Submersed (18 page)

             
It was sort of like the massage he’d given me before, but this time there was nothing between our
skin
.

             
Gradually, his hand moved around front and I sucked in my stomach. His thumb grazed over my belly button and up to the side of my breast. Instead of stopping, like I thought he would,
knew
he would, he continued up, his thumb slipping under my bra strap and over my shoulder.

             
My nipples tightened and my breasts ached. He was teasing me. He’d been just inches from my nipple, but he’d bypassed it and kept on moving up to my clavicle.
All the while, Dillon’s lips moved over mine, parting my lips so that our tongues intertwined.

             
It was torture. It was blissfully wonderful torture.

             
Again, his hand moved down my back, around to my belly and back up. This time, he finally cupped my breasts over my bra and skimmed his thumb over my nipple.

             
I gasped at his touch. My nipple strained against my bra and I moaned into his ear.

             
He moved his thumb over the hard bud like a windshield wiper and I thought I might come right there in my pants. The way my body was reacting, I had a glimmer of hope that Dillon just might be what I needed to climax.

             
His fingers moved over my breasts and then back down to my stomach. When he reached my waist, he nudged his fingers under the waistband of my pants.

             
I froze.

             
“
Livi
,” he whispered hot in my ear. “I want to make you feel good.”

             
“But what if I can’t…I don’t…” God, I couldn’t do this.

             
“It’s okay. Just relax. Listen to your breathing. Focus on how your body feels. Hear your own heartbeat. Don’t think, just
feel
.”

             
My biggest fear was that he’d work so hard down there and I wouldn’t be able to make it happen fast enough. Maybe I could just fake it and be done with it. I cursed his abundance of experience because he’d definitely know if I was faking it. There was no way out of this. But wasn’t it what I’d wanted all this time?

             
Sure, but what I wanted and what I was capable
of
were two totally different things.

             
It was then that I was forced to recognize the fact that I worry about the most stupid things. They seem so important at the time, but I wished I knew better than to work myself up over things that didn’t matter. But, the trouble was, I didn’t know they were insignificant when I thought of them. It wasn’t until later I realized the absurdity.

             
“Is it okay if I touch you?” he asked, his fingers waiting patiently.

             
“Yes,” I breathed. Yes.

             
Slowly, deliberately, Dillon slid his hand into my panties. With his free hand, he held tight against my back while his other hand reached down and petted my achy swollen flesh.

             
I gasped at how soft and intimate his fingers were. I clung to his neck, clutching his silky hair in my fists.

             
“
Mmm
, your panties are so wet,” he murmured.

             
“I’m sorry.” I tried to wiggle out of his grasp, but his palm cupped my mound, stilling me.

             
He made an exasperated sound. “That’s not a bad thing,
Livi
. It just means you’re aroused.”

             
“Oh.”

             
“Say it.”

             
I couldn’t say something that sounded like it belonged in a romance novel.

             
“Tell me,” he whispered in my ear. “Please.”

             
“You…I…I’m turned on by you,” I managed to say.

             
That seemed to satisfy him because his hand started moving over me again.

             
He slid a finger into my moist heat and then two. Meanwhile, his thumb was doing amazing things to my clit. All the while, he murmured words of encouragement in my ear. He never stopped stroking my hair.
Never stopped holding me tight.

             
I felt the sudden urge to pee but I knew I didn’t need to. I clenched my thighs together, trapping his hand. Instead of pulling away like I thought I wanted him to, Dillon pushed his fingers deeper.

             
“Just let it happen,
Livi
. Don’t hold back.”

             
I sucked in a calming breath and relaxed my legs. His fingers found the spot again and I felt myself pushing. Pushing and squeezing and trembling all over. Everything tightened and the intensity had me gasping and moaning.

             
Suddenly I felt heavy and feverish like I’d melt down into the sofa cushion. Oh, and then I had to grab hold of the slipcover for fear of levitating right up to the ceiling. I went higher, higher, and clenched tighter. Pleasure coiled up and exploded through my body, releasing me into bliss.

             
I grasped tight around Dillon’s neck and shuddered when he made me come. My body rippled as the euphoria shot me to the moon and set me back down again light as a feather.

             
Dillon kept his hand still for a minute and kissed my temple, cheek and lips. My arms were numb, so I just snuggled into him until I could function again.

             
When he slid his fingers from me, I shuddered at the empty feeling left behind. I buried my face in his neck because it felt good and because I was too embarrassed to look him in the eye after what I’d done. Had I made too much noise? Not enough? Did I take too long?

             
He hooked a finger under my chin and forced me to look him in the eye. “Are you okay?”

             
Was I okay? Yes. I was happy as a clam.

             
“Yes,” I panted. “What
was
that?”

             
Dillon smiled and stroked his fingers down my arm. “That was your G-spot.”

             
“Wow.” I didn’t think I had one. All this time I’d thought it was an urban myth made up to sell women’s magazines. Or that mine was broken. “I’ve never felt…I’ve never had…”

             
“An orgasm like that before?”

             
“I’ve never had one
period
,” I confessed, embarrassed.

             
Here he’d just finished giving me the most intimate of things and I still couldn’t say the O word out loud.

             
“You’ve never had an orgasm before?”

             
“No,” I choked out the word as my throat tightened and tears burned past my eyes. I couldn’t help it. The last thing I wanted to do after
that
was cry, but my body had other plans. A surge of emotion pushed out and I broke down. It had all been too much.
The kindness in Dillon’s words.
The intimacy in his touch.

             
I buried my face in Dillon’s neck and I cried. I cried for the years I’d wasted locked away from the world. I cried for thinking Derrick held the key to my prison when it was me all along. I cried because Dillon’s warm arms held me so tightly and made me feel so safe. I cried because Dillon had set me free.

             
When I was all out of tears and my breathing finally evened out, Dillon kissed my forehead and then my knuckles one by one.

             
“Who hurt you, Olivia?”

             
I pressed my lips together in a thin line. It was the first time he’d ever used my full name.

             
“Was it your father?”

             
“No!” I exclaimed vehemently. When I was sure my voice was steady, I said again, “No.
God, no.”

             
Dillon was running a comforting hand up and down my back. I hated him for making me trust him enough to tell him my story. There was only one other person I’d shared it with.

             
I took a deep breath and decided to start at the beginning.

             
“It all started early on in my childhood. As far back as I can remember kids made fun of me at school. They bullied me and picked on my clothes, my hair, anything and everything. When I started…developing faster than the other girls, it got even worse. I never really understood why I was a target, but I guess it didn’t help that I kept to myself and my art and wasn’t very social to begin with.

             
“Anyway, in college things got a little better and I even had my first art show in Paris--the one I told you about--the summer of my junior year. That next spring I met…” God, it was still difficult to say his name even after all these years. But I had to. I had to say it out lout. “I met Derrick. Derrick Huntington. He was
a third
year architecture major. It seemed too good to be true the way he was so nice to me and I should’ve known it was. We had a whirlwind romance, heavy on the whirlwind and light on the romance. Foolishly, I thought I loved him and I trusted him with my heart.

             
“After a couple of weeks we slept together. It was my first time and I know it’s probably an awkward situation for everyone, but it wasn’t pleasant at all like I’d pictured it would be. Afterwards, he left right away and I was left wondering what I did wrong.”

             
I didn’t realize it, but I was trembling. Dillon held on tight as if to keep me from breaking into pieces as I continued my story.

             
“The next day he called me and…” Jeez, I couldn’t believe I was telling all this to Dillon. “When…when I asked him what was wrong, he said
everything
was. He told me that our time together was a joke and the only reason he slept with me was because his fraternity dared him to. He told me I was
dirty and disgusting and repulsive.” Those were the words that rang in my head to this day. “Then I started to cry and he started laughing. Then I heard a bunch of guys in the background laughing too. Derrick had put our entire conversation on speakerphone. They just kept laughing.” I finished the sentence choking on a sob and Dillon gathered me tighter in his arms.

             
The memory was painful, like a new stab in the heart, the knife twisting and serrating my organs all over again.

             
Dillon murmured a few choice words about Derrick and I buried my face into his chest, my hot tears seeping into his tan skin.

             
“Jesus,
Livi
. I’m so, so sorry.” He rubbed my back and murmured comforting words.

             
“It was mortifying,” I sobbed. “I was so humiliated.”

             
“Oh,
Livi
, I’ve got you. That bastard won’t hurt you again.”

             
“That’s why,” I gulped in a lungful of air. “That’s why I’ve been taking things so slow with you. I can’t get over the fear that I’m going to be hurt again. I don’t think I could live through that again, Dillon.”

             
“It’s okay. I’m not going to make you do anything you don’t want to do, okay?”

             
“Okay,” I sniffled. “God, I’ve only ever told that story to one person.”

             
“Your father?”

             
“Yeah.
I had to tell him so he would understand why I quit school. He relayed it to my mother and she was disgusted. I’ll never forget how she looked at me.” I stared up at the ceiling and could see her face in my mind.
That cold expression, those cold, compassionless eyes.
“She was mad that I confided in my father instead of her and also because I had let something like that happen to me in the first place.”

             
“Like it was your fault,” Dillon said sarcastically.

             
“I know. She
’
s a lovely woman,” I said bitterness lacing my words. “We were never very close, obviously, and that is what ultimately ended our relationship.”

             
“You haven’t talked to her since then?”

             
“No. She told me how disappointed she was in me and that she was ashamed to have a daughter who would let someone take advantage of her like that. It was too humiliating for her, so she moved to Paris and then filed for divorce.” That was the difference between my parents. My mother fled the country and my father had bought me an island.