Silken hardness as he thrust. My head going back, hair tossing as he filled me again and again. My hands slid down to his ass, kneading his firm cheeks, pulling him into me, needing him. Something rolled off the table and smashed.
I started to grind back against him, the heat inside me whirling and building, out of control. The delicious tight friction of him, my legs wrapping around him as he reached a frenzy, and then I was gasping and shouting his name as I felt myself tipping over the edge. He was driving hard into me, and as my orgasm broke I closed my eyes and went rigid, wanting that moment to go on forever. The pleasure exploded inside me and I strained and shook, and before I’d recovered I felt him shudder and groan himself.
He took his weight on his arms so as not to crush me, and wrapped his arms protectively around my quaking body. I was a mess. Half-dressed, on a dining table, my mascara no doubt in long rivers down my face. But God, I felt so good.
As he got his breath back, he asked, “Would you like...to move somewhere more comfortable?” And despite everything, I giggled.
Chapter Eighteen
Darrell
I lay back on the bed and tried to think. So much had happened in the last half hour that it was a relief just to have a second to stop and process.
Thinking was difficult, though, because of what was happening not ten feet from where I was lying. When we’d come upstairs, Natasha had glimpsed herself in the mirror, seen the pizza crumbs in her hair and the long black waterfalls of mascara on her cheeks and immediately asked to take a shower. That meant she was in there nak*d. And wet. And slippery. And every time she moved around under the spray, I could hear the change in the sound of the water and couldn’t help but imagine her lithe body twisting and bending and—
Concentrate, dammit!
I was an a**hole. My work gave me a way of dealing with my memories, but it came at a cost: one that had left Natasha alone in a bar, in tears. She must have thought I was a cold, uncaring bastard. She probably thought I cared more about my work than I did her, and that wasn’t the case, could never be the case. I just—
I sighed out loud. How could I explain to her why I did it? How could I explain the anger that pulled me out of bed at three in the morning, when I woke from yet another nightmare, and sent me straight down to the workshop to hammer and weld? How could I explain the way my work made me feel? The sense of vengeance, the feeling of fighting back?
It wasn’t just being obsessed with work that she’d never understand. It was what I made—instruments of death. And yet that was what made it work—that’s what kept me functioning. Being able to do something, to take action, even at a distance...it was the only thing that made life bearable. Since I’d met Natasha, the purity of it, the certainty that I was doing the right thing, seemed a hell of a lot less clear cut. She was making me see things in a whole new light. But if I stopped making weapons, what was I supposed to do instead? Forget the past? Forget them?
The memories started to come back, the tang of exhaust fumes and the scrunch of sand beneath my shoes. I screwed my eyes closed and concentrated. Focus. Stop being so selfish. Concentrate on Natasha.
I’d reduced her to tears, three times in one night. Or I’d been the catalyst, at least, for the reawakening of some awful memory. And I knew what that was like—had felt the same thing, when the subject of my parents had come up. And again, when she’d seen my scars.
I had to figure it out. I knew that she wouldn’t tell me, and I wouldn’t push her for an answer. But I couldn’t accept the idea of her being broken. Not my Natasha. I had to fix her, and if that meant working out what had happened to her on my own, so be it.
I sat up on the bed, staring at the door to the bathroom. I thought back to the candles. Why would she be scared of them? I’d heard of people using them as part of sex games, dripping hot wax on each other. Had she had an abusive boyfriend—some BDSM relationship that went bad? And then there were the scars I’d felt, on her thigh.
I turned it over and over in my mind...until I remembered what she’d said when we were sitting on the edge of the stage. It had made her uncomfortable then, too. Foster care. She’d gone into foster care after her parents died.
My stomach lurched. It wasn’t difficult to piece together. She’d been fifteen years old, with no one to protect her. And some guy, probably her foster dad—
I thought I was going to throw up. And then I heard her move again, behind the door, and the rage hit me. Not the slow, burning anger I lived with every day. This was fresh and ice cold, a hurricane wiping out all thought and reason. The idea that someone would hurt her, this perfect girl, break her mind and scar her body and leave her damaged. The knowledge that I hadn’t been there to protect her—
The water shut off in the bathroom, and my anger hardened into resolve.
I hadn’t been able to prevent it, but I could sure as hell make it right now. I’d help her, fix her. I’d find the son of a bitch who did this to her and—
She stepped out of the bathroom, her hair still wet but the dress back on. I jumped off the bed and ran to her, sweeping her up off the ground and into a hug.
She clung to me, surprised. “It’s okay,” she told me, feeling the tension in my body, every muscle rigid.
“It isn’t,” I told her. “But I’m going to make it okay, Natasha. I’m going to make everything okay.”
Chapter Nineteen
Natasha
He held me for long minutes. The shower had been glorious, the scalding water sluicing away the last traces of the dredged-up memories. When I’d emerged, wet hair still dripping, I’d felt pleasantly sleepy and warm. I’d wanted to cuddle. I hadn’t been expecting a bear hug.
What’s gotten into him? But I had a horrible feeling that I knew. He’d felt my scars, however briefly. Maybe he knew that I cut. But if that was true...why was he hugging me? Why wasn’t he angry, or disgusted?
When he eventually released me, I looked up into his eyes. In my bare feet, he was a lot taller than me. “Darrell?”
He looked down at me with such warmth and caring that I felt a tiny shred of hope. Maybe he wasn’t like everyone else. Maybe, somehow, he understood.
He pulled me close, my head on his chest. “I know,” he said softly. “I know, okay?” The hope flared and shone inside. He did understand! I flung my arms around him and buried my face in his chest. After a moment, he gently moved me back and held me there, so he could look into my eyes. “I didn’t say it before, but I’ve meant to—ever since I got back from Virginia—”
“What?”
“I love you.”
He took my face between his hands and kissed me again and again. I managed a delighted “I love you too!” between kisses.
He led me over to the bed and we fell onto it together. He lay on his back and I slid in next to him, my head on the firm pillow of his chest. It was the closest...the safest I’d felt in years.
***
The next morning, it took me just a second to work out where I was. It was the first time I’d slept anywhere other than my own bed in about a year, and that OhmyGod moment of realizing that no, that wasn’t my ceiling, was like an ice bath. My head was still on Darrell’s chest, deliciously warm and firm, and I snuggled up against it while I remembered. The meal. The sex.
The scars. He’d felt the scars. He’d figured out that I cut myself.
But after the sickening lurch of fear, a calming warmth settled in. My second-worst fear had come to pass. He’d discovered I cut myself...but he’d been okay with it. He hadn’t demanded answers or got angry with me. He’d just wrapped me up in those big arms and made me feel safe. After so many years out in the cold, I barely dared let myself hope...but maybe this was going to work out. If he was really happy not to probe further, then my worst fear—that someone would find out what I’d done—maybe that never had to happen.
I got up without waking him and crept downstairs, closing the bedroom door behind me. The night before he’d whisked me upstairs, and I hadn’t really taken in just how big the sweeping oak staircase was. I padded down it barefoot, and then caught my breath as I stepped onto the freezing marble tiles of the hallway. Coffee. I needed coffee.
The kitchen was as showroom-spotless as I remembered it. I was starting to realize that he really didn’t use the mansion, aside from the bedroom and bathroom. He lived in the workshop. What did he do for food? And what was it about his work that had him so caught up in it? I was still hurt that he’d put his work before me, but given what he’d just accepted about me, he deserved some leeway.
There was something else, too. I’d seen how sorry he was in the car—it was almost as if his work wasn’t a choice, as if it was beyond his control. I remembered how relaxed he’d seemed, when I’d first met him and he’d declared he was an engineer. Now, every time the subject came up, he seemed tense. Was that my doing? Was I coming between him and his work, making him unhappy? Or was there something else going on?
The scars on his side. Was it all tied in with that? Sooner or later, we were going to have to talk. But I sure as hell wasn’t going to push him—not when I needed to keep hold of my own secret. This whole thing felt fragile as hell, but if we nurtured it...I allowed myself a smile. Maybe, just maybe, this could work.
I thought back to the pizza. Pizza and champagne—the way he’d rescued the date had been so him, so spontaneous. I saw a lot of that in him: he’d needed a stage for me, so he’d just had one built the same day, right in his workshop; he’d wanted me as his muse, so he’d scoured Facebook and tracked me down; he’d wanted to see ballet, so he’d just barged into an audition.... Well, okay, so maybe barging into the audition hadn’t gone so well, but if he hadn’t done that, we’d never have met. I admired his confidence, his ability to just make a decision and go with it, instead of being paralyzed by every choice.
At first, I thought there wasn’t any coffee, but then I found an aging, open packet with enough grounds for a couple of mugs. I smirked—he really did never use this place. By contrast, I’d seen a coffee pot in the workshop with about six different brands of coffee lined up next to it. He obviously couldn’t tear himself away from his work long enough to even come upstairs.
At that moment, I heard my phone ring, the music echoing through the house. Shit! I didn’t want to wake him. I raced in the direction of the music, the coffee packet hitting the floor behind me and coughing grounds across the tiles. I burst into the dining room, the table still littered with the detritus of the night before. Where was it? I listened, and eventually homed in on it: in my handbag, under the table. I knelt, cursing, scrambled through the bag, rooted out my phone and answered without looking to see who it was.
“Hello?” I was panting, pushing loose locks of hair out of my face.
“Natasha Liss?”
I didn’t recognize the voice. “Yes?”
“This is Sharon Barkell. You auditioned with us on Wednesday?”
Now I knew her. The choreographer. I slowly stood. “Um...yes?”