Sweet Seduction Sabotage (16 page)

"Hey," he said, gripping my chin and forcing me to face him again. "It's not the end of the world."

Oh fuck it, I'd started to cry.

"OK," he said making the word longer than it was, and then -
fuck it all to hell
- pulling out for real this time. "So not how I planned that to go."

He tried to reach for me, but I just rolled out from under his arm and exited the bed.

"My test results should be back in ten days time," I said through the hole in my heart. "I'll send a copy to your email address."

"Kelly."

"It's OK." I offered a strained smile. "It wasn't how I planned it either, but it is what it is."

He sucked in a breath and just looked at me.

"Um, I'm taking a shower. You don't have to stay."

I made it three steps, my heart dragging on the floor, when he reached me.

"Don't you dare walk out on this," he growled in my ear, wrapping his arms around my body and hauling me back to the bed. "So, we forgot the condom. Big deal." What? "I know how careful you usually are and I have always been as well. That's a first for me," he added, as he climbed onto the bed and scuffled up until his back hit the pillows.

He moved me, so I was settled tucked into his side, then cupped my chin again.

"My beautiful, brave, fragile girl," he murmured, and then holding my gaze lowered his lips to my mouth.

I didn't kiss him back to begin with, but something had broken again inside. I needed his touch, his comfort. I couldn't dare to believe I'd receive it, but I was not above taking it greedily when it arrived. My shaking hand reached up and wrapped around the back of his neck, almost clinging to him. My lips crushed into his, my tongue desperate to taste. My need a fervent being between us.

Don't turn away. Don't go
.

His hands stroked my hair back off my face as we breathed the same air. A moan escaped. I think it was his. His cock hardened between us again. Part of me thinking it was a male thing, another hopelessly wishing it meant more. Still attracted to me. Still wanted me. Me, the woman who has had fifty sex partners over the years.

A sob slipped out.

"Shhh," he pleaded. "It's all right."

It wasn't, I knew it. He'd realise this had been a dangerous mistake, he'd use it as a reason to walk out.

"Don't leave," I whispered, immediately mortified that I'd said that aloud. Just like I did all those years ago. The young teenager in me rising to the fore.

But his answer wasn't the same as the one my father gave me on that street when I ran into him at the mall. He'd been gone six months by then. We were barely putting food in our mouths.

"Cutting you two loose was the best thing I ever did in my life,"
my father had snarled,
"Get used to it, you little cunt. No man will want to spend more than five minutes with you, before he's had his fill."
And then he brushed past me as though I was nothing more than dirt on the side of his shoe.

My body was racked in shivers, a whimper of distress sounded out on the air. I knew it was mine, but I couldn't stop it. I started to curl up into a little ball.

"
Sternchen
," Drew said, breaking through the fog of memories past. "You can't get rid of me that easily. Don't you know, you hold my heart?"

"Drew," I breathed, clutching his body with my hands.

"One day you'll believe it," he murmured, his lips already pressed in amongst my hair. "And one day you'll trust me enough to tell me why you'd doubt it in the first place."

I let a wretched breath of air out and sagged against his side. For a moment I just breathed.

And then, "It's a long story," I whispered.

"I've got all night," he replied. "And the next one, and the one after that. In fact, I pledge all my nights to you, Kelly. Pick one, and let me in."

I finally lifted my eyes to his, took in the sincerity in that soft grey. We stared at each other for an eternity, and it was not nearly long enough at all.

Then I sucked in a deep, clean breath of air and said, "It started when my father left."

"Tell me about him," Drew murmured, as I lay wrapped up in his arms. We were still naked, skin on skin. I needed it, and I think he was aware of that fact.

We'd climbed beneath the covers on the bed, he'd dimmed the lights, and curled me into his body. He hadn't stopped touching me. Reassuring touches, intimate, but not sexual. The touch of a lover who cared.

"He loved watching the rugby on TV. I used to think I was so special being his beer hostess. 'Bring me a beer, Kelly!' he'd shout. 'That's my girl,' when I handed him a new one from the fridge."

Drew kept stroking soft fingers down my arm, his eyes on mine, but I was staring at a spot over his shoulder. It was too personal, too revealing to look into those mesmerising depths.

"He was a happy drunk." I think that was the hardest thing to take from my past. Well, other than him leaving. But because he did leave, and because he did become someone else, I could never get my head around the fact that he was so damn jovial with a few beers in his gut. "He should have been a tyrant, a brute, but he wasn't. He'd swing Mum around the lounge, knocking over empty beer bottles and tickle her until she giggled. Then he'd attack me. 'Tickle monster is coming to get you, Kelly!'"

There are things in life that will hurt you. Cruel, twisted, fucked up things. But being let down, being fooled into thinking something else other than the truth, and then having it all snatched from under your feet and revealed for what it really is... there is no comparison to that sort of pain. None.

"Things changed when he was looked over for a promotion at work. Most men would get drunk, get over it, or move on. Not my Dad. He fixated on it. He stopped watching rugby and didn't touch the beers. He changed."

"How old were you?" Drew asked, when I paused for breath.

"Twelve."

The stroking on my arm continued, soft, regular, constant.

"He and Mum started arguing. All the time. There was no more dancing and no more tickle monster. He never hit her, but oh God, some of the things he said towards the end. It never crossed my mind at the time that he might be sick, you know, in the head. I wonder now if he was, or whether the disappointment of his life finally just caught up with him. Anyway, one year later he left."

My body shuddered of its own accord.

"Didn't even say goodbye." I sucked in a breath. "Then I met him at the mall, in the carpark. Out of the blue. He'd been gone six months and we were struggling. Mum still hadn't stopped crying. I asked him why he left."
Why Dad? We still love you. You loved us, right?
"He said, 'Kelly, get it through your head, if you suck too much out of a lemon, all you're left with is just the rind.' I think he was trying to impart some last fatherly wisdom. I think it was his warped way to prepare his daughter for the big bad world ahead."

Drew remained silent, but that soft reassuring touch never wavered, never left.

"And then I went and ruined it, I pushed for more."

"What did you push for, sweetheart?" Drew asked, when I'd obviously been quiet for too long.

I swallowed past a lump the size of Australia and said, voice scratched, "I pushed too hard. I said, 'Don't go. Don't leave.' You don't want to know what he said after that."

"Do you want to tell me?"

I shook my head. "It was bad. It was enough to make me stop loving him. And enough to fuck me up for good."

We both sat in silence after that, for such a length of time my eyelids began to droop. Then softly, whisper quiet, Drew said, "So, you don't trust men to stick around if you love them too much. And you refuse to become an empty shell like your mother did because of a man. Is that about right?"

Was he judging me? He was psychoanalysing me. What did it mean?

I kept my eyes closed and pretended to be asleep.

He let me, curled me further into his side, brushed my hair off my face and kissed my cheek. I fell asleep in his arms, unsure if he'd be there in the morning to greet me.

I did have trust issues. Who would have thought?

I woke to Drew watching me. He was sitting up in bed and had papers strewn across his lap. He'd been working, but I'm not sure how much work had been achieved, because his eyes, when I woke, were on me. They also looked a little bloodshot.

I had slept, but Drew hadn't caught a wink.

"Hi," I whispered. He smiled, and thank the gods, it reached his eyes.

"Hi back," he returned.

"Are you hungry?" I asked, as I sat up, then realised I was naked still, so quickly picked the sheet up to cover my chest. "I can fix you something to eat," I added in a rush. "I have food now. I shopped." I was rambling, I knew it, but for the life of me I couldn't stop. "Um, cereal, or toast. I bought a selection of jams. Blueberry, strawberry, raspberry." I laughed, it was borderline crazy. "I've got every berry you could possibly want."

"Kelly," Drew interjected.

"Or I could fix you some eggs. I'm a pretty average scrambled eggs cook, but I do good poached. Maybe some bacon, too. I can do bacon."

"Kelly," Drew said more urgently, turning to place his work on the side table and then swinging around to capture my face in his hands.

I sucked in air, drowning. Felt a panic attack coming on and clenched my fists. This was it. This was when he told me he was leaving, maybe he'd camouflage it in an excuse to go to work. Big court case, gotta go. See you tonight, only I don't. He doesn't come back.

Get a grip!

"Look at me," Drew ordered. My eyes snapped to his face from the force of the command. "First, I expect a morning kiss when we wake up. No delays." I blinked. "Then, I cook for you. Breakfast is my thing. Can't do dinner, and lunch if you want my efforts, will be sandwiches and little else. So, mornings are mine, OK?" He waited for me to nod my head. I did it tentatively. "Second," his voice softened. "We need to talk about last night."

Oh, fuck it.
This
was it.

"You know I haven't been seeing anyone else other than you and I got tested a couple of months ago."

Oh.

"But I'll arrange for a test today and once we get both sets of results back we're ditching the condoms. You're on the pill as well, right?" Another slow nod of my head. "Good, because fuck, Kels. I can't stop thinking about how unbelievably awesome it felt to be inside you bare."

My entire body responded as though a switch had been flicked. Molten hot lava pooled between my thighs, my breaths quickened, my pulse leapt and my lips parted on a sigh.

Drew smirked.

"Now, where's my kiss?" he demanded, lopsided smile in full swing.

I think I might have thrown myself at him, I'm not sure. But we ended up tumbling over the side of the bed and onto the hard floor. An
oomph!
exploded from his lungs, but I still didn't stop kissing him. Then suddenly I was rolled and he was on top. Staring down at me, hands on either side of my head, holding me still. He studied me for a long, drawn out moment, and then lowered his head and kissed me in a way that seared my soul. Slowly, tenderly, an inexorable build up of love and lust.

When he pulled back he was as breathless and flushed as me, and something insistent and hard pressed into my stomach.

"I will say it every single day if you need to hear it," Drew whispered.

I could feel a frown forming. "Say what?"

"I'm not going anywhere," he vowed. "I'm yours to keep, if you'll have me."

My body seemed to come undone, I felt his hardness mould to the softening of my frame,
everywhere
.

"Will you have me, Kelly?" he asked.

A simple question, but the weight of its meaning, of what Drew was trying to convey to me, sounded out in every word. His eyes were serious, but glinting softly in the morning light of the room. His body was rigid, as though he waited with bated breath, but his hands at my head were still so tender and soft. Everything he did was intense and vibrantly alive, and because it was so new to me, a miracle happening before my eyes.

Drew was giving more than I ever knew existed in this world. Oh, I'd seen the way Genevieve and Dominic were with each other. And the rest; Nick and Eva; Ben and Abi; Katie and Jason; Ryan and Marie. I'd seen the level of love they shared, but I'd never truly understood it.

And a part of me didn't really believe it was true.

Until now. I
could
believe it, because at the age of twenty-eight I was finally experiencing it. For the first time in my life.

I was still scared. I was still petrified I'd fuck this up and make a mistake, slip back into old ways. But if this was real, and I was beginning to tentatively see that it could be, then how could I want for more? There couldn't possibly be more than what Drew was showing me. Red as well as a rainbow. Adventure
and
romance. Illicit
and
safe. Hard and debauched as well as beautifully soft and tender.

I'd never wanted more than what I had. Hits of bliss that made me feel, confirmed I wasn't empty inside like her. A selection of men to choose from, on my terms, how and when and where I liked. Never longer than enough to get that next hit. I controlled it, I owned it. I walked away, or I chose to stay and play. But it was all on me. Not them. I was in charge.

And then Drew came along and broke the first of my rules, someone from inside the circle of my friends. Someone I'd see at barbecues and events. I didn't even stop to second guess it, when he propositioned me in that hallway at Dom's. I didn't once deny him, when he turned up at my dates and sabotaged them one by one, making them his. I didn't stop him, I let him have a measure of control.

Had I been searching for more even then? Did I know the complication of him being one of our extended group would force
more
from the relationship in the end?

Had I subconsciously wished for this?

I think I had. I'd been struggling for a while. I'd been unhappy, putting on a show, acting the part on the outside and dying a little day by day within.

It wasn't just Drew sabotaging my dates, it was me sabotaging my lifestyle. Asking for help the only way I knew how.

And here he was. Offering me his hand, his help. Despite my history, despite my fucked up life, he was still here, still offering, still giving me what I want.

As far as I was concerned there was only one answer to his question -
Will you have me, Kelly?
-  after thinking all of that through. Thankfully, he'd waited patiently, clearly aware I was working some heavy shit out inside my mind.

I looked up at him and smiled. I could tell when it reached my eyes because Drew's lids grew heavy.

"Yes, I'll have you, Drew, as long as you'll have me."

His lips brushed mine, then his tongue followed, and before he deepened it, he murmured, hot breath across my face, "I'm never letting you go."

The kiss turned into more, both of us still naked, stretched out on the floor beside my bed, hands and teeth and lips and tongues moving, grazing, caressing, stimulating. I moaned into his mouth and he drank the sound down. He rocked his hips against mine and I rose to meet each thrust.

We became a little desperate after that. He fumbled in the bedside drawer, fishing out a condom and finally with my frantic help rolling it on his long, hard length.

"Oh, fuck I need you," he breathed against my neck, just before he sucked a good portion of my skin into his mouth.

I bucked, he wrapped a hand around my hip and lifted me further off the floor, and then he rose up, lifted my legs over both his shoulders, and while holding my eyes sank himself balls deep in one hard, purposeful thrust.

My body scooted across the floor. Carpet burns had never felt this good before. Each pound in I felt. Where we met. At my back as the carpet scraped across feverish flesh. In the connection of our eyes, our combined pants and groans and grunts of ecstatic effort.

I made a lot of noise. It only made him more desperate. His movements erratic as though he no longer had any control at all. My head hit the bedside table and he swore angrily, tugging me back towards him and away from the obstacle that threatened to do more damage than his hard pounds and carpet skimming thrusts.

The second time my head collided with the wood of the table, he wrapped his hands around my body and hauled me off the floor.

Then slammed me against the wall.

"Jesus Christ!" he exclaimed, as he continued to fuck me, determined, I think, to reach the other side of me. I clung on; legs wrapped around his hips, arms snaked around his neck, taking everything he gave. "I have... never... wanted... someone... as much... as I... want you." Thrusts accompanied each set of words. Hard, almost angry, definitely desperate rolls of his hips against mine.

I screamed as my first orgasm rocked me, I think Drew shouted out a "Yes!" when he heard and felt me go. He didn't stop his movements, kept them hard and fast and entirely controlled by him.

"Who am I?" he demanded, something he'd not done for quite some time. If I thought about it, which was difficult under the current circumstances, I realised it was since we'd started an exclusive relationship. But here he was asking again.