Chapter 23 #2
Then she moved, and I let her have it. All of it — the pace, the angle, how deep, how slow.
My hands were on her hips, not steering, just there.
She knew what she wanted and she knew how to get there.
She wound us both up slow, grinding down when she felt like it, holding the edge until I was past asking nicely, and then she let go.
I felt her go tight around me, watched her head drop back and her mouth fall open, and that was what took me over with her, both of us at once.
She collapsed onto my chest, onto her own name, and I wrapped both arms around her and held on, our hearts knocking against each other.
After — a long time after, the second time done and a third one threatening — she was tucked under my arm, sheets wrecked, her hand flat over the tattoo like she was holding her own name in place. She traced it with one finger and said, quietly, “You should stay.”
I’d said those words to her once, in my room at the clubhouse. She was saying them back now, in her bed, her terms. Different room. Same answer.
“Yeah,” I said. “I’m not going anywhere. Told you that.”
“You did.” She yawned into my shoulder. “On a sidewalk. While I was throwing you out.”
“Worst night of my life.”
“Mine too.” She went quiet a second. “I’m glad you didn’t believe me.”
“I never believed you for a second,” I said, and felt her smile.
Her hand kept moving slow over my heart. I caught it and held it still while I thought about the one thing I hadn’t told her. “There’s something you still don’t know,” I said. “About the night you threw me out.”
She went still against me.
“Tanya set me up.” I told her all of it, flat, eyes on the ceiling.
“Tanya and me went back years, on and off, long before you. Somewhere in her head that made me hers. When you came along, she couldn’t stand it.
So her and Sarah put a camera in my room one afternoon.
That night Sarah let herself in at two, blonde hair fanned out on the pillow, and arranged herself next to me while I slept.
They planned to get a photo to send to you. ”
I turned my head and looked at her.
“Before you, there’d always been a woman in my bed.
You could set a watch by it. Tanya banked on that.
” I held her eyes. “But I woke up that morning with a strange woman on my mattress and I knew nothing had happened. I motherfucking knew it. Bone-deep, no question about it, the second I opened my eyes. I hadn’t touched her and I never would have.
I’d cut my own hand off first. Not her, not anybody.
Only you.” I let that sit. “That’s a fact. ”
She was quiet.
“That morning I threw her out and went straight down to Glitch. He brought up the hallway feed from the afternoon before, and there they were, letting themselves into my room while I was out, one of them popping into the hall every couple minutes to check nobody was coming. Suspicious as hell. Glitch found the motherfucking camera in the vent, lens pointed down at my bed.”
Austen had come up on one elbow while I talked, watching me.
“Nothing happened,” I said. “I’m not asking you to take my word for it. There’s a recording. Motion-stamped, the whole night, me flat on my back in my boots not moving a muscle. I kept it. Insurance. Say the word and Glitch sends it to your phone right now. You can watch every minute yourself.”
She shook her head. “I don’t need the tape.” She held my eyes. “I trust you.”
She traced her name over my heart, slow, one letter into the next, the way she had the first time she found it there. Laying claim to it all over again. Then her finger went still.
“Those two, though.” Her voice changed, and I placed it right off. It was the one she used on the drunks at Velvet. Level. Pleasant. Not a degree of give in it. “Sarah lay down next to you. In your bed.” She didn’t blink. “Where are they now?”
I got the feeling that if I gave her a street name and house number, she’d have been dressed and out the door inside a minute, headed straight there tonight. God help me, I liked it.
“Handled. The club way. We won’t see them again, ever. They’re gone, both of them.” I tucked her hair back.
She held my eyes a second longer, weighing whether handled meant handled, and I saw her decide to let it go.
“Final new piece of information. I couldn’t sleep in that room after.
Didn’t want new sheets or a new mattress, I wanted new walls.
Moved down the hall that day. I never told you any of this because I was still learning to be the man you deserve, and I wasn’t there yet. I’m there now. So. Now you know.”
She settled back onto my chest, onto her own name, and I felt her file it away somewhere permanent. “Okay. Now I know.”
Then her head came up off my chest, and whatever she’d just filed away was gone, replaced by something a lot more dangerous.
“New room. New mattress.” She propped her chin on my chest, turning the words over, and the spark came up in her eyes, full and wicked.
“Tyler. You’ve got yourself a virgin mattress. ”
“Nobody’s slept on it but me. And I don’t count.”
“That’s a tragedy. A brand-new bed, going to waste.” She considered me like a job that needed doing. “We’ll have to break it in. Properly. Christen every inch.”
“Every inch.” I could already see it, her spread out on that untouched mattress, and I knew exactly how the first night on it was going to end. “I’m going to have you coming all over that brand-new bed.”
She’d told me to come. We’d both come — I kept that one to myself. I’d told her I knew it. Hadn’t been wrong. But another week and Fewin’s plan would’ve started looking reasonable.
Good thing she’d sent me that text when she did.