” I focused on her face rather than the feel of her hands—if I thought about that, I’d take her in my hands and this conversation would be over. “Only shit that’s left to tell is the really heavy stuff.”
“Same.”
I closed my eyes. “Elizabeth Grace was from my neighborhood, my school. My family is…really traditional. Holding on to the old ways as much as possible. Hers was…not. She looked like me, but acted like them. And it was an us and them mentality, where I grew up. But she was pretty, and seemed to like me. We would hang out after school. Walk home together. Have lunch together. Do our homework in the library. Get a burger on the weekends. Wasn’t much beyond that—we were just kids, fifteen, sixteen. Young. I just liked her. Liked that she talked to me, didn’t seem to be scared of me.” Glanced down at her. “You scared of me, Cass?”
She shook her head slowly. “No. I was a little intimidated by how big you are, at first, but not anymore.”
“Right. Well back then, kids acted like I was an ogre or something. Like I’d eat ’em if they looked at me wrong. I already had tattoos then, you know. Not as many obviously, but I’d been marking myself my whole life, and I was working with Thomas by then and had some pieces I’d done on myself, and that he’d done on me. So there was that, too. Elizabeth Grace didn’t seem to mind.”
“You say her whole name all the time?”
I nodded. “Yep. That’s how she introduced herself. Elizabeth Grace. Anyway.” I fought the memories. “One time she invited me over. I wore a shirt to cover my ink. Tried to seem…smaller. Used my best manners. But her parents…”
“Didn’t accept you.”
I shook my head. “Nope. And she went along with it. She was only fifteen, so I got it then and I get it now. But she stopped talking to me entirely. Switched her classes so we didn’t have any together. Somehow—don’t know if it was her or someone else—but a rumor got started that I’d tried to force her.” I swallowed hard. “My team knew I wouldn’t do that, but the rest of the school believed it, and treated me like I was…I don’t know. Like I was evil. Like I’d done it. The whole community believed it. Parents included. People whispered about me.” I forced myself to release my fists. “We never even held hands. I was too chicken to try. Too scared that my giant fuckin’ hands would like accidentally crush hers or something. I was a fuckin’ virgin being accused of trying to force a girl to be with me. People whispered about it, the R-word. Can’t even say it. Said I did that to her, and I’d never even had the courage to hold her damn hand.”
“Jesus.” Her eyes were so soft, so understanding, so filled with pain for me. “Anyone who took six seconds to get to know you would know you could never do anything like that.”
“Yeah, well, I was six-five, two hundred and fifty pounds in tenth grade, with tattoos and facial hair. People were scared of me.” I kept her eyes. Held them, tried to be open, to let her see how much hurt there was in that story. “Your turn.”
“My dad is complicated. He lived with us, and he was around. He wasn’t a drinker. Didn’t hit us. None of that. From the outside, we would have seemed like an idyllic family. Mom, dad, five girls, nice house, plenty of everything. And in a lot of ways, it was. When we were young, Dad was great. Loved us. Took us out for things. Spent time with us. But as we got older, he just…changed. I still don’t know why. I’m not sure even Mom does, but I know it affected her, too. It affected all of us. So it’s hard for me to pinpoint what it was that left the psychological and emotional scars on me, but they’re there and they’re real. He stopped paying attention to us. To me. Was at work all the time. Didn’t really talk to us when he was home. Seemed like…like he’d given up on life. When I needed my dad the most was when he just sort of vanished from our lives, even though he was physically around. So I just…I don’t know. It put me into dance. Made me seek the approval and validation I craved in the audience. The judges. The coaches. The peers. If I could be the best dancer, they would love me. Getting into Julliard was me seeking that validation. Getting into the European dance troupe was validation. Making lead dancer was validation. Evening dating Rick was validation in a way because he was…he represented…” she paused, eyes dropping. “I don’t know. He was upper crust. Sophisticated. Aristocracy, basically, and I think on his dad’s side his family does actually go way back to real French aristocracy sort of lineage. I thought it would make me the person people wanted.”
I wanted to comfort her, to take away the pain. “You’ve put some thought into this, haven’t you?”
She nodded, laughing quietly, sliding a hand through her hair. “Yeah, I guess so. When you’re stuck in a hospital and then in PT, there’s not much to really think about or do, so I tried to figure out some things about myself.” She blinked up at me. “Your turn,” she whispered.
“This game is gettin’ awful deep, Cass.”
“Yeah, I guess it is.”
“What’re you after?” I asked. “What is it you really want to know about me?”
She shrugged, but her eyes told me the shrug was more of a delay than an I don’t know. She straightened, gazing up at me. “Are you attracted to me?”
I laughed. “What kinda question is that?” I reached up one hand, brushed the tip of just my middle finger across her temple, ever so gently, tucked her hair behind the delicate shell of her ear. “You know I am.”
She touched a tattoo just above my hipbone—a small piece showing a crow digging a worm out of the soil—and traced it, up my side. “No, I mean…I know you think I’m attractive. But…are you attracted to me, physically?”
I took a tendril of hair between my fingertips, wrapped it around my index finger. “Yeah.”
“Meaning, more than just thinking I’m pretty. You want to…do things. With me.”
I nodded. “Thought I’d made that clear.”
She shook her head. “See, I’m a little confused by you.”
My eyes followed the exposed line of her clavicle, to her breastbone, across to her other shoulder. Her skin was delicate and soft and warm. “Confused by what?”
“You’re sending me mixed signals. Right now, you’re almost touching me. I feel like you’ve almost kissed me. Like you want you. But you never do. And I’m just confused. Wondering…why you keep pulling back. Shutting down when things get heated physically.”
“Cassie, I…” I sighed. “It’s hard to explain.”
She ran both hands up my chest. “Try? Please?”
I closed my eyes, feeling her hands on my skin and wanting so badly to feel that touch everywhere. Running south, exploring more of me. My fingertips, three of them, dared across her breastbone again, and this time I tested her by letting my fingers slip just a little further down, closer to her cleavage; I opened my eyes, watched her face and expression as I gloried in the satin of her skin as I dragged my fingertips over the swell of her breasts, one and then the other.
“When I say it’s hard to explain, I don’t mean complicated. I mean it’s…hard as fuck to talk about.”
“Would it help if I told you I’m attracted to you? That if you kissed me, I’d kiss you back?”
I met her eyes. “Cass…” I turned away. Had to. I raked my hand over my scalp, tore my hair free of the ponytail and shook it out—prepared to retie it, but Cassie’s hands stopped me.
“I like it down,” she said, moving around to stand in front of me once more. “Talk to me, Ink. You can trust me.”
Fuck.
My brain was exploding. My body was on fire.
I was about to kiss her stupid. Pick her up and set her on the counter and kiss every inch of her body and not stop until I’d marked her. The primal, wild, demanding, testosterone-fueled sexuali
ty I’d kept bottled up for so damned long was boiling up and about to spill out into an uncontrollable wildfire.
And that scared the shit out of me.
I couldn’t hide that fear in my eyes; couldn’t hide the fear of that need any more than I could hide the need itself raging through me—need for everything this woman had me hard as a rock, rigid inside my shorts, aching and burning and pulsing with need.
I pushed past her and stepped outside. I went around back, into the woods, barefoot. The air was cool on my overheated skin. Moonlight shone silver from a cloudless night sky washed by a countless million stars. I had a little spot, out here, a tiny clearing in the woods behind the shop and my house where I could lie down in the grass and watch the stars wheel overhead. I went there enough that I’d made a little path to it, lined with a few solar-powered tiki torch-like lamps. I sat down in the middle of the clearing and tried to clear my head.
She wanted me to kiss her?
She was attracted to me?
My brain couldn’t quite fathom it. It didn’t seem real, or possible, but there was no mistaking the look in her eyes, the body language which said in no uncertain terms here I am, for you, touch me.
I just couldn’t believe it.
And I couldn’t let myself have it. Have her.
Couldn’t let that beast out of its cage. Look what happened last time, after all.
I forced that memory away before it took over. I knew that’s what Cassie was angling at, but I just simply could not talk about it.
I felt her presence before I saw or heard her. Just knew she was here.
She sat down next to me, cross-legged in the tickling grass. Stared up at the moon. “Beautiful here, isn’t it?”
I nodded. Tugged the right leg of my shorts up, showed her the tattoo covering most of my right thigh—a drawing of this spot. If you lay down on your back right around eleven, just before midnight, you’d see the moon pass over the clearing. The tattoo on my thigh was of the ring of trees overhead seen as you’re lying down, with the full moon right overhead.
She looked at the tattoo, then up at the sky, where the full moon shone bright. “Wow. Just…wow.” She looked at me, then. “This is your happy place, huh?”
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