Chapter 39
Chapter Thirty-Nine
There’s a distinct feeling of falling in my stomach as if I’m slipping below the smooth surface of the water into the current of some unseen, unknown force.
Aria looks shell shocked.
Her eyes are rounder than I’ve ever seen them. I’m afraid they’re only going to look more distressed after I drop a load of reality on her.
“Buckle up, sweet girl.”
“Oh, I forgot.”
I reach across, grab the belt and shove it home. Then I put the truck into drive and hit the gas.
It takes a few miles before I get up the courage to rip the proverbial bandaid off and lay it on the line .
She’s completely silent and the air inside the truck is hot, thick and nervy.
After drawing a breath, I spit out the first fact. “We can’t have sex.”
The silence gets even more dense.
I glance her way and wish I hadn’t. She’s more beautiful, more destructive than ever before.
The flush on her cheeks is mine. The color on her lips is mine.
I want nothing more than to own the rest of her.
But that’s not fucking happening.
Rain starts to fall from the moisture-laden sky, hitting the windshield in fat, random drops.
“Is something broken?”
I take my eyes off the road and put them on her again. “Broken?”
She presses her lips flat as a deep red blush slides onto her cheeks. “There’s other ways to be intimate.”
Oh fuck. Now I know what she’s talking about. “I thought you felt my cock pressing against you.”
“But I guess it could still be broken.”
“No, sweet girl. I’m one hundred percent in working order. At least when it comes to my hardware.”
She goes silent again and I wish like fuck I’d never started this conversation.
Or kissed her.
I almost choke on my own tongue from telling myself that lie.
Staring through the increasing rain, I curse the fire that changed everything.
Another lie. I was already fucked before that, when it came to intimacy. The fire was just the final straw .
“Scout, remember we said total honesty between each other.”
Swallowing deeply, I tighten my hands on the steering wheel. “I can’t have normal sex.”
Her comeback is instant. “Explain.”
“You know I don’t like to be touched.”
She curls her hands into her lap. “Do you ever have sex?”
Maybe I’m hoping to scare her off because I say. “Yeah, I have sex. A lot of it.”
“Explain.”
I scrub a hand over my jaw. “Let’s just leave it at that.”
“Why are you hiding?”
I work my jaw side to side, fighting that falling feeling. Trying to escape the whirlpool that wants to pull me back to dark places I never want to go again.
But the question raps on my brain like there’s someone else inside my head.
Why am I hiding?
“I’m not hiding from you, Aria. I want you. I really fucking want you in every way a man can take you. But you deserve more than I can give. Like normal sex.”
The farm house that Agile’s using for base camp comes into view and I wish like hell I was a different man, because I’d like nothing more than to carry Aria into one of the cabinas and forget about the last twenty-four hours.
“But I’m not that man,” I say gruffly as much to myself as to her.
“I see.” A quiet, two word reply that makes my fingers twitch on the wheel.
She might think she sees, but the deep layers are where the real me lives. The part of me that’s a fraction of the man I was before I went to war and came back broken, scarred, and a hollowed out shell.
“I’ll never be that guy.”
Now I’ve got to deal with this jacked up obsession and need to protect her in a way that makes it clear that this is going nowhere.
When I slow the truck and stop in front of one of the eight cabinas on the property, Aria sits forward. “Is this where we’re staying?”
I motion to the small blue stucco house. “That’s mine. At least it’s my temporary home while I’m in Vandemora for the mission. I put you in the one next door.”
Hers is identical in size, but the exterior is painted coral.
“What about Griff?”
“He’s in the last one on the left—the green one.”
“It was nice of you to give me my own space.”
Was it? Because I’m thinking that’s dangerous.
“We’re short a couple of guys right now and I thought you might like to have some time to decompress from all the testosterone.”
I climb out of the truck, my feet feeling heavy, my brain a washing machine full of bad energy.
She follows me to the hot pink door that leads into her accommodations.
Turning the latch, I swing the door open and fight the natural instinct to sweep the property before she comes inside.
She notices my hesitation. “Go ahead. Griff always does it.”
I don’t argue, and stalk through the small house checking the shower, the closet, pantry, and under the bed. “All clear.”
Silently, she steps inside, and looks around. Moving around the room, she touches the back of the couch, then the glossy surface of the small dining table. “Pretty. This is really nice lodging.”
“We have a special deal with the property owners. It’s a story, actually. My teammate is now engaged to the woman that owns the farm. But that whole story is for another time.”
Moving silently, she walks to the bedroom door and stops. I find myself behind her. Too close.
Shoulders tight, she stands silently in the doorway.
“What’s wrong?”
“I was just wondering…”
She doesn’t move. I brace my hands on the doorframe, a rush of blood racing down to my pelvis from the proximity of the bed.
“Wondering what?”
“What kind of sex you have.”
I force myself to swallow my growl. “Don’t go there, Aria.”
“I want to know.”
Sealing my front against her back, I let my mouth dip to her ear. “I pay for it.”
She flinches, but she doesn’t say anything.
“That what you wanted to hear?”
“No,” she replies huskily. “I wanted to know what kind of sex you have if you don’t like to be touched.”
“The kind where I’m the one touching.”
She trembles against me, making my body ache. “And you pay for sex, like prostitutes?”
I should keep my damned mouth shut, but I lean closer to her ear. “No.”
“Explain.”
“Is that one of your favorite words? ”
Quickly, she chuffs. “With you it is.”
I trail my nose along her ear and against the sweet spot on her neck that I’m dying to bite. “I pay to be a member of exclusive, high-end sex clubs.”
“What’s that?”
I chuckle darkly as my cock lengthens. Fuck, this is a dangerous game. “It’s a place where consenting adults can have safe sex with people that will agree to their proclivities.”
“Are you a Dom?”
“Are you a sub?”
She shakes her head, making her long braided hair dance over her shoulder, causing my hand to tingle with the need to fist it.
Quietly, she says, “I don’t even know what that really is.”
I could teach her.
“Sometimes, I play the part.”
“What do the women do?”
Breaking my vow not to put my hands on her, I trail a finger along her neck, brushing a stray, curling tendril aside. “They come.”
Exhaling shakily, she shivers under my touch, making my pulse stall then race.
The thin ice below my feet is cracking at record speed.
Then she wrecks me with a whispered confession.
“I haven’t wanted anyone to touch me in a long while. But I want you to put those big hands on me. I want you to show me.”