Wild Dirty Secret(75)

There was violence in his movements, pain in my response, but there had never been a more pure expression of his love. There was no better gift from a man of meticulous restraint than letting go. No greater way for me to thank him than to give myself, unhindered by payments, free of the cool ice shell that always encased me. I was more naked than I had been a hundred other times, a hundred other beds. I was exposed, raw—and vulnerable. He could break me this way, if he chose to.

Impossibly, his thrusts grew more powerful, more frantic, as if he wanted to reach the farthest place inside me, and God, he had. He squeezed his eyes shut, and I knew he would come soon. I reached up and mouthed the skin at the base of his neck. A flick of my tongue, and he shouted his climax, the cords of his neck vibrating against my lips. At his orgasm, he pushed into me once, twice, then again, stroking himself with my body. I whispered words of encouragement and praise, wishing he might never stop.

He slumped down on me, heavy and supple. The most vulnerable time for a man, I’d always thought. I found myself protective of him in this moment, that he would expose himself this way—not the baring of skin, which I was too familiar with, but the lowering of his guard. He didn’t have to be wary of me. No, I would guard him. At all times, and especially when he was made slack and unseeing with bliss, I would watch over him and keep him safe.

Placing kisses over the tops of my breasts, he leisurely pushed inside me and then out, as if he wasn’t quite ready to end it.

He froze when he saw the scar.

I lay still, allowing him to look his fill, to pass judgment. The reddish skin puckered just under my collarbone. Almost perfectly circular, a clean shot with no additional scarring from when they had pulled the bullet back out. It might fade in a few years, the doctors said. It might not.

“Does it hurt you?” he asked hoarsely.

“Not really. Not on the surface anyway. Sometimes deeper, if I move the wrong way.”

I expected him to pull out, to pull away after seeing the scar. It was ugly, but worse than that were the ugly memories. I knew he blamed himself. Everyone blamed themselves for my mistakes, first Allie, then him. But he didn’t move away; he stayed inside me. His eyes were on that scar, filled with a kind of mourning.

He touched the space beside it, the pale, unmarred skin. “So strong.”

I turned my face away. He kissed my cheek, capturing a tear on his lips.

“What would it take for you to believe that?” he asked.

“What would it take for you to stop searching for your sister?” The words were meant to push him away so that he would stop pushing me. But they came out with no bitterness, no rancor, only an earnestness that revealed too much.

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “But I’m here now. That’s something, right?”

“That’s something,” I whispered.

He replaced his condom and entered me again. I was tender, sore from our previous rough session, but he moved slowly, soothing me until I felt a soft glow of pleasure. There was no bruising grip or frenzied thrusts this time, only the smooth glide of his cock inside me, the steady rise of his broad shoulders over me. Only the press of his temple to mine, as if we were connected by more than our bodies—we were. He came with a soft expulsion of, “Oh, shit.”

We fell side by side, limbs entangled and hearts beating rapidly.

This was what he’d always wanted, if his declaration in the kitchen was to be believed. We had always been heading to this—to ruin, for a prostitute and a cop had no future. Neither of us had a future, caught as we were in the past. Still, I couldn’t help feeling that something else drove his fascination with me. So bent on saving me, as if a guilt much older than the past year propelled him. There were too many similarities to ignore. His sister was a prostitute with Henri; so was I. His sister was blonde; so was I—well, usually. Now my hair was dyed brown, and to his credit, that didn’t seem to slow him down. But maybe the strongest sign was that his sister had paved her own road to destruction…just like me. A decade younger. The do over.

“It wasn’t your fault. I brought this on myself. This gunshot. My entire life.” More softly, “I’m not your sister.”

“I…I think I know that,” he said drily. “Considering what we just did? Yeah, I’m pretty sure.”

“I don’t mean literally.”

“I know what you meant.” He spoke in a low, almost teasing tone. “You aren’t trying to diminish me, are you? By taking away my choice?”

I laughed, recognizing my words from last night. Then, I had been self-righteous and defensive, aggressive and fearful, but now… “God, no.”