Salvation (21 page)

When he moved back to my clit, I was choking on helpless exclamations of pleasure. He seemed to recognize my condition because he closed his lips around my clit hard. I broke, my back flying up off the bed as my whole body shuddered through a hard climax.

He kept suckling my clit, extending the orgasm until I fell back, gasping and limp.

“So beautiful,” he murmured, lifting his head to gaze at my face. “You came so beautifully.”

I’m not sure I came beautifully, but I certainly came hard. I was just starting to catch my breath when he slid one finger inside me, spilling the moisture and stroking my inner walls.

I made a strangled sound and arched up again. When he joined the first finger with another, he started to pump rhythmically. I was so far gone from the first orgasm that I didn’t need any build-up.

I reached my arms out to clutch at the sheet as a new pressure tightened between my legs. When he teased my clit again briefly with his tongue, I cried out loudly.

He raised his head to stare hungrily up my body to my face. “That’s right, baby. Come again for me. I want you to feel as good as I can make you.”

I was definitely going to come again, although I wouldn’t have believed it was possible. I made soft little grunts and pumped my hips against his hand.

My voice was hoarse when I reached climax again, but I couldn’t hold back the verbal response. My body clenched around his pumping fingers as the pleasure swept through me.

“That’s right. Good, baby. Ride it out for me. Just like that.”

This time, when I finally went limp, I felt completely wiped out. I gasped out some silly words, “So good. Thank you. Oh, God,” and then tugged on his shoulders until he raised himself up and repositioned his body between my legs.

He was still fully dressed, but I could feel the bulge of his arousal against my hip.

“Thank you,” I said again, sliding my fingers through his hair. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” He kissed me, lightly at first and then even deeper. We kissed for a long time, and the closeness I felt in the kiss distracted me from any potential anxiety.

I could feel in his body that he needed release though, so I finally pulled away. “It’s time to take off your clothes too.”

He smiled, although I could see that he was holding himself under rigid control, as if he was worried about letting loose the extent of his need. Together, we managed to fumble around until he was as naked as I was. I reached down for his erection and stroked it gently, feeling strange and anxious and tender all at once.

I really liked how he huffed in response to my touch, and I also liked how he gave a little jerk of his hips into my hands, a small sign of his faltering control.

“Are you really okay with this?” he asked hoarsely, settling himself between my legs.

“I am. I’m more than okay.”

“Do you want me to get a condom?”

I shook my head. “No. Just you.” I’d started birth control last month, when it was clear we would eventually get to this point. So there was nothing left to do now but for him to carefully guide himself in.

I sucked in a breath as he entered me, my body both tight and pliant around him. He groaned when he was finally sheathed inside me and dropped his head momentarily into crook of my neck.

“Are you okay?” I asked, tugging at his head.

He raised up to smile down on me. “A little worried about embarrassing myself.”

I pulled him down into a kiss, and he met it with equal passion. It was unexpectedly tender, the lingering kiss while we were joined in this most intimate of ways, and neither one of us seemed inclined to break it.

Eventually, he started to rock his hips, matching the stroking motion of his tongue in my mouth. But the rocking was slow, gently, rhythmic, and it made me groan at the back of my throat.

It went on like that for a long time, kissing and rocking together. I was totally wrapped up in Gideon—in his strength and gentleness and passion and generous heart—and nothing about it felt scary or dirty or traumatic.

Finally, though, he started to lose control. He lifted his head and began to grunt softly as his motion became more urgent. He moved harder between my legs, and the bed shook slightly from the motion.

It sent little flickers of familiar fear into my mind, but I made myself instead focus on Gideon’s face. It was tight with effort and suppressed pleasure, but his eyes were nakedly needy and overwhelmed. He was starting to say my name on each in-stroke, and perspiration had broken out on his face.

I wasn’t going to come, but I loved, needed, to see his pleasure, his satisfaction, his slow breaking of the restraints on his body and heart, his letting the rush of desire free.

He needed this—needed me—so much, and he’d had to wait so long. Nothing could match the pleasure of giving him this. I loved it so much I made helpless little sounds to match the grunts he was making.

I stroked his back and then down to his ass, digging my nails in as his motion became choppy. He choked on my name as all the tension in his body tightened and then released, as the pleasure shuddered through him, all of it reflected on his face.

I pulled him into a hug as his body relaxed, and we lay tangled together, hugging and gasping. It was a long time before he found the energy to pull himself up, but I didn’t mind.

When he finally did, he gazed down at me, and I saw something as clearly as I’d ever seen anything else.

I’d always assumed that, if I was able to have sex again, it would be a clear victory for me, a sign that I’d reached a certain level of healing. But I could tell—there was no way I could fail to see—that this was also a victory for him.

T
he next morning, I woke up feeling strange.

There was always this sickening clench when I first woke up, as soon as the fuzziness faded and the memory of everything hit me. It was fading in intensity as time passed, but it was always still there. So today I felt the familiar clench of bleak knowledge, but something else was hanging there, something I couldn’t quite identify.

When I turned over onto my side and saw his empty side of the bed, I remembered.

I’d had sex with Gideon last night. And it was good.

I didn’t feel all that different this morning. I didn’t feel like my life had transformed.

I was trying to process this—work out whether I was upset or happy or just completely confused—when Gideon walked into the room from the bathroom. He wore the pajama pants he usually slept in and nothing else, and he paused when he saw I was awake.

His body grew completely still, and it felt like his demeanor shifted into watchfulness, wariness. He didn’t say anything, but I knew exactly what he felt.

He was worried about my response this morning—whether I’d want to take back everything that happened the night before.

I smiled at him, curled up on my side, with my head on the pillow, and I saw his face, his body, his entire presence palpably relax.

He squatted down beside the bed so he was closer to my eye line. “How are you feeling?”

“Okay.” I straightened my legs and felt a little tug between my thighs, a reminder of how he’d been inside me not so many hours ago. “What about you?”

His laugh was self-deprecating. “I’m pretty damn good.”

Despite his fond expression, I felt a little guilty. I sat up, straightening the neckline of Gideon’s t-shirt, which I’d put on last night before going to sleep. “I’m sorry it took so long for me to be ready. Thank you for being patient.”

He raised himself up so he could sit on the edge of the bed and leaned over to kiss me. “You don’t have to apologize. Last night was more than worth the wait.”

That was really nice of him to say, but he’d had to do a lot of waiting to get there. And it wasn’t like I was suddenly ready for wild, monkey sex all the time. Just the thought of some things we might do made the demons stir, and I quickly cleared my mind. He might never be able to make up for all the lost time.

“What’s the matter?” he asked, studying my face.

I smiled, not wanting him to see that I was worried. No use to let anything cloud over his good mood. He’d more than deserved it. “Nothing. Just that you look hot first thing in the morning. Have I told you that before?” I reached out to stroke his chest, my fingers lingering on one of the tattoos.

His smile widened. He was trying to act cool, but I could tell he was brimming with satisfaction. “Not that I recall. Feel free to tell me again, if you’re so inclined.”

I kissed him, but when it felt like he was deepening the embrace, I pulled away. I felt too unsettled to risk having sex again right now, even though it was Saturday and there was nothing keeping us from spending the morning in bed. “You’re really hot first thing in the morning,” I repeated with a teasing smile, so he wouldn’t think anything was wrong.

“Thank you. So are you.” He stroked my hair back from my face.

“Liar. My hair is a wreck, and you know it.”

“I like your hair a wreck.”

“Liar.”

His eyes were laughing, although he was trying to keep a straight face. “I do like it that way. It looks like you had a very good night.”

My hair must have also looked like a wreck when the police and FBI had found us in that row house.

It was a stupid, dismal thought, and I hated myself for even letting it pass through my mind, when Gideon was being so sweet. But my stomach churned a little as I gave him another light kiss and said, “I did have a very good night.”

He didn’t seem to notice that anything was wrong, and I intended to keep it that way.

He’d been through enough, and he deserved to be happy for as long as I could make him.

***

D
espite the fact that it was Saturday, Gideon said he needed to get some work done. I was a little relieved about the idea of having some alone time, but then I felt guilty over the relief.

To make up for it, I set about fixing a big breakfast while Gideon was in the shower. I put some biscuits in the oven and made bacon, and I was focused on scrambling eggs when a strong arm suddenly wrapped around me from behind.

There was no excuse for it. Absolutely no excuse. I knew Gideon was the only other person in the house. But I squealed in terror as the motion resurrected memories that simply wouldn’t die. The man with the snake tattoo grabbing me from behind, bending me over, forcing himself on me. Despite all the months between, despite all the ways I’d grown, it still felt like the trauma was happening again.

I whirled around, panting in fear and holding the spatula like a weapon.

Gideon had dropped his arms as soon as I’d cried out, and now he said, “I’m sorry, baby.”

I’d broken out in a cold sweat from the surge of panic, but I felt like an absolute idiot. I set down the spatula on the stove with a trembling hand. “It’s fine. You just startled me.”

“You’re white as a sheet, baby. You’re not okay.”

I could tell he was upset because he’d called me “baby” twice in less than a minute. He only called me that when he was really feeling something deeply.

I didn’t want him to be upset. I didn’t want him to be anything but happy. I pushed my hair behind my ear and forced myself to breathe evenly. “It’s really fine. It’s just...I mean, it still triggers this...coming from behind, I mean.”

He sighed and pulled me into a half-hug. “I know. I wasn’t thinking. I’m so sorry.”

“It’s not your fault. Please don’t worry about it. It’s totally forgotten.” I smiled up at him to convince him of my words and then started working on the scrambled eggs before they stuck to the bottom of the pan.

He leaned against the counter, and I could tell he was watching me, checking to make sure I was all right. Eventually, he relaxed, so I must have acted convincingly.

It wasn’t fair. He’d waited this long, and he thought that having sex was the important turning point, the sign that I’d healed, that we could be like any other couple.

He deserved that, and I wished desperately I could give it to him.

I couldn’t stand how disappointed he’d be when he realized I wasn’t any better than I’d been the day before.

***

T
he next couple of weeks weren’t as good as I would have expected. Gideon was obviously thrilled by this new stage in our relationship, and he very naturally wanted to have a lot of sex. I was happy to have sex some of the time, but I definitely didn’t feel like it as often as he did. He was never pushy, but I felt guilty every time I had to say “no.”

There were days, though, when I felt so anxious about everything stirring around in my mind that I was afraid sex would push me over the edge. And the anxiety kept growing until I felt jittery all the time. The nightmares didn’t start to come more often. They were actually getting less frequent. But the anxiety wouldn’t go away.

I kept trying to talk myself out of this state of mind, since it was completely irrational. Our first time together had been so good. It should have foreshadowed better things to come. Having sex should make things better.

I couldn’t figure out how to snap myself out of this, but I tried. I really tried.

It was a Sunday afternoon, and we were hanging out at my place. In general now, we spent the weekdays at his place and the weekends at mine, simply because of the logistics.

It was a perfectly good day. We’d gone to a flea market in the morning, and then come back to take it easy. Gideon was watching a game, and I was reading a book until I fell asleep.

When I woke up, my head was in his lap. The first thing I saw was him looking down on me.

I blinked up. “What are you doing?”

“Watching the game.”

“It looks like you’re watching me.”

“Well, you’re a little more attractive than the players.”

I giggled. “That’s good to know. What’s wrong? You look strange.” I couldn’t quite figure it out with my still groggy brain, but he definitely seemed tense.

“Nothing’s wrong.”

“Then why are you tense?”

“It might have something to do with the location of your head.” His voice was dry, affectionate, very Gideon-like.