The Heart Of It (4 page)

His honesty was contagious.

Gabe’s gaze was heavy on her skin, like he was trying to find a way in. She could imagine the questions he was thinking, the ones he was dying to ask. And she didn’t want to talk about it. Her past—which she’d long ago come to terms with—didn’t belong in this room. It was already pretty crowded with his past.

“So, what are we doing here?” She watched him over the rim of her glass. “You’re not gay, you want me, and you’re not a virgin.”

The shower in the room next door turned on, a hum through the walls that did nothing to shatter his intense silence.

“You know.” He looked towards her, but not at her. A careful distinction.

Of course she knew. The scars were clear to someone who knew what to look for.

Stop
, she told herself.
These are not your demons. If he wants to carry this burden, that’s his business.

But somehow she couldn’t believe that. He’d paid big money four times to
not
have sex with her because of these demons. He wanted this gone. He’d come here to lose this burden.

“Who hurt you, Gabe?”

“He didn’t actually hurt me,” he said. “I mean he did. He fucked me up pretty good. But he didn’t . . . physically hurt me.”

Oh, you are so hurt you don’t even know it.

“Who?”

“Hockey coach.”

Anger spiked in her brain. The fucking animals that preyed on the kids who loved them—there was a special place in hell for those assholes.

Her father, at least, had never given the impression he loved her. And he hadn’t fucked with her sexually, which was a weird kind of blessing. Beat the crap out of her and her sister on a regular basis, but hadn’t come sneaking into their room at night.

“A Canadian cliché, huh?” His brave attempt at a joke broke her heart.

“It’s never a cliché when it’s you. How long did the abuse last?”

“It started when I was twelve, ended when I was fifteen.”

“Gabe. I’m so sorry.”

“He didn’t rape me or make me touch him. He just . . . ” He rubbed at his forehead with the back of his hand. “He just liked to . . . ah . . . touch me.”

Oh, to be so young and have all that pleasure turned to something dark and scary before he had any idea what it was. What any of it meant.

“I think . . . I think I will have a drink.” His long body got up off the floor, and in his absence she realized she’d been holding her breath. Slightly dizzy, she pressed her head back against the door, trying to get her bearings. He came back with a beer and sat back down in his spot.

When she was little, after Mom had died and before her sister ran away, she and her sister had built a clubhouse in the back of the apartment building, between the dumpsters and the lilac bushes. It had been small and dark and close and most importantly safe, and that’s where they’d told each other their secrets.

It had been the one place where the lies they lived every day couldn’t go.

I fell down the stairs.

I got hit by a ball.

I don’t know how that bruise happened
.

This foyer with Gabe was like that.

“Did you tell?”

“Other kids came forward first, then I did. There were six of us altogether that he was still abusing. Another four from before us. Coach went to jail, killed himself within the year.”

“And the rest of the guys?”

“We all came from different towns, and the team broke up, was reorganized to another town, and I never went back. Two of the guys are in the NHL.”

“No shit?”

He nodded. “I never played again. Not at that level. Took years before I could go into an arena again.”

“Did your folks know?”

“Mom suspected once my friends started coming forward. She convinced me to talk. My parents were so good about it. They got me into counseling right away. We all went to counseling for years. All eight of us. It was hardest on my dad, I think—”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Gabe,” she snapped, outraged in some ways by his kindness. From their narrow and strange acquaintance, she could see how he would be the last guy forward, the one most afraid of rocking the boat. Thinking perhaps of what would happen to the coach, instead of thinking about what had been done to him. “It was hardest on
you
.”

He glanced away as if unsure. Or uncomfortable. And she knew she was right about him.

“Either way. The nightmares stopped before high school graduation. I even had a girlfriend in college, I just always had to be wasted to have sex. And I don’t want that anymore. I don’t want to need a crutch.”

“Are you pissed?”

“Pissed?” He said it like it hadn’t occurred to him to still be mad. That was what counseling did, convinced the wounded and victimized to put away all their anger, to forgive because that was the only way to move on. To heal.

But sometimes there was no healing. There was no moving on. There was just figuring out how to live with the nightmares.

“Pissed about what happened?”

For a second she saw it in him, the sharp edge of his anger, something he couldn’t always control. But then he shrugged, shrugged like they were talking about his damn dog again.

“Of course I was. But it was years ago, and like I said, he didn’t hurt me.” His focus had sharpened, his blush was not in his cheeks but in his neck, that bottle strangled in his hand.

“That’s bullshit, Gabe. And you know it.”

“It could have been worse.” He bit out the words, obviously trying so hard to swallow down the emotions he didn’t want to have.

“Is that what you tell yourself?” She tilted her head, wondering if he was trying to convince her or himself of this crap. “Is that the bright side? It could have been more awful?”

“There has to be a bright side.”

“Really?” She was mildly entertained by the idea.

“Otherwise what’s the point?”

“Of what?”

“Of anything,” he snapped, throwing his hands up. “Of living? Of waking up every day?”

“I sort of think survival is the point, but maybe that’s just me.” She sounded more bitter than she’d intended.

“Your son, isn’t he a bright side?”

The brightest. More bright and more perfect than anything she’d ever hoped for. But they weren’t talking about Simon.

“Then why are you here?” Across the narrow distance of the foyer and the chasm of their world views, she was still interested in him. She waited for his blue eyes to meet hers. They really were lovely. He was lovely. Full of hope and pain in equal amounts.

So brave, she thought.

So irresistible.

“This has been great, Elena, but—” he stood and set his beer down on the TV table “—I think I should leave.”

She stepped in front of the door again.

He turned around and saw her. “Really?”

“Why are you here?”

He took the three steps between them like Christopher Columbus charging off his boat to claim the New World. His hands grabbed her upper arms, his thumbs slipping under the straps of her dress. Instead of pushing her sideways, he lifted her up slightly so she was on her tiptoes and she had to put her hands against his chest for balance.

Considering it was her last shot she made it a good one, her fingertips finding his hard nipples under the fine weave of his shirt. She raked her thumbs across them, and he hissed.

“Why do you care?” His eyes narrowed, full of a barely leashed anger so different in him it was lethal. Exciting. She leaned in closer, breathing him in, sweat and soap and the tiny tang of beer.

“Because you paid good money to fuck me, Gabe.”

Air shuddered out of his lungs. His grip on her arms was at once too hard and too soft. He was a man on the edge of a terrible cliff.

Enticing him to jump, she leaned closer, rubbing her belly against that baseball bat in his pants. His excitement was a loaded proposition.

“Stop being so nice.” Her voice had a sharp taunting edge. Her fingernails pushed harder into his skin. Against her stomach, he got impossibly harder.

He pushed her back against the door, not rough, but not gentle either.

“You can do better than that,” she purred, goading him.

His hand dropped to the hem of her dress and pulled it clumsily up her legs, over her hips, to her waist. With both of his giant hands he grabbed her ass, his fingertips slipping just under the lace and satin edge of her panties, into the humidity between her legs.

His palms were rough, hard and greedy—rubbing, stroking, and grabbing. Lifting her higher only to let her go and then do it again. His fingers teasing the slit between her legs—intentionally or not, the result was the same. Every grab she got hotter and wetter.

His eyes were locked on hers, and the intimacy was terrible. Awful. She closed her eyes and put her head against the door, arching hard into him.

“Come on,” she whispered, challenging him to do more. Touch more of her. Have more of her.

But she didn’t move her hands, didn’t reach for him. Didn’t touch his belt. Nothing.

“Turn around,” he said, and when she didn’t move fast enough, he turned her himself, pressing her to the door with his body. His mouth rested, open and damp, against the back of her neck. Not a kiss. She could feel him, torn in two by his head and his body, so she took matters into her own hands and shimmied out of her underwear, her hips nudging him.

“Oh god,” he sighed, and his fingers left her waist. She heard the clank of his belt, the metallic rip of his zipper.

“Condom.”

“I . . . I got it.”

It was a blur, the condom tearing open, the wall of heat at her back, the harsh saw of his breathing. And then the nudge of his penis against the entrance to her body, and she tilted her hips to receive him. Wide and thick, a hot heavy intruder, he slipped in.

Surrendering, she closed her eyes, a gasp escaping her throat.

His groan was equal parts torture and ecstasy, and his arms curled around her, clumsy and strong, his hands clutching at her, grabbing her dress, part of her breast.

It was awkward. Messy. His thrusts were more power than finesse. He was undone against her, inside of her, and she’d never in all her life been part of something so awful and wonderful at once.

So human.

Shaken, her eyes stung with sudden unlikely tears.

“Elena.” Her name was wrenched from his body, a terrible plea, and all she could give him was more. More of herself. She helped him, took over the stroking, taking him from root to tip over and over again. “God, yes. Yes. Elena!”

He squeezed her in his arms, in his hands, against his body. So tight she could feel his heart beating against her back. Coming, he jerked and jerked against her.

“Yes,” he whispered when the storm of his orgasm had passed. “Yes. Thank you. Thank you.”

One breath. Another. A third, and she felt him shift to let her go, the careful easing away, and she wasn’t ready.

Desire, thick and smoky, infused her. She ached where he’d filled her. Ached for more.

For more of this messy awkward fuck against a door in a hotel room.

More of him and all his contradictions and burdens.

And she clutched at his arms wrapped around her waist.

“Are you okay? Did I hurt you?” he whispered, so still against her. She could sense all the nuances of his worry. The many layers of hurt to which he was accustomed.

“No.” Her voice was thin and cracked, so she shook her head to reinforce it. “You didn’t hurt me. Not at all.” In fact, she was still humming inside.

It was obvious when she turned around that he was still sort of stunned. And worried. And embarrassed by all of it. He ran a hand through his coppery bright hair, flashed her a brief but wide smile.

“That . . . Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” She licked her lips surprised by the power of this need. “But are you going to leave me like this?”

Wide, worried eyes met hers. “Like what?”

“I want more,” she whispered, arching her hips off the wall. “Make me come, Gabe.”

She expected panic or some kind of reservation, but he fell to his knees in front of her, and he grabbed her hips, pulling her toward his mouth. Whatever oral technique he might lack, he made up for with enthusiasm. His wide palms cradling her, holding her against his lips and tongue and teeth. All of which he used on her. Sucking her clit into his mouth, holding it there for the lightning strike of his tongue.

“Oh, God,” she muttered, surprised by him. Delighted in him. His fingers ran along the dark seam of her ass until he found the entrance of her body, where he slowly eased one broad long finger inside of her. And then another.

Her hands fell to his head, his pretty hair clutched in her fingers, holding him there with force. Grinding herself against him, until she felt the sharp edge of his teeth, until his fingers were slippery where they were fucking her.

“There,” she cried, the tension coiling tighter and tighter and tighter until she couldn’t breathe and didn’t want to unless she came. And then relief, ecstatic and explosive, rolled through her. “Oh God, there. Don’t stop.”

Slowly, realizing she might actually be hurting him, she let go of his hair, and he fell away from her, landing on his butt on the carpet in front of her.

Her chest heaving, she looked at him, at his slippery shiny face, his wide pleasure-dazed eyes. His erection straining out of his unzipped pants.

“Christ, you’re hot,” she muttered, and his smile, shy and pleased all at once, just destroyed her, and she fell on him, pushing him onto his back so she could lie her body down over him.

And kiss him.

He kissed her like he performed oral sex, with force and enthusiasm and his whole damn mouth. Between his mouth and his body, it was good. It was unbearably good.

It felt safe. Safe in all its variations.

And she placed high value on safe. Since her mother died, safe had been every day’s goal. She slipped a hand between their bodies to grasp at his cock, but the second her hand touched him, he stilled, nearly flinching away from her. Immediately she pulled her hand away, her lips a breath from his. Touching but not kissing.

The moment was suddenly poised on the edge of a knife.