Secrets Shared (6 page)

“So who hurt you?” David used his free arm to hold her across the shoulders, and kissed the nape of her neck. He spoke casually, as if he was asking her the time.

All of her contentment dropped away like a stone flung into a river. She struggled against him.

“No one, just you. Let me go, you asshole,
you’re
hurting me.”

Chapter Six

Jess stiffened and David tightened his hold on her. Whatever she said, he was not hurting her body in any way. Maybe her mind, and that was only because he was damned sure she was lying through her teeth. Someone had hurt her badly, and he suspected it was all tied in with her antipathy toward anything he enjoyed. Although he couldn’t condone the way Jeff had gotten her to the house, nor the way Jeff had involved Kath or him, David accepted it had all been done with the best intentions.

Jess scissored her legs and tried to kick out. As one foot was perilously close to his balls, David caught both legs between his knees.

“Stop it, you’ll injure yourself, Jessica. I’m not letting you go, so calm down, settle down and talk to me.”

“No.” She glared at him.

If looks could kill, he’d have his friends choosing the hymns and ordering the flowers.

“Well, up to you, hon. I’m happy to stay like this. I like it.” So did his dick, which was imprinting his zipper on its length once more. Jess grunted, but to his relief she stopped struggling. His arm was across her breasts, and he’d swear her nipples were hard against his skin. Jess took a deep breath and he felt the warmth of it stir the shirt she rested against. Then she shook.

“Ah, Jess, come on, love, don’t cry. We’ll sort it. Shhh.” Was he saying the right things? David didn’t have a lot of experience soothing a weeping woman unless it was with a scene or its aftermath. He continued stroking her hair and making soft, calming noises as she sobbed. It was heart wrenching. He’d never seen someone lose it like that before and he wasn’t sure whether to be pleased she felt she could or aghast she felt she needed to.

It was several minutes before the sobs slowed. Finally, Jess hiccupped, and her trembles ceased. Slowly she lifted her head, and David helped her sit up. With a wry grin, she ran her hands through her hair and sniffed. He took a linen hankie out of his pocket and handed it to her.

“Blow.”

Jess gave a watery smile and did as he asked. “You sound like my nursery class teacher. At the first sniff from anyone, she’d grab a tissue, shove it in their face and demand they blow.”

“As long as I don’t look like her, we’ll be fine.”

She did giggle at that. “Nope. She was five foot nothing and skin and bone, and with a mustache to rival anyone I’ve ever seen. By God she wielded a mean double ruler. I still can’t hear that sort of clack without shuddering.”

He didn’t think that was the reason she was so anti-everything, but he had to ask.

“So is that why you clam up and freeze when I say I want to spank you? It’s chalk and cheese you know.”

She rolled her eyes. “Of course I know, I’m not stupid. No, that’s something different altogether.”

He nodded, striving for casual. “So what then?”

“I have bad memories,” she said, just as he assumed she wasn’t going to answer. “And I don’t want the nightmares to start again. It took me a long while to get over them, and I’m not going down that road again.”

Shit.

“Do Jeff and Kath know?”

Jess shook her head. “Not as far as I know, but I suspect that they have an idea that something happened to make me feel the way I do. So, no one does except me and the asshat who created them. Hell, it was my own fucking fault for being naïve and trusting. What a simpleton I was. Never again. No one is
ever
going to have that sort of power over me. I’m my own person now, and no one, but no one’s going to change that.”

No wonder he’d sensed something very wrong. David itched to find out who had done what to her, and make him—he assumed it
was
a him—pay. Even without details, David realized it had to be bad. If she couldn’t stand to be blindfolded, held tight or, he guessed, be bound in any way, he’d gotten a job and a half ahead of him. Something in her called to him. He wanted her, and it was a long while since he’d felt such an immediate and urgent pull to anyone. Whether it would happen, he had no idea. Whether she’d be able to submit to him, he had his doubts. Nevertheless, he had to try and see where the attraction led.

“Jess, that you are your own person has never been in doubt, I promise. But you’re sat in my lap and my cock is practically opening my zipper without any help from me, I’m so aroused. You keep giving these little shows that make me think you’d like to see what we might have.” He held his breath. There had been tells, very slight but there. Maybe not as many as he intimated, but there nevertheless.

She shifted uneasily on his lap. His dick responded with Pavlovian fervor, and David wished he could unzip his jeans and ease the pressure on it. Odds on it would be a cold shower or self help later.

“Maybe, but just cos they’re there doesn’t mean I have to act on them.”

“True,” he agreed. “But surely the way to slay the dragons and move on, and not to let them bother you is to show they don’t have the power to hurt you anymore?”

“Ha, go you. Nope, not in my world it’s not.” She sighed. “Look, David, maybe this is one time we need to agree to disagree? And let me beg you not to tell Jeff or Kath about me falling to bits. Please?”

She looked up at him, a plea in her eyes. Her cheeks still held the evidence of her tears, her eyelids were puffy and her skin had gone to that horrible pasty white shade again. Even like that, with her hair in rat’s tails where she’d ran her hands through it, David deemed she was beautiful. He traced the outline of her spine with the tip of his index finger. Her eyes narrowed, but she didn’t say anything.

“I’ll do you a deal. I won’t say anything to Jeff or Kath, if you tell me everything. Including about your secret staircase. I’ve lived here for the best part of a year now, and I’ve seen no hint of one.”

“Hmm.” Jess not only nibbled her lip, she put her finger into her mouth and gnawed at her nail. He pulled it out.

“Don’t do that. You’ll regret it later. So, do we have a deal?”

“Help me stand up, please.”

David put his hands under her butt and resisted the urge to fondle her cheeks as he gave her the leverage she needed. “There you go.”

“Thanks.” She began to pace the room. David found himself counting her steps. Five one way and six the other. A swift three strides past the fireplace and back to stand in front of him. “So I tell you and that’s it? You keep the information to yourself, and we go our separate ways? End of?”

“I’ll promise not to say anything to anyone without your permission. But I give you fair warning, I’ll do my damnedest to make you stay. I think we deserve to explore what could be between us.” He kept his glance fixed on her face. “I think we’d be perfect.” The slight dip of her head, the way she looked at the floor and fluttered her hands toward his lap and away again thrilled him. It shrieked submissive. He could almost hear the arguments she was having with herself as she stood there and clenched her hands. Jess looked at him full on. Emotions chased each other across her face, and sent shivers of worry vying with tinges of awareness racing through him, until at last she sighed.

“Okay then. I guess I’m going to have to say something to explain my freak-fest on the way here. And in the interest of my brother not being arrested for murder, I guess you’ll do. But I go once it’s off my chest.”

It wasn’t the most complimentary way a gesture of help had been accepted, but at least it was a yes.

“Don’t forget the passage,” he reminded her. That thought intrigued him.

“Oh, I won’t. Right then, do we sit here?” she pointed to the settee.

“We can do. Or at the table, in the chairs or on the bed.”

Chapter Seven

Did he actually say that
? Jess squashed the notion that curling up against David on the bed might be nice. She didn’t want to get too cozy. As much as she trusted him to keep his word regarding Jeff, she knew he’d also keep his word about trying to persuade her to explore their feelings. And that scared the crap out of her.

“At the table maybe. With coffee?” Little stings of regret skittered through her. If only she could be brave, take what was offered and discover what, or who, she was. Jess was uneasily aware why she wouldn’t. She might not like what she discovered.

“Damn, I forgot to offer you something to drink.” David hit his forehead with his palm. “Some Dom I am.”

Jess started at his action, did people really do things like that? Smack their heads in such an over the top, dramatic manner? It seemed so.

“I didn’t give you much chance, did I?” she pointed out the obvious. “And water will be fine, I’m just wrung out.”
That’s an understatement if anything is. Wrung out and drip-dried.

“I have a perfect Chenin, but somehow I don’t think it’s the right time for that.” David walked across the room to where a gray painted door led to what Jess remembered as an overlarge cupboard with a tiny window in it. “What was this when you lived here?” He opened the door. “It’s my kitchen now. The bedroom is through the other door.”

Jess glanced to the other door he’d mentioned and looked away again. She remembered two rooms through there and had a scary feeling what the second of those rooms could be used for. Or would he not have a playroom when he had a whole club to play in? She realized David was waiting for her to answer.

“Oh, er, it was a junk cupboard. I kept things like my hockey sticks and skipping ropes in there. And at one point I had Ferdy hidden. My cat,” Jess explained as she saw the look of query on his face. “He was an abandoned kitten, and mum had said no more pets. We’d gotten two dogs and three ferrets as it was. To say nothing of a pet lamb.”

David laughed and disappeared through the doorway. “And how long did you keep Ferdy hidden?”

Jess wandered to the fireplace and ran her hand under the mantle. The tiny protrusion was still there to one side of an ornate stone carved rose.
I wonder why Jeff didn’t mention it? Maybe because we both swore never to
?
And I still have the scar to prove it?
They’d pricked their thumbs and swapped blood, but Jeff had been a bit too enthusiastic when he’d helped Jess, and the result was a tiny scar.

“Jess?”

She realized she hadn’t answered David’s question.

“Oh, fifteen hours or so. Not all of them hidden in my cupboard you understand. That was about seven hours until mum heard the squeaks and investigated. Ferdy looked up at her and meowed, and mum was hooked.” She curled her fingers over the rose and felt the nick in the stone. It seemed all was well secret passage wise.

Next door she could hear David moving about. With a guilty stealth that didn’t sit well with her, Jess moved away from the fireplace and sat at a hard-backed chair next to the table. At least the seat was soft. She’d only just gotten settled when David reappeared carrying a tray with a cafetiere, a jug of what she assumed was milk and two mugs on it.

“Do you take sugar? I’ll have to run down for some, I haven’t got any.” She must have looked as blank as she felt. “To the kitchen. In the club. They do non-alcoholic beverages and light meals. If you want sugar, I’ll need to get some.”

“Oh no. I take my coffee black, thanks. I’m a cheap date.”
Argh, foot in mouth. When will I learn?

“I’ll have to remember that.” David poured two cups of coffee and sat next to her. He fished in his pocket and brought out a couple of wrapped oat bars. “Here, sorry, but as before, the cupboards are almost bare. I need to go shopping. I don’t seem to have time to eat up here very often. Though if I had a companion, I reckon that would change.”

“Yes, well, thank you. Your Billy-no-mates status is not really anything to do with me.” Jess cringed at the arsy tone. There was no need for it.

He raised one eyebrow. “You think not? Okay, I won’t say in your own time. Start talking.”

Jess swallowed a mouthful of coffee and stalled as she unwrapped her oat bar. The look on his face stopped her going as far as taking a bite. She put the cup and the biscuit on the table, settled her elbows next to them and rested her chin on her hands. Across from her, David sat with his chair tilted back on two legs. His hands cradled his coffee cup and he smiled.

“You know, honey, there’s nothing you can say that will shock me. I’ve heard it all.”

She doubted it. “Are you sitting comfortably then? I need to go back in time. And I feel sick.” Her stomach churned, and bile coated her throat. Jess swallowed several times to try and get rid of it. It was more than nasty. She looked at her cup of coffee and away again.
Yuk no, not coffee
. The mention of coffee increased her nausea. To her relief, David didn’t offer platitudes. He walked out of the room and came back with a bottle of mineral water and a glass, which he put down on the table next to her.

“Thanks,” Jess poured a glass and drank half down. “So I need to go back to my last year at school. No we didn’t wear uniforms, and I didn’t have pigtails.” She did her best to lighten the tone. It was going to get dark, dangerous and depressing soon enough.

“Pity.”

Bless him.
David was trying to match her upbeat mood.

He leered and grinned. “I fancy seeing you in a gymslip and pigtails.”

“I was a brat.”

“Oh, even better. How did you say that teacher used the double ruler?” he mimed a double tap on his hand. “My mind is in overdrive.”

“Good for your mind. I don’t need a reminder, or a repeat. It hurt, and no, not in a good way. She was a sadist. Sadism is so not my style.”