“Oh, you will, will you?” He beamed with confidence.
I nodded once, as if to underline my own confidence. “Yes, I will,” I said, rounding my chin. “And if all else fails, I’ll just shoot you.”
Atticus’ eyes widened. His mouth fell open. He laughed under his breath.
“Wow, from tickling to shooting—that’s quite a stretch. A bit harsh, don’t you think?” His hands were fitted on my hips.
“Maybe,” I said with the casual shrug of my shoulders. “But sometimes harsh things must be done.”
In two seconds, and a whirlwind, I found myself beneath Atticus, him straddling my waist; his hands pinned my wrists against the floor.
He smiled cunningly down at me.
I smiled sweetly back up at him.
“Well then why don’t you shoot me now?” he invited. “If you’re so confident—and so sure you could bring yourself to do it—shoot me now.” He leaned in once and brushed his lips across mine.
“Maybe I will.” I grinned.
“Then do it.” He released my right hand. “If you can reach my gun on the floor by the sofa, then by all means.”
“But I don’t need your gun,” I sassed.
“Really?”
I nodded my head against the floor in response.
“Well, I’m waiting,” he mocked. “Shoot me.”
I manipulated one corner of my bottom lip tensely between my teeth, trying to contain a smile.
He released my other hand, and pressed his palms flat against the floor beside my shoulders. Leaning over, he peered into my face, waiting, taunting me.
I raised my right hand between us, folded my three bottom fingers toward my palm, pointed my index finger straight out, my thumb straight up, then pointed the ‘barrel’ in the center of Atticus’ chest. I cocked my thumb and said in a nasally, high-pitched voice, “Pew! Pew!”
The grin vanished from Atticus’ face, promptly replaced by a frozen, unemotional stare. He just looked at me for a moment, blinking—(I never stopped smiling)—and then he threw his head back and roared with laughter. He fell off of me and onto the floor, and he laughed until there were tears in his eyes.
I sat upright next to him, laughing with him until there were tears in my eyes.
After the laughter faded, I laid down beside him; we stared up at the ceiling together. For a long time neither of us spoke.
“Atticus?” I whispered.
“Yeah.”
“Can you…” I broke off, too bashful to say it.
“Tell me,” he encouraged. “Can I what?”
My face flushing with heat, I buried my head between his armpit and his chest so I wouldn’t have to look him in the eyes. “Well…I wanted you to do that thing you did last night.” His hands squeezed my bottom more firmly.
“What did I do?”
“You know…”
“Well, I did a few things to you last night,” he said, kissing my head. “Which is it?” I couldn’t see his face, but I didn’t need to, to know that he was grinning.
My cheeks were on fire; my lips were pressed into a hard line. I hated it that I was so embarrassed about these things!
“Of course I’ll do it. But are you sure there’s time? Jeffrey might surprise us and come back unexpectedly.”
“I think there’s time,” I answered, hoping that was true.
Atticus got up from the floor and crouched in front of me, fitting his fingers behind the elastic of my panties, and he slid them off.
“Is this what you were talking about?” he said as he spread me apart with his fingers.
Um…yes… He dipped his head between my legs, moving the tip of his tongue over me. I gasped sharply, but still could not answer out loud. Oh yes, Atticus…that’s it.
“Or was it this?” he said, and I felt two of his fingers enter me.
I moaned and whimpered and tensed and Oh dear God…
Then Atticus said, “Or was it both at the same time like this?” His tongue caressed me while he moved two fingers in and out of me.
What happened to the time? One moment I was experiencing euphoria, and the next, I was staring at the ceiling again, wondering how it could’ve been over so quickly.
“Atticus?” I said a few minutes later when I could speak.
“Hmm?” He lay with one arm propped behind his head, the other laid across his chest.
“Do you remember Petra?”
He nodded. “Yeah, I remember her.”
I pictured Petra’s beautiful face, her long, blonde hair and kind blue eyes. I thought back to those days I spent with her locked in that room in Lexington City, seeing the scenes in my mind as if they’d happened only yesterday.
“What about her?” he asked.
“Well,” I began, taking my time, “she was having a lot of sex with that soldier before…well, before he was killed that night.”
Atticus’ head tilted to the side; he looked right at me. But I kept my eyes on the ceiling—what I was about to propose made my insides rock-hard and my mouth dry.
“Yeah?” he asked, giving me a nudge.
“He did something to her,” I said, “and…well, it sounded like it hurt really bad, but she seemed to like it a lot, too.”
“Well, what was it?” he asked, suspiciously.
I flushed. “He…well, he took her in the…other place.”
He repositioned his back against the hard floor, but I got the feeling it wasn’t the floor making him uncomfortable.
“Yeah, well,” he said, “it does hurt like hell.”
I edged my way closer and laid my head on his arm.
“Don’t get any ideas,” he told me straightaway.
“I was just curious.”
“Well, then believe me when I tell you it’s painful and you won’t like it. At all. No matter how much Petra liked it. Or pretended to.”
“But how do you know I won’t like it?” I raised my head from his arm and propped my face on my knuckles.
“I just told you,” he countered, looking at me intensely. “It hurts like hell.”
“But how do you know how it feels?”
“Because I’ve done it.”
My face screwed up; my eyebrows crinkled and stiffened. “You’ve done it?” I asked, shocked.
“What—no!” he snapped, realizing. He sat bolt-upright on the floor. “God no! I just mean that I’ve done it to a couple girls, and they didn’t seem to—just, just no.”
I laughed under my breath.
“This won’t end like the blowjob, Thais. You keep messing with me,” he warned, “and I will tickle you until you piss yourself.”
He laid back down. “Did you really want to try that, knowing that it’s painful?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
“Why?”
“Well, I just wondered if men prefer that.”
“You mean you wondered if that’s what I prefer.”
I shrugged. He’d guessed it spot-on.
“No,” he told me. “I think most men are perfectly happy with old-fashioned sex—some feel lucky to get it at all.” He paused. “But that girl, Petra, she was…well, she was different from you.”
“In what way?”
“In every way,” he said promptly. “We’ve talked about this before—Look, what Private Brock did to her was degrading.”
I just looked at him, waiting for him to explain.
He sighed. I could tell that everything about this conversation made him uncomfortable.