Chapter 17
Owen
Bee’s raw honesty was a new level of authenticity that ripped through the last bits of chivalry that held me together. I scooped her fully to me. I held her trembling frame as close as I could without crushing her.
Go back to normal? I’d already forgotten what “normal” life was. Looking back was like Dorothy looking back to Kansas after the Technicolor experience of Oz. I’d been in a world of sepia tone until Bee splashed every color in the rainbow over everything.
I kissed her forehead as I found my words.
“Absurd,” I said as I kissed her temple. “Silly.” I kissed her other temple. “Maddening.” I rubbed my nose along hers. “Woman.” My lips brushed along hers.
She gasped, and her arms gripped me tighter.
“There is no going back to before. I just don’t want to scare you.” She spoke of her heart shattering, and it was how mine felt if she were to look at me the way the rest of the town did. If she saw me as a big dumb brute, but she hadn’t yet and probably she never had.
“We only really met a few hours ago,” I said.
It was a rationalization, a reminder to slow things down. We couldn’t be behaving like this with just a few hours between us.
But did that matter? I said it but I hardly believed it. It felt like my soul had always known hers; I felt that I knew her and her needs instinctually. Poets talked of this connection, and I thought they all were just fools in love, but maybe there was something to finding a person who was genuinely meant to be in my life. A genetic design to it all. How had we been this close for all these years only to see how well we fit now?
It felt so easy with Bee, even when things were decidedly difficult.
Maybe this is what Ivy spoke of when she meant for me to put myself out there more because nothing ever felt like it could go back to how it was before.
“Trauma hours,” Bee mumbled.
I pulled her back to study her and make sense of what she said. Her eyes were still closed, her lips swollen, her mouth slightly parted, her cheeks pink, her short hair framing her perfectly.
Gorgeous.
Breathtaking.
“What?” I asked.
Her eyes fluttered open, and it seemed to take her a second to remember what she said. “Trauma hours. It’s like dog years. Time is subjective in crisis.”
I chuckled as I kissed her lips because I had no idea what she was talking about. To be fair, only half the blood in my body was going to my brain at this point. “What does that mean?”
“We’re trauma-bonded. It might have only been a few hours, but they were pretty critical hours. We had to get to know each other quickly and trust each other even faster than that.” Her hands cupped my face, and she seemed to peer deeper into my eyes. “But it feels like more than that, doesn’t it?”
I wanted to pretend I didn’t know what she meant in a last-ditch effort to keep distance between us, but of course, I knew what she meant. It might have been the circumstances, but it was so much more too. It had to be Bee.
“Yeah, it feels like a lot more than that,” I admitted, and my heart raced.
“And just in case I haven’t made this clear, I’m not afraid of you, Owen.” She brushed her fingertips along my cheeks. “If any of us should be scared, it’s you. I’ve lost track of the times I’ve accidentally poked or hit you.” She brought my knuckles to her lips and kissed them. “Why do I have to keep reminding you of that?”
I looked up to meet her eyes and swallowed thickly. I wanted her. She had no idea how bad.
“Being stuck here, I would never want you to think—” These hands were capable of violence. She couldn’t understand.
“I don’t?—”
“But you don’t have the whole picture.”
“Then tell me.” She shrugged and patted the bed next to us. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“It’s a long story,” I said.
She scooted out of my lap and up to the headboard. She leaned back, and I knew what the next words would be out of her mouth before she even said them. “Lucky for us, we have nothing but time.”
“I really set myself up for that one,” I said and sighed.
“Yep.”
As she settled in, I grew more uncomfortable. I wanted to come lie next to her, cuddle in the safety of her small frame, and scoop her up to me again. I wanted to touch her all the time, and she didn’t seem to mind. But I saw what it took for her to confess her fears of tomorrow, and I owed her some truths of my own.
I stood to pace, checked the fire, and organized her numerous snacks; anything to avoid looking at her.
“I’m going to say this quickly because I hate talking about it,” I said after a few minutes of awkward silence that Bee somehow managed to withstand.
She sat forward, a gentle frown tugging at her features. “Owen, if you don’t want to, I understand. There’s no pressure to?—”
“No. I don’t want to, but you need to know the sort of man I am.”
She watched me for a moment, mouth open, poised to argue some point. Then she closed it without a sound. She swallowed and gave me one small nod, the familiar look of determination creasing her brows. A few hours and I could read her better than anybody and knew her thoughts and needs. It was insanity to think that. I mocked those who felt instant connections with people as hormones and horniness. I never thought it could be real, but nothing else explained this wild need to tell her the truth about these hands and this body before I touched her.
“Talk to me,” she said, and it was permission and comfort. My confessional.
“In high school, my senior year, at the homecoming game, I tackled a linebacker from the visiting team. He ended up in the hospital in a coma for two days and never played football again,” I said, like ripping off a Band-Aid. I gripped the basin of the sink, the muscles of my neck feeling like knots on knots. I hated talking about it, thinking about it. Not that it ever stopped. The crunch of his body when I impacted him and we fell to the ground was burned into my mind forever. “I hadn’t meant to hit him so hard. I didn’t know how strong I was.”
A split second of violence made by my body, despite my unwilling mind, forever changed the course of my life.
She gasped and brought her hand to her mouth.
“I-I couldn’t handle the guilt. I’d not gotten used to my body yet, before high school it started growing and never seemed to stop. I felt like Mr. Hyde but never got back to Dr. Jekyll. Not a single part of me felt comfortable. And then the one area where I felt like I at least served a purpose was the place where I ended up almost killing someone. It made me sick. It ate me alive. I didn’t even like football. I was just good at it.”
“I’m so sorry, Owen.” Her hands reached for me but then dropped back into her lap when she saw I wasn’t done with my pacing.
And now that I started sharing, I couldn’t stop. I tossed my arms out as I walked a few feet in front of the bed.
“And the worst part was that nobody even seemed to be mad at me or tell me to back off on the field. If anything, people just confirmed that I was in the right position and pushed me harder. My dad made a joke about it and said it was all part of the sport. Nobody cared that I could have killed somebody.”
I hadn’t ever talked about this, and saying it out loud made it seem so much smaller. In my head, it was a dark shadow that loomed over every choice I made or decision that came without thinking. But once I spoke, it diminished in size—the opposite of saying the name of a boogeyman. Freedom shrunk its form.
“That’s so awful,” Bee said. “You were both just children. They should have protected you both.”
I swallowed down the gulp of pain at those words. We were children. I could see that now, now that the shadow was out of my head. I was a child, and so was the boy that I’d hurt. But looking back, I’d never felt that way. People saw me as an adult because of my size. I had always been a weapon to be wielded.
I still was.
“I was all set to ride that sports scholarship to college, but I couldn’t play after that. I couldn’t even put my pads on without throwing up.” I glanced at her, desperate to see what she thought of that, but all I found was a patient nod of understanding. “Back then, nobody understood. Except Ivy. She was there. She let me come to her class during lunch. I didn’t hang out with the team after I stopped playing. I was exiled. Those first few days, when I wasn’t sure if the kid was going to live or die, I had nobody except her. She would let me come to her classroom and let me cry silently in the corner—” I gasped a shaking breath in and out, thinking of that tormented version of myself. “She never shamed me or even tried to force me to talk. She’d just pat my shoulder or give me a book to read and let me be sad. It became a routine after that. To hide in her room and she let me mourn. I will never forget what that meant to me.”
I clenched my jaw so hard, and my nostrils flared. My vision blurred, but I wouldn’t cry anymore. I just needed to get it out.
“I will do whatever it takes to protect Ivy. When I dropped out of football, I lost my chance at any sort of real education. But I just couldn’t play that sport anymore. I couldn’t sleep without hearing the snap, that crunch. I hate feeling like I can’t control this body?—”
She got up and came to me then, a blanket draped over her shoulders. She wrapped her arms around my middle from behind and put her head on my back. I was thankful for her comfort but found I couldn’t meet her gaze yet. She’d probably expected some big, strong man who never cried over something over ten years ago.
“After that … violence was all I represented but never wanted. It’s like I have this mark on me that everybody else can see that just says, ‘Beware, capable of pain.’ That’s why I needed to tell you. What I’m capable of. The man I am.”
She let out a breath, and I felt it through the fabric of my shirt.
“I know the sort of man you are.” She squeezed my sides. “Turn around.” I did, and she stood on her toes to cup my face. I could melt into her soothing caress. “You are strong when you need to be, but not violent. You apologized before when I made doing your job extremely difficult. A man who, even when picking me up mostly against my will, managed to do so gently.” She took a breath, her gaze flicking back and forth between mine with ferocity. “And you even got me extra clothes and those cute chile socks so I wouldn’t be cold. You sacrificed your own comfort to warm me up. You continue to be a wall of patient strength even as I berate and attack and annoy you without so much as lifting a finger in retaliation.”
“I sort of like it,” I admitted with a shrug.
Something dark flashed behind her already dark eyes. “And if you wanted to scare me or hurt me, you could have done so a hundred times over, but not once have I ever thought of you as violent. You are beautiful and gentle.”
Embarrassment and flattery burned the tips of my ears.
“I know you’ve been told of all the horrible things you’re capable of,” she said and ran her fingertips from my hand and up my arm. “And I know other people’s perception of us can shape us more than we want or know or wish, so, if that’s the case, if you need a set of eyes to see yourself through, then you can borrow mine for a while. Because I think you are wonderful. Let yourself see you the way I see you.” And the look she gave me caused everything I ever thought I knew to fall to the ground, and in the ruined ashes of my mind, there was only Bee and her outstretched arms.
I let out a sigh so long it felt like the first time I’d really breathed in a decade. “Bee.” I bent and pulled her into my arms.
“So few have shown you love and gentleness throughout your life, yet you seem to display it so fully for others like me and Ivy while not thinking yourself capable,” she said. “Imagine the sort of love you’d bring people if you believed you could. Imagine the pleasure to be shared if you were simply instructed how.” Her blacked-out gaze met mine, and desire flared in me.
A deep, unidentifiable, guttural sound of need came out of me.
“Prove everybody else wrong,” she said, stepping closer; her sweet smell filled my senses and shot awareness through my whole body. “Let me be right.”
“What do you mean?” I asked her.
“Show me how gentle you can be.” She stepped back, and my eyes roamed over every inch of her as my flannel fell from her shoulders.
She stood before me, fearless and breathtaking. Her eyes were dark and patient, her lips freshly licked. She was a temptation like nothing else. Her breasts, her hips, the angle of her neck into her shoulder. Every inch of her was a feast for my eyes, and I couldn’t stop looking.
Show me they’re wrong. Show me how gentle you can be.
I couldn’t make any promises, but I could try. I felt safe to go slow and be what she needed.
I stepped forward and wrapped my whole hand around her supple neck, pulling her up to me as I bent to her. Strong and soft.
She moaned before our lips met in the middle. I brought my other hand to her hip at a respectful height on her waist. I wanted her to know that she had the power here, that she could stop anytime. I was nothing to fear. My fingers tightened as her hips collided with mine. But I also wanted her to know that I needed her.
I never wanted anybody as I wanted her right now at this moment. It was an all-consuming heat. The lightness of a man unburdened. She knew the truth, and she trusted me.
If perception made reality, then I was ready to be the man reflected in her eyes when she looked at me like this.
I needed her. It became evident that everything I’d kept buried, a long-harbored crush on the woman I thought was too good for me, came exploding to the surface with a pressure that could only come from long suppression.
I was vaguely aware of the person I thought Bee was before this night, but I couldn’t remember any of that. That illusion was a projected idea formed from a small town’s opinion and glimpses caught through a storefront window. Now, there was only this woman here. This beauty who’d revealed herself to me in these short hours of my longest night. Fiery and fierce, gentle and fragile. Forgiving. I wanted all her multiple facets like a gem that only got more beautiful the more the flaws were studied and its brilliance brought out by contrast and light.
I lowered my mouth to kiss her as she came to meet me. A tender and tentative brush of lips like in the tram. Only this time, Bee wasn’t having it. She pushed up on her toes to deepen the kiss, pressing her mouth harder against mine, opening her mouth to let my tongue in. Her hand rested on my chest, and my heartbeat slammed against her palm.
Our mouths explored each other, and it was delicious and perfect. We broke the short kiss, and I blinked at her, my own shock reflected in her look. Should kisses feel that good? Should it feel that right?
“My neck hurts,” she whispered.
Maybe not.
“Oh. We can stop?—”
“No, you’re just tall, and I’m not a giraffe. Let’s move to the bed.” She grabbed my wrist, and I let myself be yanked.
We landed on our sides in a tangle of limbs, though I was careful not to crush anything in the process—including my heavy erection. Our heads met on the pillows, equal playing field now. And we kissed more. Her taste was incredible. The sounds she made drove me wild. My hands fought to stay respectful, but there was so much exposed skin they couldn’t find one area to settle. Our bodies rocked closer and closer with the passion of our kissing until I was aware I’d pushed one of my thighs between her legs, and she was rubbing herself against it.
“Can I touch you?” I asked.
She sucked in a shaking breath. “God, please.”
I smoothed my hand over her waist, stomach, and hip. I ran my fingertips up and down her legs, enthralled by the goose bumps that followed my touch.
“You’re so beautiful, Bee,” I said. “I’ve thought so for a very long time.”
Maybe I’d expected a quip in return, but when she looked at me, lips swollen, color high on her cheeks, there was only raw honesty.
“I wish you had told me sooner,” she said with soft vulnerability.
“I do too,” I said.
“I didn’t think anybody—” She cut herself off, deciding against something. “Thank you for telling me now.”
“I should have told you that any time I see you in town, my mouth goes dry, and I cross the street so that I don’t risk sounding stupid in front of you, but I think you’re the most beautiful woman in town, and more than that, the most interesting. If I’m being honest, I don’t actually notice any other women.” As I spoke, my hand continued to explore her hot, smooth skin. Her face was torn between focusing on my words and enjoying my caresses. My middle finger dipped low into her bottoms, and the muscles of her abdomen contracted.
She sucked in a breath.
“I should have told you that day I passed your shop that I dreamed about you,” I whispered. I watched her face closely as my middle finger brushed slowly down her pelvis until I reached her seam. I released a shaking breath when I was met with slick moisture. “Fuck,” I said, feeling my control start to fray.
Be gentle, stay calm.
“I-I thought of you too,” she said on a hitched breath when I barely dipped one finger into her center. Color rushed to her cheeks, and I leaned forward to kiss her again briefly.
“Is that okay? Does that feel good?” I asked.
“Yes. Go over to—yes, there, and then use your middle finger to—oh.” Her head went back, and her mouth parted on a sharp gasp in. “Yes.”
“Yeah?” Her words sank in as I used her wet to slick up and down and all around her. Petting her, teasing her, studying every twitch of her mouth and intake of breath. I hadn’t learned these new expressions of hers yet and would need to translate them.
“And this?” I brushed my thumb over her swollen clit as my fingers crooked inside her.
“Ah! Wait, lighter, yes. Okay.” She panted and squirmed. It was intoxicating to watch. I did this. I made her writhe in pleasure.
“You did?” I stilled, thrown off, losing focus in the heat of the moment, but not wanting to lose that thread of her confession that she dreamed of me too.
“Well, not a dream. A fantasy,” she admitted. More heat flushed up her chest, and I lowered my mouth to suck lightly at her collarbone. She groaned. “That day you rescued Binxy Boo,” she said, breaths coming faster as I kept my strokes long and luxurious, occasionally passing her core to dip back into her, spreading more of her moisture around.
It was a claim for the state of me that I didn’t even blink at the name she listed.
“That beast had it out for me. I just wanted to do something for you. I had no idea what I was doing.” I kissed her neck and inhaled her, memorizing her. Her breasts and body were pressed hard against my arms, the muscles aching from the angle and the hard work, but not even close to stopping. “I just want to make you so happy.”
“You did save the cat. You really seem to know your way around a pus?—”
I pushed my finger deep into her and hooked it, searching for … She cried out. There it was.
“Tsk, tsk,” I said, but she wasn’t listening. Her hips were rocking as she fucked herself on my hand. “Focus, Bee.”
“Ugh,” she said. “What was I saying?”
“The day that cat almost killed me,” I supplied.
“Oh. Right.” She continued to grind against me, and I watched her, eyes closed, mouth parted. Absolutely beautiful as she sought her pleasure with my fingers. I could do that for her. I could prove that I was more than brute violence. “That night, I thought about you when I used my toy. I imagined you coming back to the cat café to kiss me and some variation of this.”
“You naughty thing.” My chest burned with pride. God, I hoped it was true and not the heat of the moment. I would have never imagined that I could do that to somebody.
“I know. I’m so ashamed.” She did not look ashamed.
“No, you’re not.”
She bit her lip and grinned. “That was before I knew about your allergies. Guess I can’t use that fantasy anymore.”
Anymore . Just how many times had she thought of me?
She moaned, head thrown back, flush spread over her chest and shoulders now. Her hard little nipples pushed up against the neon green material of her bikini. A moment of weakness. A distraction. A desperation I couldn’t ignore.
“I can help with that. Give you some new memories,” I said.
Leaning up onto my elbow, free hand occupied, I pushed up the loose strands of her bikini with my nose. I found her nipple with my mouth and tongued it, all the while, she continued to ride me. I loved this. I loved my body being used for pure pleasure.
“Oh my God,” she called out, arching her back, pressing her nipples more fully into my mouth.
“Yes,” I said, popping off her as she started to unravel.
I was losing control alongside her. My cock was pressed painfully against my zipper, but all I could focus on was her pleasure.
“You’re so wet, Bee.” Her moisture dripped down my fingers, cupped in my palm as I worked it against her. My body burned, every inch coiled up, hotter and more desperate than it had ever been. I was a ball of tension, incoherent, not sure if I was talking a lot or listing my desires in my head. I wouldn’t stop until I tasted how fucking sweet she was. How my tongue would slide so deep into her.
“Yes, yes. Oh, don’t stop.”
I had been saying my dirtiest thoughts out loud.
“I want to hear you cry out my name, Bee. I want to make you come so hard.” I brushed my thumb over her clit as she said she liked, fingers still working as I sucked her nipple into my mouth.
She threw back her head and, in fact, did scream my name as she came.