Forget (29 page)

“I’m not,” he declares. The outraged expression on his face contrasted by his very naked body is equal parts hilarious and hot.

“Okay, okay, I believe you. No need to get riled.” I bite my cheek to hide my grin.

“Lindsay was right. You’ve got a horrible poker face.”

“What? When did she say that?” I hold both hands out in surprise. The sheet tumbles to the floor.

Dylan gawks, taking an appreciative perusal of my bared form. He starts at my toes and slowly works his way up to my face. “Get over here, and I’ll tell you.”

I think about his explanation for preferring Polaroids over digital. Immediately, getting an idea, I grab his Polaroid camera from the nightstand and move towards the bed.

He cocks an eyebrow, curiously watching me as I straddle him. “Well, this has possibilities,” he says, moving his hips suggestively.

“Is there film in this?”

“Yes, you’ve got plans of flashing me again?”

I glance down at my chest and then meet his eyes with a grin. “I think I already am.”

He licks his lips. “It’s the best damn flash I’ve ever seen.”

I point the camera towards his face. He stares fixated on my bared breasts. “Do you think I have a horrible poker face, Dylan?” I ask, snapping a picture when he finally looks at my face.

Instantly, the photo is in my hands. I examine it closely, finding exactly what I’m looking for. Holding it up, I say, “I think that Goddamn smirk on your face speaks for itself.”

He tugs it out of my hands and tosses it across the room. “Even with that terrible poker face, you’re still the most beautiful woman I’ve ever laid eyes on.”

I glance at him over the camera, rolling my eyes dramatically. “Blowing smoke up my ass won’t get you out of this one.”

Strong hands grip my backside. “I guarantee there’re a lot of things I’d love to do with your tight little ass, but that’s not one of them. And . . .” he pauses, smiling softly, “it’s not a line, Little Wing. Your beauty devastates me.”

His words and the honesty in his eyes are disarming. I could live a lifetime off that compliment. The music switches over, and Montaigne starts singing about freeing the beast from the cage.
I’m a Fantastic Wreck,
is a song that calls to me on every level. To me, it says, “I’m a good person with good qualities, but I’m also a fucking mess on the inside.”

When a choice is taken away from you at a pivotal age during your childhood, it’s bound to leave scars. And, believe me, my scars are plentiful. No matter how much I hate it, I can’t change that they’re in every word, every action, every decision I make. Sometimes, I wonder if I’m really just a lost little girl still striving to find herself.

Personality questions and seemingly innocent mini-quizzes I often see on social media are painful. I’m envious of people who can answer questions like “Name three things to describe yourself” without even having to think about it. It seems so simple, right? Just name three things.

But for me, it’s not that easy.

Internally I’m a contradiction. My personality is a pendulum—always swinging back-and-forth from one extreme to the next, never staying still.

Right brain and left brain.

Musical and discordant.

Rational and spontaneous.

Shy and outgoing.

Sassy and timid.

Strong and weak.

Self-assured and insecure.

Every facet of my personality contradicts itself. Deep down, I’m just that nine-year-old girl wanting so badly to find her place in life, but uncertain of her self-worth. And now, looking down at Dylan, I wonder if his feelings for me would change if he knew everything.

“Where’d you go, love?”

It takes a minute for his voice to penetrate my thoughts. The camera moves away from my face as I meet his gaze.
Would he still think I’m beautiful if he knew the secrets that stole my innocence and tainted my youth?
I have a hard time believing he’d still want to touch me, taste me, kiss me if he knew. “I’ve never come with a man,” I finish the sentence that tried to leave my lips earlier. “Until you, the only time I’ve ever had an orgasm was with my own hands.”

Snap.

At first, his face squints at the odd timing of the picture, but once my words register, he appears taken aback. “
Ever?”

I nod. “Nope. Never. Sex didn’t start off as a good experience for me.”

Snap.

He searches my expression, his face falling slightly.

I hide behind the camera. Without waiting for him to respond, I continue, Montaigne’s voice giving me courage. “My parents weren’t great people. They were irresponsible, careless,
selfish.
They loved getting high too much to love me or Ember. But that’s the thing about drug addicts, once they get in too deep, people don’t matter to them, not friends, not family, not even their own children. Once the drugs take control, it’s all they think about, all they care about.” My breath trembles slightly, and consciously, I keep using the lens as my shield.

Hands rub my thighs in a soothing motion. His touch isn’t suggestive. It’s calm, tender even.

“Are you sure you want to know about all this? I think it might be too soon for me to unload my baggage on you . . .”

Dylan’s hands go still. “I want to know
you,
Brooke. Not just the good or the bad or the random little things in between, I want to know
everything
that makes you the beautiful woman that’s in front of me.” His soothing touch is back on my thighs again. “So to answer your question, yes, I want to know.”

Without giving myself the time to think of all the reasons I shouldn’t tell him, I continue. “When I was eight and half, my drug-seeking, vagabond hippie parents decided to stay put for a while. We lived with friends of theirs. The couple was nice enough, but they were very similar to my parents. They had a teenage son who was around fifteen at the time. Even that young, one look into Ivan’s cold eyes, I knew he wasn’t a nice kid. He was often put in charge of keeping an eye on Ember and me.

“We’d only been living there for about a month, when he started doing inappropriate things . . . brushing against me, standing too close to me . . . pushing my buttons. Looking back, I guess it was his way to test me, see how far he could push it. He came into my room one night, slipping under my covers, putting a hand over my mouth before I could scream. He said that if I did what he told me to do, he wouldn’t hurt me or my sister, but if I didn’t listen to him or told our parents, he’d do something really awful to Ember. She was four, practically a baby at the time. So of course, I cooperated. I was almost nine, and Em was my baby sister.”

Snap.

This is crazy. Why are you telling him all of this? You’ve never told anyone except Jamie,
my rational mind shouts. But my heart is louder
because he’s safe too. He’s right too.

And with a surprisingly steady voice, I confess it all. “I know I’ve probably blocked out a lot of it, but I can still remember the pain and how dirty I felt afterward. I would get yelled at for taking too many baths, using up too much water, but I couldn’t help it. I needed to wash him off of my skin. I needed to feel clean again . . . which I never did. And, of course, I remember the tainted pink polka-dot sheets on my bed. I’d often fixate on them, wishing I could disappear.”

Snap.

“Christ, Brooke,” Dylan says, dread hinting at his voice. “How long did you live there? How long did it gone on for?”

Snap.

My voice is eerily void of emotion as I tell him the rest. “We stayed in that house for about two months before we were placed in foster care. All of us—Ember, me,
and
Ivan. The social worker thought she was doing something good by keeping the three of us together. She even made sure my belongings went with me. It was about a year before I could escape Ivan, his nightly routines, and those pink polka-dot sheets. Once Millie found out the state had taken us away from our parents, she fought for us until she got custody.”

Snap.

I can’t change my past. I can’t change what happened to me. I can only hope, that, despite the invisible dirt, I can never seem to wash off my skin, Dylan will still accept me. Deep down, I’m desperate for the possibility that someone like him, so breathtaking, so full of life, could love a wreck like me. I guess that’s a need I’ll always have—to
feel
loved,
be
loved by someone. Even though Millie raised me and showed me enough love to last a lifetime, it’ll still never change the past—my parents didn’t love me and my innocence was stolen far too soon. Those facts have forced years of self-hate into my brain.

He takes the camera from my hands, setting it on the bed. Strong arms pull me down, holding me tightly to his chest as he runs his fingers through my hair. “I’m so sorry that happened to you.”

“It’s okay. I’m okay,” I whisper, trying to put him at ease.

A choking noise fills his throat. “I know you’re strong, love, but I have a hard time believing anyone could be okay after that.” He exhales deeply, his hands tensing around me. “What’s his last name? What city does he live in?

“Why? You planning on tracking him down?” I ask in a joking voice, but one look at his troubled expression shows the joke fell flat. “Honestly, I don’t know and I don’t care . . . Sorry, I just kill-joyed the mood, but I felt like you should know. It’s obvious you know the walls I’ve built. The difficulty I have in just letting go, not just during sex, but life in general. I know I’ve built an arsenal of coping mechanisms in response to it all. It’s probably why I’ve never had an orgasm with a guy.

“It’s probably, why sex has never been good for me. I’ve viewed it as a chance to finally have a say. It wasn’t about losing myself in someone else for the pleasure. It had turned into something for me to control, for me to make sure I had the upper hand. It was never about the pleasure of it until . . .”

He leans back, staring up at me. “Until me.”

“Until you.” I rest my chin on his chest, quietly gauging his reaction. Curious to look at the pictures, but too scared to follow through. “Look, I know I’m a fucking mess, a constant contradiction of hot and cold. I’ll understand if I just freaked you out or if you’re completely disgusted by me. I’ve told you things that no one wants to hear about the person they’ve just had sex with . . .” I stare down at his bare chest. “God, I didn’t even let you put clothes on before I unloaded my life story on you.” I laugh, it’s harsh and not from humor. “I’ll understand if you never . . .”

The anger in his eyes stops me in my tracks. “Don’t fucking say it,” he says in a stern tone.

In an instant, I’m on my back, Dylan gazing down at me. “Is that what the pictures were for? To gauge what I was really thinking? To see if my expression matched my words?”

I nod, shutting my eyes in embarrassment.

He grips my chin. “Look at me, Brooke.” His voice has turned soft. “I’m making a promise to you, right fucking now. I’ll always be honest with you. Even when the truth threatens to kill me, I won’t lie to you. Believe me when I say this, your past, the honesty you just revealed to me, doesn’t change the way I feel about you.”

But I haven’t told you everything . . .
I ignore the stabbing sensation in my chest

“It doesn’t change how fucking gorgeous I think you are. And it definitely doesn’t change my attraction to you.” His mouth is on mine, kissing me roughly for a few seconds. “I could never think of you as disgusting. I’m sorry for what happened to you. I’m sorry no one was there to protect you. You deserved so much more than your terrible parents and that vile piece of shit that preyed on you.” His words lull my demons to sleep.

His mouth moves down my body, licking and sucking at the sensitive flesh. “God, you’re beautiful.” He pushes my legs up until I’m spread open for him and buries his face between my thighs. “You have the most perfect pussy on the planet. I’ve never had anything better than your taste on my tongue.” His mouth works me over until I’m screaming his name.

He kneels on the bed, grabbing a condom from the nightstand, and before I can calm my panting breaths, he is hovering over me, poised at my entrance. “Dieu, je te veux.”

“Please, Dylan, I need this . . .”
I need you.
Because I do. His actions speak louder than any words ever could. He’s showing me that none of it matters. That everything I confessed didn’t change a thing.

It’s exactly what I need.

He works himself into me slowly until every perfect inch of him is inside. His rhythm starts off unhurried, each thrust increasing in speed and intensity.

Our bodies are fluent. His skin soothes mine. And the way he’s looking down at me makes me feel like he has the power to dive into my eyes, remove all of my pain, and taste every single one of my daydreams.

His breaths are coming out in erratic pants by the time he’s reached a smooth and steady pace, hitting every nerve ending that’s greedy for another release. My panting moans and incomprehensible murmurs encourage him further. He kisses me hard, sliding his cock out until only the tip of him stays inside. He grabs my hands, lifting them above my head. His mouth is near my ear. “Christ you make me wild. I need to fuck you now, Brooke.
Hard.
I need to bury myself so deep inside your perfect cunt that I don’t know where I end, and you begin.”

“Yes,”
I beg, hips erratic and restless. My hands grip his backside trying to pull him closer.

In one jarring thrust, he’s buried to the hilt, face buried in my neck as he chants my name.

“
Fuck,
you’re tight. So bloody tight. Nothing in the world feels this good.” He drives into me, deep and powerful movements that jolt my body up the bed. “I’m so close, love.” His thumb rubs my clit. In a pained voice he pleads, “But I need you there with me. Let go, Brooke. Let go with me.”

And I do. I don’t think about my need for control that always trumps my need for pleasure. I submit to him. I trust him. I fly over the edge, floating inside the realm of euphoria.

He thrusts once, twice, and then comes shouting my name, the weight of his shaking body pressing me into the bed.