But she didn’t leave in silent disgust as I expected. Instead, she pulled the quilt over both of us, resting her head on my arm and gently stroking my chest.
“No, it’s my fault,” she said quietly. “I should have known better than to take you by surprise. I do know better—it won’t happen again, Ash.”
I sunk further into the black cloud that always hovered nearby. A man should be able to have a beautiful woman give him head without freaking out. I threw my arm over my face, humiliated again.
The torture in my mind was far worse than the physical pain had been. My armor was gone, my nerve endings exposed, skin raw.
I felt Laney’s soft fingers tugging at my wrist.
“I know what you’re doing,” she said. “You’re beating yourself up about this. Don’t. We just have to work on our communication.” She paused. “Now that we’re married.”
I let her tug my arm to my side and saw her smiling at me carefully.
I couldn’t summon up the energy to smile back. Instead, I closed my eyes, letting the frustration wash over me.
“Why are you doing this, Laney? Since you met me, everything has gone wrong for you.”
She paused, perhaps thinking, turning it over like a stone as she looked for the truth.
“No, it’s just life,” she said simply. “And having you in my life—it makes it better. I know that’s not part of the plan, but I can’t help it.”
The plan. The great plan. Married for a piece of paper, living together for convenience. God, I was a fool.
I sighed, caught by the great lie.
“My body knew I wanted you before my brain did. I was numb for so long—you’ve brought me back to life. You’ve saved me over and over.”
She smiled.
“We’ve done everything backward: we met, we married, we had sex. That’s our story, Ash. I’ve given up trying to understand it.”
She kissed my chest, her lips soft and warm, and my shameful body reacted again. And this time I had to have her. That’s when any semblance of gentleness, of finesse, fled.
Our eyes locked and then she launched herself at me, kissing me hard.
For a half a second I was too stunned to react. And then I did.
I’d thought about kissing her every hour of every day since our wedding nearly three weeks ago. That was a fucking hot kiss, I’d felt the passion inside her, but I didn’t think she really wanted me. I’d seen her looking, but that’s all she’d ever done. And after rehearsals the other day, with the excuse that Sarah and the girls were watching, I’d done what I’d been wanting to ever since; taken what I’d needed.
Even as her nails dug into my scalp and my dick hardened, I kept thinking, This is my wife! I’m kissing my wife!
It was hard, but not fast. It was intense, but not fevered. It was my balls slapping against her ass as she clung to my body, her legs clamped to my waist. It was me inside her, and her all around me.
And when we came, it felt like it meant something.
We lay on our backs breathing hard, her chest pink from arousal, her neck and chin red from my stubble.
Then she turned on her side to look at me.
“Ash,” she said softly, stroking her fingers down my chest.
I knew she could feel my heart pounding, and not from the sex we’d just shared. She’d caught me off guard, and she knew it.
“It’s okay. You’re safe.” She paused. “Can you tell me what you were dreaming about last night . . . and earlier?”
I threw her a dark look, refusing to give in.
“Why do you want to know?”
“Because I want to know you—everything about you—good and bad.”
I shook my head. “No.”
“Why not?”
I sighed and stared at the ceiling, hoping that the right words would magically appear. I glanced across, meeting her eyes.
“You’ll look at me differently.”
“I won’t,” she said softly.
“You will. Of course you will. You should. I don’t like to think about it—ever. I don’t want you to have that shit inside your head.”
I sprang to my feet and started pacing up and down in the tiny space, feeling caged.
That was how I coped when I was upset or angry—my body needed movement. But showing her how twisted up inside I really was . . . she looked like I was breaking her heart.
“Hey,” she called quietly, holding out her hand to me.
I halted my pacing and turned to stare at her, hoping she wouldn’t see the dark despair, the grief, the disgust.
I took her hand, holding it gently within my own. Her finger joints were a little inflamed today and her skin felt hot to the touch. Despite the sex we’d had earlier, I felt the need to handle her as if she was delicate, precious . . . and when I looked at her, I wanted her to see that she was beautiful and desirable.
Her face flushed.
“You are the strongest person I’ve ever met,” she said, staring into my eyes. “You are,” she continued as I shook my head. “You’ve survived so much and you never stopped fighting.” She sat up straighter. “Whatever you did, it was because you had to.”
I couldn’t look at her.