Denial (36 page)

“I know.”

“Why?”

“Because I didn’t want to.” She waits for more. “I like your name. I got used to saying it.”

“I see the no kissing thing, but you weren’t supposed to touch me very much. Avoid eye contact at all times? And there were supposed to be a lot more strikes given, administered immediately. You didn’t even come close to following this, Isaac.”

Shit. I forgot about all that. “I couldn’t do it.”

She rises to her knees and crawls next to me. “Hey.” Her fingers land on my chin and try to turn my face towards her, but I twist away so she can’t see my watering eyes. “I’m not mad you.”

“You will be,” I croak. “Keep reading.”

“Okay.” She kisses my shoulder, making me shiver. Why is she so nice to me all the time? I wipe away a tear and pull myself together. Just wait, asshole. It’s coming. I glance toward her to see her flipping through pages. Her eyes widen, then narrow, her brow constantly furrowing and unforrowing. Dismissive laughs and scoffing. Angry breaths.

“No anal play, huh?” She doesn’t sound mad. “I thought that one was yours.”

“I’m sorry about that.”

“Don’t be.” Our eyes lock. She still doesn’t hate me. “I like it.” Shit. Don’t get turned on right now, please. Yeah, right. “Touching you was totally expressly forbidden!” Fuck. I forgot about that too. “No oral sex either, for me, of course.”

“Shit, I ignored basically everything, didn’t I?”

“Yeah,” she laughs, slightly putting me at ease. “And added quite a bit.”

“I couldn’t help it.”

Just when I think everything is going to be okay, her face contorts painfully, making any arousal I was experiencing completely disappear. I’m not sure what she’s reading, but I have a pretty good idea.

“I can’t believe some of this. Any of this. It wasn’t even for him. He just wanted to make me good enough to loan out to his friends.” She’s crying. I hate myself more than I hate him, and she probably does too. “He really doesn’t love me at all. How could I have been so stupid?”

“You aren’t stupid.”
Not in the slightest. I’ve fallen for every single trick. Clever, clever girl
.

Her breathing gets faste
r, her cries more frantic. Dammit. That stuff is wearing off at the worst possible time. “I’m so sorry he wanted you to do this. That they make you do this demented shit.”

“I’m fine.”
It’s all I know
.

“Somebody did this to you, didn’t they?” I can’t answer her. It’s not an excuse. “Sorry.” I nod, but I’m starting to shake. “You saved me from marrying a monster. Thank you.”

“Too bad I didn’t keep you from sleeping with another one.” I can’t look at her.

“Isaac,” she coos. I swallow a sob. “You aren’t a monster.”

“Yes, I am. You should know that by now.”

2
8

Maya crawls toward me, wrapping her arm around my shoulder and tugging at my hands. Even though I want to, I can’t pull them away from my body to hold her because I do not deserve one seco
nd of her comfort. I never have and I never will. But she kisses my neck anyway and it feels incredible. I grab one of her hands and kiss all of her fingertips.

The pull is irresistible.
She
is irresistible and I have to give in, like I always do. I open my arms and let her crawl into my lap. Her legs wrap around my waist, and I’m sure she can feel my inappropriate reaction to her presence. I let her take my face in between her little hands and finally look into her eyes. They’re such a gorgeous dark stormy blue, my new favorite shade of my favorite color. They calm me every time I see them.

I shudder when her lips make contact with my forehead and I kiss her throat. In a way, I’m glad I tried so hard to not kiss her because we never would have started doing this instead. She’s still upset, not really crying, but she hasn’t exactly stopped either. It always shakes me out of my own head. I think she needs me to take over, so I do.

My mouth always wants to do things to Maya that it’s never done before, and considering how well trained it is, I’m surprised there were any new tricks. But I shouldn’t use them now. This can’t go very far. So I keep my lips together while I kiss her everywhere and even though my hand wants to pull on her hair, I force my fingers to soothe her instead.

But she isn’t relaxing. Her breathing is heavy, but not in a good way. She’s going to start crying again, and I don’t know what I can do to stop it. I stop kissing, stop caressing, and pull her closer to me so that I can just hold her. But she’s stiff in my arms and I can feel her
hot tears on my neck.

“Maya.” I love saying her name, especially when I can whisper it in her ear. It isn’t having the normal effect. “What do you need? Do you want me to let you go?”

“No,” she sobs, and my anxiety lessens. “But I need to ask you something.”

“Okay.” Don’t
call her baby. That isn’t fair. But it feels so natural.

“Do you… Is this…” She starts crying harder and I’m searching for something to say, or do, anything to stop it. I’m so out of my element.

“What, baby?” Fuck. She sobs sharply. “I’ll tell you anything.” Fuck! I shouldn’t have said that.

“
Luke.” That asshole again? When is he not going to be here?

“What about him?” I succeed is sounding pretty level headed, even though I’m starting to seethe.

“Do you have some sort of grudge against him?”

What does that mean? “I don’t think so.”
I might be developing one though
.

“So when you… when we…”

“What are you getting at?”

“Is this some kind of revenge?”

My torso collapses in on itself. “Revenge?”

“When you went against the program, or whatever. Did you do it to get back at him?”

“No.” I’m stiffening up. How could she think that? But I understand, sort of, because I’ve been wondering some version of the same thing.

She pulls back to look at me, searching for something to see if I’m telling the truth. I’m always looking for it too. “It’s just, I don’t know anything about your history. If there’s some girl he stole away from you or something.”

“Well, there isn’t.”
Not yet anyway
.

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.” I sound far away, flat. I know she hates it. “I get it.”

“You do?”

“Yes.” Just tell her. “I’ve been wondering the same thing, I guess. If any of this is real, or if you’re using me to get back at him.”

“I’m not.”

“It wouldn’t bother him, you know,” I snap. Great. Get like this. That will help.

“I do. And I don’t care.”

“It seems like you do.” Stop it.

“I don’t. I’ve been trying not to think about him since I’ve gotten here.”

“I find that hard to believe.” What the fuck is your problem? Don’t turn this around on her. Don’t be that guy.

“I can’t think of him at all in the playroom. It makes me feel
dizzy.”

“So why did you stay for so long?”

“Because of you. To spend more time with you.” Her voice is so tiny. I want to believe her, and if it is true, that was probably hard to say. So I guess it’s my turn.

“It’s never had anything to do with him. For me. I’ve never lied to you.” Have I? Okay, maybe a few things. “Not about that, anyway.”

“So you really want me?” she squeaks. My eyes roll back.
You have no idea
.

“Yes.” I grab her by the hair. Crap. I’m losing it. “So bad it fucking hurts.” She gasps as I thrust upwards to show her. Slow down, shithead. Too much, too soon. I don’t think she likes it, so I relent. It’s so hard not to take her. I want her all the time. We destroyed each other that first time. I’ve never lost it like that before, and I hurt her. There you go, think about that. Because you’re never doing that again. “It’s not just your body, you know.” Now I’m the one with the little voice, and her expression morphs into that look she gives me whenever I sound like this.

“It’s not?”

“No. It’s not.” Keep going. Tell her. “When we cook…I like that a lot. I like
you
. It meant so much to me, that you wanted to be my friend.”

“It did?”

“Yes. And if that’s all you want, I’ll take it.”

“It’s not.”

Are you forgetting who you are,
what
you fucking are? You have
nothing
to offer her. Do you really think this is going to work out? “Maya, I want you to stay here.” What the hell are you doing?

“Me too.” My heart starts doing that beating but not really beating thing. It always makes me feel like I might pass out, but I never do. “I will. But I need to know everything.”

Fuck. “There are some things I don’t want to tell you. Things I can’t even think about.” My breath catches in my throat. She’s up to my face immediately, soothing it with her lips. She knows, and she knows better than to ask questions that I can’t answer.

“Not that, baby.” I fall into her shoulder and shake, but it won’t stop. She’s only called me that precious few times, but it unravels me. “Shhh.” How did it get switched around like this? I’m not going to cry in front of her. I’m not going to fucking cry at all.

“So what’s everything, then?” Focus on her. It brings you back.

“You know how they say that you’ve slept with everyone that your partner has slept with?”

Huh? “No. Who fucking says that?”

She giggles. It makes me smile every time. “I don’t know, hospital pamphlets, the Center for Disease Control, those types of people.”

Oh. “I’m clean. I get tested like every month.”

“I know, and that’s what they mean, but…” She hesitates, so I nudge her. “Look, I just have to know who connects the two of you. I can’t help it. I know you don’t want to talk about it, about him, but I have to know. It will always be in the back of my head.”

Shit. This. Fuck! “There were three of them.” I take a deep breath. “Do you mind if we lay down? And I need get out of these pants first.”

“Yeah, that’s fine.” But she doesn’t sound fine. I need a break, though.

“Come with me.”

She follows me into the hall, stiffening when she sees the playroom door hanging open, so I slam it shut. I also forgot that there’s a shit ton of pill bottles on my dresser, but she doesn’t even blink. I strip in front of her and put on a long sleeved shirt and flannel pants, socks, hell, I’d wear gloves and a hat if I had them. I need some sort of a barrier between us, and that little dress of hers that I will probably end up ripping off isn’t going to cut it.

“Can we stay in here?” she squeaks, and my belly turns to mush.

“Yes.” I drop to the bed and she lies down next to me. We’re facing each other, but not touching. Then she grabs my hand and kisses my fingers. I can’t help myself. I lean in and kiss her nose.

“Tell me.”

“Okay.” Deep breath. “There were three of them. The first one was actually my first one.”

“That you’ve trained?”

“Alone, yes.”

“How many times have you done this?”

“You’re number twenty one.”

Her jaw drops. “Wow. That’s just training?”

“Yeah, but it wasn’t a month each time.”

“It wasn’t?”

“No, the average is probably closer to a week and a half. Aside from training or reward sessions that only last a night.” If I added all of those in, it would probably be closer to fifty. I never should have even started. “So the first one…”

“We don’t have to talk about it.” Why is she looking at me like that? I can’t hide anything from her, she just sees right through it.

“Yes, we do. You said it will be in the back of your head, and that will be in the back of mine.”

“Okay.”

“It was two weeks. Almost 2 years ago
now. Do you want to know her name?”

“Yes.”

“Jane. She stayed with him for a long time afterwards. Just left him a few months ago for someone else, and good for her, too.” I’m looking for some sort of jealousy and it’s there, but she doesn’t get upset.

“The second and third ones didn’t make it.”

“Didn’t make it?”

“Holly only lasted 3 days. This was about six months ago.” Now that bothered her.

“What happened?”

“She was trying to make herself like something she didn’t like.”

“The humiliation thing?”

Dammit
. Do I tell her he only ever went for girls that were already into that? I can’t. Not right now. “That came naturally for her. It was cutting.”

“You cut her?”

“Yes.”

“How could you do that?”

“Maya…” You knew this was coming, asshole.