“Ruben. Stop,” I snap unintentionally, but he really is becoming annoying. He pauses beside me so I take his hand and apologize, “I’m sorry. My face isn’t really hurting now and apart from that I’m okay.” I pull him down to sit on the bed, which is where I’ve been since he brought me back to his place six hours ago. “Since I’ve woken up you’ve done nothing but fuss over me. Going back and forth, when all I want is for you to lie next to me and hold me.”
He turns and climbing over me, he spoons in close. Holding me tight he buries his face into my hair and inhales, shuddering when he exhales. “I didn’t think I’d get this chance again—to hold you in my arms. Not because something would happen to you, but because of what I said to push you away. God, that just about killed me. Do you…Do you forgive me?”
Needing him to see my face when I answer, I struggle to turn over, but as soon as I do, I snuggle into him again. “Yes I forgive you. You broke my heart because I thought it was all real and not for show and I guess it helped when Simon had hold of me because he really believed you wouldn’t come for me because of it.” I lean in and kiss him. “I love you, Ruben. That hasn’t changed.”
“All the time you’ve been asleep since I brought you home I hoped you really did forgive me. And I had hoped after Hunter called with your cell, which he found in the room. He told me that you’d tried to ring me while you were in the room with Simon.”
“Didn’t your phone ring?” I ask slipping my hand inside the back of his jumper to stroke the skin there. Unable to behave I slip my hand into the back of his jeans.
“Rosie,” he growls, “I can’t think with your hands on my ass. What did you ask? Oh phone. It broke. I threw it across the office after I’d let you leave.”
“Hmm,” I hum into his ear sending goose bumps over his skin, which in-turn has him throbbing against my thigh. His breath hitches in his throat.
“You need to rest.” He groans when I press against him—rubbing side-to-side. “Rosie,” he warns when I slip my hand into the front of his jeans, wrapping my fingers around his throbbing penis. With my thumb, I rub over the sensitive head and feel how wet he is there. I want to taste him.
“Ruben,” I push him over onto his back, “will you let me taste you?”
“Um—”
“And don’t even think of telling me to rest. My knees in a very sensitive area, not to mention my hand.” I stroke down to his sack and feel him lengthen and twitch at my touch before slowly caressing him to the bulbous head of his shaft.
To my disappointment, he removes my hand. “I want nothing more than to be naked with you and to let you have your way with me, but I want to talk first.” He places a finger over my lips. “I know I’m about to kill the mood, but this is important and I don’t want to put if off any longer. Okay?”
I dread to think what he wants to talk about, although I have a feeling with him saying ‘kill the mood’ that it’s about my past. A past I really would prefer to keep buried.
Lying in silence with him, I tell him some more of my story, “When I was a young child both my parents would tie my hands together and keep me tied to a chair in my room when they considered I’d been naughty. Leaving an item of food on my plate was considered enough to warrant that punishment. I soon learnt not to leave anything, even if it made me sick later.” I give a bitter laugh. “They wanted a servant and got me.”
Sitting up, I draw my legs up in front of me. “They were both killed in an accident when I was fourteen. I was put in the system until I was old enough to leave. I’ve bounced around from job to job and I’ve worked at Kenza for longer than anywhere. So now you know.” I turn my head to look at Ruben feeling as though a weight has been lifted from me.
At the back of my mind I know I’ve been worried about telling him about my past because he has such a close, loving family. I’m not sure why I was apprehensive about telling him. I also didn’t think it would be as easy as it was, and that I’d be able to manage it without the usual tears. Although it isn’t something I’ve admitted to anyone more than a handful of times, but the last time with Liz, I’d cried myself to sleep.
“Baby, I don’t know what to say.”
“You don’t need to say anything. I know I told you at the picnic about being tied up as punishment, but my family was so screwed up, and because of that I’m not sure I’m ever going to be comfortable with trusting you to tie me up. It isn’t about trusting you, okay. I need you to know that.”
“Rosie. Rosie. Don’t you know by now that I’ll take you any way I can get you?” He pulls me down into his arms, protecting the injured side of my face. “When I told you that I love you, I meant every word. There aren’t any strings attached to those three, very powerful words. The three words that I’ve never spoken to anyone before…other than family that is.”
I smile. He’s so cute. Not that I’d ever admit that to him. Him being a guy an all.