Dance With Me (20 page)

She punched his shoulder and growled at him. Max smiled down at her. “Don’t worry. I’ll kiss it and make it better.”

He licked and kissed his way down her body, glad he’d cleaned the lubricant from her breasts so he could worship them. Max didn’t torture her long though. He’d take his time with her another day. When he reached the junction between her legs, he pushed two fingers inside and latched his lips onto her clit at the same time.

Rebecca screeched and bowed her back. Her legs tightened around his head, and Max’s cock sprung back up, fully erect once more.
Holy fuck, I’m ready again.
He flicked the little bud back and forth, rubbing with his tongue until her cries were incoherent and frantic. He plunged his fingers into her wet pussy over and over. It took less than two minutes for Rebecca to come, her hips arching feverishly, her thighs clenched around his head.

Max licked her clit lightly until Rebecca relaxed back onto the bed. Then he slid his tongue down between the lips of her sex and thrust it inside of her. Rebecca groaned low in the back of her throat.

He loved her taste, the flavor that was inherently Rebecca. It was musky and sweet and completely intoxicating. He lapped at her, wondering how long she’d let him do this.

When she arched herself slightly, Max slid his tongue back up to the tiny bud and flicked it. Rebecca’s legs jerked, and he smiled against her pussy.

He tore his lips away from her mound and sat back on his heels. Rebecca watched him with a small smile on her lips. Max smiled back. Sort of. He was still working on the smile thing.

“Touch yourself,” he commanded in a hushed voice. Because, damn, he wanted to see it. Finding that blue vibrator had him thinking about it and he couldn’t stop.

“Excuse me?” Rebecca lifted an eyebrow and gave him a dirty look.

Max lifted an eyebrow right back at her and leveled her with the stare that had made grown men run for cover. Rebecca wasn’t intimidated. She stared right back at him. Max blew out a frustrated breath and said, “Show me how you make yourself come.”

He wrapped a hand around his cock and tugged, one long, hard pull that drew Rebecca’s gaze. He stroked himself slowly, letting her watch. When the first bead of precum oozed out he stopped and repeated, “Touch yourself for me. Please.”

Rebecca looked nervous but slid her hand down until her fingers touched her pussy. Max watched as she spread the lips and dipped one finger inside for moisture. He stroked himself again, jerking his cock slowly as she circled her clit.

When Rebecca sped up her motions, Max stopped her by simply pushing her hands out of the way and shoving his dick as deeply inside of her as he could.

“Do that thing again. Squeeze me.” When she did Max groaned and lowered his body to hers. He plunged again and again, fucking her slowly, savoring it. His eyes damn near rolled into the back of his head every time she squeezed her tight little pussy around him.

“I need you to come.” Max plunged into her depths and reached between them to stroke her clit. She had to come right then, or he’d leave her behind. He couldn’t stop it much longer, his balls tightening and his cock swelling in preparation.

Rebecca wrapped her legs around his hips and squeezed. Max couldn’t stop it then, his feeble attempt to delay his own climax overpowered by the tight, wet walls surrounding him.

Jet after jet of semen filled her, making her wetter, hotter. Max buried his face in her neck and groaned.

He pushed through, stroked and plunged until he was drained, and then kept going, despite the near-painful pleasure of it. He sighed in relief when Rebecca arched and cried out beneath him, the spasms of her climax clenching him tightly.

Max collapsed, sweaty and spent, unable to support his weight any longer. Rebecca didn’t seem to mind though; she simply murmured his name—
fuck,
that was nice—and wrapped her arms around his neck.

Chapter 15

“Tell me about New Orleans.”

Rebecca stiffened at the soft command. Her head rested on Max’s chest, and he gently sifted his fingers through her hair.

“Chris told you.” She’d planned to have a talk with Chris later, make sure he didn’t know as much as he thought he did. But she’d delayed. Too long, apparently. Rebecca squeezed her eyes closed and fought the memories.

“No. Paulson didn’t tell me.” He paused for a moment, then said, “Rhonda Jones did.”

Rebecca turned from him, swung her legs off the edge of the bed and sat up. “You went to New Orleans.” She didn’t need to ask. There was only one Rhonda Jones who could tell Max anything, and she was in New Orleans.

“Yes. I did.” Max sat up behind her and brushed his hand lightly over her back. “Talk to me.”

Rebecca stood and rubbed her hands over her suddenly cold arms. He was asking her to talk about things she’d tried not to even
think
of in years. Max still sat on the bed, silent and unmoving. Waiting.

Waiting for words Rebecca didn’t want to say. Words had power and she’d learned long ago that verbalizing something made it real. As long as you kept it inside, you could pretend it was just an overactive imagination. But for all that she didn’t want to say it, Max already knew. And he’d given her the gift of honesty when he’d told her his name. She could at least give it back.

She’d invited him into her bed and her heart knowing the truth about him. But he didn’t know
her
truths. He deserved to know before he made any promises. Rebecca sighed, resigned to tell him. At least some of it. She took a deep breath and began speaking.

“I grew up in a single-wide trailer in a run-down trailer park just inside the city limits of New Orleans. My…mother,” she choked on the word, “was addicted to meth. Her husband Jean, maybe my father, maybe not, was in the Reserves so he didn’t do drugs. Not constantly the way she did, anyway. Common law marriage, by the way.” Rebecca took another deep breath, trying to control her breathing. “My mother never cleaned. I can remember my senior year of high school finding drawings I made for her in kindergarten underneath a pile of trash. The house was full of vermin. They…” She gulped and shuddered at the memory. “They crawled on me while I slept. I tried to clean, but I just got so damn depressed and angry that I never got much done.” Rebecca shrugged and said, “Anyway, I was usually too mad at her to do anything to help her. She smacked me around a lot. Took her anger out on me if she didn’t have the money to buy drugs. What money we had went to drugs, and it wasn’t much money to start with. I didn’t eat much because there usually wasn’t a lot of food around. I was really skinny. Almost malnourished. That’s probably why I’m a little on the heavy side now.” She shrugged and continued to stare out the window. “Making up for it, I guess. Anyway, I managed to qualify for free lunch at school. So during the school year I ate at least two meals a day. Breakfast and lunch. During the summer I ate when I found something.” Rebecca let a tiny smile curl one side of her lips. Some parts were actually not too bad. “There was this old lady that lived a few trailers down. Mrs. Rousseau. She was such a mean old bitch. But she had this Tupperware with a red lid that she would put on her porch every night, packed full of food. I think she was the one that called CPS the first time. A few teachers called over the years, but nothing ever came of it. Someone came out once or twice but the foster system was so backed up that they just left me there.”
Unvarnished truth. Don’t sugarcoat it.
“I didn’t get new school clothes or shoes or anything. Every year I would go down to the Salvation Army and the ladies there would give me things. They knew too. Everyone did. But no one stopped it.”

Max breathed heavily behind her, but Rebecca didn’t turn around. She couldn’t look at him and tell him the rest.

“When I was about ten my mother started turning tricks for drug money. She never had a job. We always had welfare and food stamps. But Jean’s once-a-month check from the Reserves wasn’t cutting it anymore, especially when he started using it for tequila. When Jean found out what she was doing, he didn’t get mad. He told her to bring in more business. Turn more tricks. He started bringing his friends in to trade twenty minutes for a bottle of booze. The more he drank, the angrier he got. I was fourteen when Jean
really
noticed me. I asked for a little money to go on a field trip. I wanted to go so badly. We were going to a museum and everyone had been but me. They talked about these wonderful exhibits of ancient Egypt and the Mayans…it sounded like a magical place to me. It was ten dollars, and I asked him for it.” Rebecca felt a hot tear trail down her cheek and brushed it away irritably. “Maybe if I hadn’t asked…” Her voice broke and Rebecca took another deep breath. “Anyway, he told me I could earn my ten dollars if I wanted it so badly and pulled his penis out to show me what he meant. I kicked him in the nuts, told him to go to hell, and then I ran as fast as I could all the way to the end of the road. He didn’t chase me, but I guess he didn’t have to. He knew I’d be back. I finally worked up the nerve to go back sometime after midnight. He was waiting with his belt. The canvas one that went with his uniform. He held me down and started hitting me and hitting me. I don’t know how long he hit me for, but when he finally got tired I was bleeding all over from where the buckle had broken the skin. That got my teacher’s attention. CPS came out, wrote down a few things in their little notebook, and called Jean’s commanding officer.” Rebecca snorted. “All that fucking Uniform did was call and tell him to be more discreet in his corporal punishment. And that was the end of it. That time, anyway.”

Rebecca brushed a tear away and struggled to keep more from falling. She squeezed her eyes closed and continued in a low voice. “A few months later, after my fifteenth birthday, Jean got really drunk. A bunch of his friends were there, drinking buddies, not his friends from the Reserves. He didn’t have any friends in the Reserves that ever came over. My mother was there and…they were all drinking. Some were doing meth. My mom was sucking one dick after another for ten dollars each. Ten dollars. Museum money.” Rebecca laughed morbidly at the harsh irony. “Then Jean says, ‘Hey you little redheaded slut, you could learn a thing or two from your whore mother’ and they all laughed. They just…laughed. Even my mother. I went to my room and locked the door. But the doors in a trailer, especially one as old and decrepit as that one was, aren’t that sturdy.” Rebecca closed her eyes. “I’ll spare you the details, but suffice it to say I was raped. Multiple times. Even…even Jean took part. And my mother watched.” She lowered her voice to a whisper and said, “I was a virgin. My first time was a gang rape and my mother watched, giving me pointers the whole time.” Rebecca dug her fingers into her eyes. It was a miracle she’d ever worked up the courage to have sex again. “They never did it again, but I came up pregnant a couple of months later. When my mother and Jean found out they tied me to my bed and tried to abort the baby. My mother kept saying if I was going to turn tricks, I had to know how to do it. Apparently she didn’t know as much as she thought she did because I almost bled to death lying there. After they…did it, they untied me and went back to their drinking and meth smoking and whatever else they were doing that night. After my mother and Jean passed out I crawled to Mrs. Rousseau’s trailer. She called an ambulance for me and rode to the hospital with me. They had to perform a partial hysterectomy because they couldn’t stop the bleeding. I’ll never have children.” Rebecca leaned her forehead against the window and watched as her breath fogged the glass.
I wish it would rain.
Rain would make this story easier to tell.

She closed her eyes and took a steadying breath before continuing. “The doctors called CPS that time. That was when I met Rhonda Jones. That sweet lady tried everything she could to get me out of that house. She even tried to get approved as a foster parent herself. But she was already a single mother and the state wouldn’t allow it. I stayed with her a few nights here and there, when it was really bad. But for the most part, the system just overlooked me and left me at home. No one except the doctors, Rhonda, and Mrs. Rousseau believed Jean and his friends had raped me. There was this whole ‘support the troops’ fever going around and anyone in the military could do no wrong. So instead of Jean going to jail, everyone thought I was following in my mother’s footsteps. I managed to stay hidden pretty well after that. Between Rhonda and Mrs. Rousseau I made it all right.

“When I was eighteen, we heard this weather alert. Hurricane’s coming, they said. Everybody evacuate. But my mother saw it as a chance to get more clients over and Jean saw it as an excuse to get drunk. A few men here and there came by, but we were alone by the time it got really bad. I wanted to leave. I
begged
them to leave. When the storm hit…we were the only ones in the trailer park. The wind blew faster and faster, and the rain came down like God was pouring a bucket out over us. It was so bad that another trailer crashed into ours, then ours crashed into another one, and down they all went. Like dominos.” Rebecca gulped. For all the demons she’d already revealed, this was the worst. “When the trailer tipped onto its side, my mother and Jean were on the couch. The couch landed on them. Then about ten years’ worth of garbage piled on top of them. They were being crushed and smothered. They screamed at me. ‘Get this damn couch off us, Rebecca!’ but I saw…opportunity. Like a cartoon, when the light shines down from the sky and angels sing. So I left them there. I crawled out a window and left. I walked nine miles in the middle of Hurricane Katrina and took shelter in the football stadium. Cars couldn’t even stay on the road and I walked there. If you ever needed proof of a God…there it is. Nine miles in winds approaching a hundred miles per hour and I didn’t have so much as a bruise when I got to the Superdome. When the storm passed I hitched a ride and that was it. I found out years later that the entire trailer park was swept away later that night.” Finally, Rebecca turned to Max, but kept her eyes averted. “I didn’t kill them. But I didn’t help them either. And I’m better off for it.”