It made me hope that someday I might be normal. Maybe I could even love someone.
Hammer’s hands were up under my shirt, touching my breasts through my bra, and my nipples immediately hardened under his palms. I moaned, and he muted the sound with his mouth as I pressed my body to his, reveling in the hardness I felt against me.
“Please,” I said. It came out, not something I expected, to be practically begging a man to sleep with me. But desire coursed through my body, and I didn’t want to think about anything else except Hammer’s hands on me. I wanted him to touch me like he did last time, to make it so that his touch was what I felt, the imprint of his hands on my body when I closed my eyes at night. Not Aston’s. Not anyone else’s. I wanted him to erase the pain I’d endured, to make it so that I forgot what others had done...at least for a while.
“You sure you want me?” Hammer asked, pausing for a moment.
“You don’t have to ask me every time,” I whispered, sliding my hands up under his shirt, feeling his hard muscles tense under my fingertips.
Hammer groaned as I ran my fingers over his nipple. “Of course I fucking do,” he said, his voice hoarse. “I won’t get tired of hearing you say it.”
“Say what?” I couldn’t think. I slid my hands down his tight stomach, started to undo the buckle on his pants.
“You saying you want me,” he said.
“Well, then, let me say it again." I slid my hands further up under his t-shirt, and he pulled his leather cut from his shoulders, looking at me and grinning. "I want you."
He kissed me full on the mouth, then pulled back. "I'm going to take this off, and then I'll give you what you want." He walked across the room, hanging his leather cut on the chair. He looked at me from where he stood, and winked. "You better get those clothes off, or I'm going to rip them off you."
"Is that a promise?" I asked, not bothering to hide the smile that crossed my face. I started to pull my t-shirt over my head, then stopped, teasing him. "Now I'm not sure I want to take them off."
I watched as Hammer stripped off his clothes and stood there naked in front of me, his cock erect. I felt a thrill rush through my body, looking at him, followed by the familiar twinge of fear I couldn't quite shake.
"What's wrong?" Hammer crossed the room quickly, taking my hands in his, and I felt my shirt drop to my sides.
"Nothing," I said, and then, in response to his skeptical look, "I - this, whatever this is between us - I want it to be easy, but it's not. I like it. I mean, I really like it, a lot. But it's - there are so many things in my past. In my present, I mean..."
"I know I don't know everything about your past," Hammer said. "But I know about how shit from the past can affect the present. If there's one thing I learned from April's death, it's to live in the moment, because I don't know what the fuck is going to happen in the future."
Living in the moment was something I was an expert at avoiding. I had trained myself to exist by fading into memories of the past-back when I was a child, or when I still had Ben with me-or by fantasizing about the future. Anything to escape the pain of the present moments in my life, the ones that I couldn't bear to face.
Except for this. Except for him. I wanted to be here for this, to experience these moments. I wanted to drag them out, to savor them, emblazon them in my memory. I wanted to save them, so that these would be memories I could draw on later. These memories would be what kept me alive the next time Aston called for me.
The thought sent a shiver up my spine.
Hammer's voice broke through my thoughts. "If you're not comfortable, just say the word and I'll back off."
"I'm -" I started, struggling to put it into words, to figure out how to tell him I was intermittently uncomfortable, triggered by little things-a smell, a look, the memory of something. "I'm comfortable right now."
"Are you comfortable if I do this?" Hammer asked, kissing me just below my ear.
"Mmm, yeah," I said. "That's not too bad."
"Not too bad, huh?" he asked. "What about if I slip this off?" Without waiting for me to respond, he pulled my t-shirt over my head.
"That's okay."
"And what about this?" He unhooked my bra, and I drew in my breath as my nipples hardened in the air conditioned hotel room. "Is this comfortable?"
Hammer trailed his finger down the front of my chest and over the tops of my breasts. I ached for his mouth on me, just like before, but he seemed intent on tormenting me. I reached for his cock, erect and begging for my attention, but he pushed my hand away. "Huh-huh," he said. "I asked you a question. Comfortable?"