Julia
Chapter Eleven
His voice is a low rumble, a vibration that seems to go right through my bones. But the tone is unmistakable. This is a question, but it's also a command. He wants me to say it. He wants me to own it.
He's kneeling between my legs, my dress pooled around my waist, my bra somewhere on the floor.
His shirt is still on, damp and clinging to his chest, and I can feel the hard lines of muscle beneath the thin fabric.
My legs are draped over his powerful thighs, my heels hooked loosely behind his knees.
We are still mostly dressed, and I have never felt more naked in my life.
"Ricardo, please..."
I'm not a prude. I'm not shy. Or I wasn't anyway. I wasn't... before Harrison.
Before Harrison made every want feel like evidence.
Before he could turn my body into something to be judged, corrected, rationed back to me in pieces.
Ricardo’s hand slides up my thigh, slow enough that I can stop him, firm enough that I know he wants me too much to pretend otherwise.
“Look at me,” he says.
I do.
His eyes are dark. Patient, somehow, even with his jaw tight and his breathing rough.
“What’s the matter, cuore mio,” he murmurs. “Why can’t you say it? Why can’t you tell me what you want?”
The question cuts through the heat so cleanly that it almost leaves me gasping.
I do not have a good answer.
Or rather, the answer is humiliating and makes me feel stupid.
I am a grown woman. I should be able to be in bed with a man and tell him what I want.
But being with Harrison was so… clinical. Even sex had to be appropriate.
Hell, moaning too loud was deemed inappropriate, depending on his mood—not that I had much cause to moan too loud with him.
That thought almost makes me laugh.
But the laugh catches somewhere in my throat and turns into something much closer to panic.
Because this is not clinical.
There is nothing appropriate about me half-undressed on Ricardo’s sofa, his mouth still warm on my skin, his hands braced against my hips as if he can reach deep inside me and feel what’s there.
Or what’s missing.
And somehow, that makes me feel more vulnerable than if I were completely naked.
My palms press against his shoulders, suddenly wanting space.
“Forget it,” I say quickly. “Okay? This is—This is a mistake.”
Ricardo stills, and his hands leave me at once. They settle on the sofa on either side of my hips, close but no longer touching me.
The absence is instant and awful and makes me feel about a thousand times worse.
I drag the front of my dress higher over my breasts, suddenly exposed in a way I did not feel exposed a minute ago. “I’m sorry. I can’t— I don’t know why I’m being like this.”
“You don’t need to apologize.”
“I do, actually.” My voice shakes, which makes everything worse. “Because I’m the one who said I wanted this, and now I’m acting like—”
“Like what?”
I look away from him.
Like someone broken.
Like someone who still hears another man’s words in her head.
Like… Like…
Exactly what he wanted from me. A trained puppy.
Another man touches me, and I lapse back into the version of myself Harrison taught me to be without me even realizing it.
The thought is so ugly that my eyes sting.
Ricardo shifts back onto his heels, giving me room. The kind I asked for and don’t actually want.
“Oh God,” I whisper, turning my face away. “I hate this.”
The fire snaps softly beside us. Rain hammers the windows.
“Julia.”
“No, don’t.” I shake my head quickly. “Please don’t be kind right now. I can’t handle kind.”
“Look at me.”
I close my eyes. “Ricardo—”
“Look at me.”
I press the heel of one hand to my eye, furious with myself, furious with Harrison, furious with the storm and the fire and the fact that I wanted this so much a minute ago I could barely breathe.
“I wanted you,” I say, the words scrape my throat raw on the way out.
“I still want you. That’s the worst part.
I want you, and the second you asked me to say it, I heard his voice in my head making me feel ashamed for it.
Like I’m less for having such base emotions.
I can’t get him out of my head, and I hate that I’m thinking about him right now.
I hate that he gets to be here for even one second. ”
Ricardo’s expression hardens.
Not at me.
I know that instantly, and somehow that makes my throat tighten more.
“There is nothing base about wanting,” he says.
“That’s easy for you to say,” I say miserably. “Ask Harrison and—”
“I won’t, then,” he says, and I can practically feel the anger radiating off him.
That makes me look at him.
He is still kneeling between my legs, but he has given me space. His hands are on his own thighs now, fingers flexed once against the fabric of his trousers, as if keeping them there requires effort.
“Desire is honest,” he says, his voice low. “People make it ugly when they use it to control someone. Shame someone. Take from someone. But wanting someone who wants you back?” His eyes hold mine. “There is nothing lesser in that.”
My breath shudders.
“Anyone who thinks so,” he continues, his voice turning colder, “has mistaken the emptiness within him for strength and discipline.”
My breath catches.
Ricardo does not look away from me.
“A man who has to make a woman ashamed of wanting does not possess restraint. He possesses nothing worth offering in return.”
The words are quiet, which makes them more vicious.
“He was not trying to make you better by teaching you to need less. He was trying to make himself feel bigger because there is so little in him to begin with.”
I react to that on two levels. The words themselves are like an epiphany to me, but it’s more than that. I’ve heard that kind of anger before where Harrison is concerned.
At this moment, Ricardo reminds me so much of Dante, it leaves me breathless.
I now see where Dante gets it from, and I know that if Ricardo knew the full extent of Harrison’s cruelty and what he really did, the anger Dante showed would pale in comparison to Ricardo’s.
No, I can’t think of that right now. I’ve already allowed Harrison to occupy too much space between us. Maybe irreparably.
Ricardo’s jaw tightens. He’s not done.
“And if he could not bear your desire,” he says, “then that is because he had no idea how to handle a woman like you.”
Something in my chest breaks open.
A woman like you.
He says it like there is nothing wrong with me. That maybe the problem was Harrison all along.
My fingers loosen where they are clutching the dress to my chest.
“What does that mean?” I ask, barely above a whisper.
“It means…” Ricardo’s voice goes low and seductive. “I don’t have that problem, tesoro mio.”
My treasure.
“You are wrong, Julia,” he continues. “He is not in this room with us.”
“I-I know that, rationally,” I stutter.
“I want to make sure you know that actually,” he says. “Will you let me?”
I stare at him, half-dressed and humiliated and aching for him, and he looks back at me as if none of this has made me less desirable.
As if stopping has not cost me a damn thing.
“How?” I whisper.
A slow, seductive smile crosses his face. “I think it would be better if I showed you.”
“I… I am a visual learner,” I say, breathless.
“I need one word from you, cuore mio,” he murmurs. “One word to show you exactly how wrong he was.”
My breath catches.
The shame is still there, but it is so much smaller now. Suddenly less significant. Pushed back by the heat in Ricardo’s eyes and the low murmur of his words caressing my skin.
“Yes,” I whisper.