The Tour (12 page)

“I
don’t have anything to wear,” I protest as he puts his arm into a suit jacket I’d bought him when I was at the mall. It’s only two hours away from us needing to check in at his uncle Tedd Royce’s Christmas Eve dinner party. I’m not ready. Will I ever really be ready to face this with him?

“You have all those clothes that got shipped here from your wonderful trip to the mall.”

“Don’t start, Kolton,” I say pushing open the closet door and looking for the perfect little black dress I know I didn’t buy. “I push you away one time and now you’re bringing up the mall trip to put me in my place. That’s not fair.”

Suddenly, he’s behind me as I stand in front of the open closet door. He moves in close, but doesn’t touch me. A tingle moves up my spine, and I have to take a quick breath. He puts his hand up against the wall next to the closet, pinning me in. I feel his warmth and his dizzying energy buzzing all around me.

He reaches around with his other hand and tugs on the end of the tie keeping my short bathrobe closed. Cold air makes contact with my skin, still moist from the shower and I tighten my stomach, thinking he’s going to touch me. I close my eyes and wait.

His hand comes up to the back of my neck, the little hairs there forming goose bumps begging to be soothed. Instead, without touching my skin, he pulls on the collar of my robe, sliding it off my arms and dropping to the floor. I start to turn around, but he grabs my hip firmly, and slides in closer so he’s barely touching my back with his chest. My heart is pounding and his breath is quick in my ear.

“Put your hands on the wall. Now,” he demands in a rough whisper. As if hypnotized, my arms are pulled up, led by my hands, and I press them into the wall.

“That’s right,” he whispers appreciatively, his lips against my ear. I feel the scruff of his new beard as it moves lightly across the curve of my neck. He pulls his hand away from the wall, takes my hip, and drags me backward until I’m bending over at a sharp angel. Then his foot slides mine across the carpet so my legs are far apart.

I gasp slightly. I’m at his mercy. I have no defense for this—I crave him, I
need
him. But I’m scared. I start to pull my knee up and in, but he lightly kicks it back where he’d placed it, making an admonishing sound through his teeth. “How do you feel?” he asks. “Vulnerable? Uncomfortable? Excited?”

“Yes,” I answer, arching forward, feeling my breasts heavy and free in the dim light, the stretch of my legs as the muscles pull and ache, the weight of me held by my hands and arms.

“This is how I feel. How you make me feel. Always,” he says. I’m panting, shivering with need. I cry out a little when I feel him rub up against my leg. “Do you know your power over me? Do you?” he asks. “What about mine? Do you know my power?”

“Kole, please.”

“Please, what? Do you want me, Mia? You didn’t want me last night. Hmmm?” His hand moves around from my hip and down my stomach. He rests it there, so close, but not close enough. I wiggle, because I have to, I need to. I can’t stay still. “Don’t move,” he warns, as his other hand comes up and rests in between my aching breasts. But still, he doesn’t touch me or ease the want.

I can feel my arms sagging into my shoulders. The bones and muscles in between my shoulder blades are stinging because I hold my tension there. It’s tight and pinches so much I groan in pain.

“Would you stay like this? Just so I could touch you, hold you, fuck you up against the wall? Make love to you?” he asks.

“Yes,” I breathe. “I’m doing this, aren’t I?”

“It hurts, doesn’t it? And the need for me winds tightly around you, constricting you until it burns. That need to be touched, to have your aches softened, to have release and to be loved. It’s so confusing why the person you love would make you bend so far just to be with them, isn’t it?” He’s punishing me for pushing him away. He’s showing me physically how I make him feel emotionally. My head is spinning around that thought as he adds, “That’s how I feel, too. All the time.”

“I’m done,” I say, and start to move my leg forward out of this hold when his knee comes up between my legs and rubs softly. “Are you sure?” he asks as I cry out, because it’s more frustrating than satisfying.

His hand on my stomach moves down just enough, and I cry out as his finger finally makes contact right where I need it. His sharp intake of breath is like a fire in my chest, and then his voice saying, “so ready for me,” has me rocking my hips to the rhythm of his finger. As my legs start to stiffen, he stops, turns me around, and pulls me to him by the small of my back. With his fist wound in my hair, he kisses me. His tongue lashes out in anger and in conquest leaving me breathless. A quick sheen of sweat has covered me. I’m naked, my muscles ache, and I’m sweating but he’s fully clothed. His hair combed. Flawless.

I reach out for his pants, and start with the buckle when he bites my bottom lip. “No. I’ll be dripping down your leg all night,” he says, his voice dark, husky. The thought of that has me closing my eyes.

And then he kneels slowly, keeping his eyes on mine until they’re staring up at me, pinning me in place with their sureness and pain. He plants his knees into the ground and nuzzles his nose into my sensitive crease.

“Yes,” I cry out and move my hips to give him what he wants, feeling the roughness of his beard, and my fingers dive into his soft blond hair. When his tongue makes its first contact, I growl as he pulls my leg over his shoulder. I press my back into the wall, my hands in his hair as he sucks and flicks at me until I’m shaking against his mouth frantically, undone, and panting.

I’m dizzy. My legs feel loose and flimsy. As they give out, my back slides down the wall and I hold him, pressing his head against my breasts. “I love you. I’m sorry. I don’t mean to hurt you.”

“Don’t go to bed angry,” he says. “It’s a new rule.” I bite my bottom lip and nod my head obediently.

“Let me,” I say, reaching for his zipper. He takes my hands, stopping me, and shakes his head.

I watch as he stands, opens the closet, and pulls out a long black chiffon gown, and lays it on the bed. He takes my hand and pulls me up. I watch as he slowly takes the gown off the hanger and walks toward me.

“I need a bra and a thong at least,” I say, breathless and weary, but he raises my arms up and feeds them through the straps, letting go of the thin fabric so the gown cascades over me, soft as water. It smells new and clean, but it’s obviously his mother’s. He’d told me the first time I was here that all her clothes were cleaned and hung back up.

He stands back, cocks his head to the side, and a slow grin comes up on each end of his lips, still wet with my arousal. “You’re beautiful,” he says. “I just need to zip you up.”

“It’s not right,” I rasp, with my still gasping lungs. “I need something on underneath,” I protest as I hold my breasts into the minimal fabric of this low-plunging neckline.

“Why? Do you feel vulnerable again?” he asks, causing me to swallow down my punishment a second time. I nod my head. I feel a muscle in my lip flutter and heat rise to my cheeks.

“Don’t treat me this way,” I whisper, looking down. Why am I submitting so easily? His lesson in pain and surrender, I think I took to heart.

“No one will know but us.”

I walk to the mirror over the dresser, the long gown shimmying around my ankles, and adjust the straps. I’m pretty sure I should use some of that fabric tape they used on me on
The Stage
to keep it from opening or moving, but I don’t have any. My hair is mussed up in the back. As I start to lift it up to pin it, he says, “Leave your hair down. It’ll cover the front of your dress.” I glare at him, but let it drop. He’s right.

I lean into the mirror. The mascara and eyeliner around my eyes has smudged into a smoky eye look. I start to wipe it with the tip of my finger. “Don’t touch your make up, either. It’s perfect.
You
are perfect as you are.” He seems angry I’m trying to fix myself, like it’s an affront to him. To us.

I’m flushed and pink. My lips red from kissing. He says such nice things, but they’re wrapped in a demand. “Why won’t you let me touch you now?” I ask, my breath calmer now, but not unaffected. “Or put something on underneath?”

He comes up behind me and moves my hair over my left shoulder. Just the tip of his finger moves down the curve of my spine, making me shiver. As he pulls on the metal zipper, his finger moves up the curve of my ass, up my lower back, and he stops the zipper just there at the place where my hips meet my ribcage in the back.

His hand wraps around my waist. “I need to look across the table when I’m feeling naked and uncomfortable with my secret on the tip of your tongue,” he says, just before his lips and the scruff of his beard softly caress the curve of my neck, “and know that you’re naked and uncomfortable, too. I know it’s wrong. Just like asking you not to watch the news is wrong, but I need you to do these things, Mia. Do you understand?”

“But why are you denying yourself right now? Why can’t I touch you back?” He moves his hands through the tangles in my hair until it’s flowing down over my shoulder in soft waves.

“Because I don’t want you to,” he states, and when I try to turn around to face him, he stops me, reaches inside the fabric under my hand and squeezes my breast into his palm. “Look at me,” he says in the mirror, because mirrors are where we can see our true selves. His thumb pushes the fabric out of the way, revealing me to both of us. I squirm, but I can’t look away.

The taut, darkened skin of my areola pulls upward between his splayed fingers. I have to open my mouth and close my eyes, the rawness of it too much for me. “The way you look right now, that’s how I feel. Do you understand?”

I nod and swallow down the unease. “Say, yes,” he says, pinching me light and soft, but with purpose.

“Yes,” I comply, and he smiles.

“We’re going to make a new memory there,” he whispers, causing my stomach to pull upward into my spine. “With you there, it will be
our
place—not hers.” His words echo some primal need to erase the past as his palm rubs my achingly sensitive peak one more time.

He pulls the fabric up, covering me again, and I see the anguish in his eyes. I’d give anything to take that away. It’s so obvious I’m wearing nothing under this dress. It feels wrong, but I understand why he wants me like this. My comfort for his comfort. Like lovers—like more than that. Like partners in life. Give and take, take and give. It’s dizzying and honorable. It’s fair—or at least I think it is. It could be very unbalanced, because he’s so much more powerful than I am.

He goes to the closet, comes back to me, and kneels. I balance my hand on his shoulder as he puts some black silk shoes onto my scarred feet.

“No one can see them,” he says, as I look down. It just adds to the discomfort, another thing I have to worry about keeping covered tonight. My heart is heavy and I have a lump in my throat as he leads me out of the house toward the helicopter where everyone else is waiting for us. The one thing I do know for sure about tonight is this isn’t going to be any ordinary Christmas Eve.

The Key

“W
ait! You’re flying us?” I question as we approach the large helicopter we’d come in.

“Yeah,” he answers.

“But, you’re taking pain meds. You haven’t been cleared to fly by your doctor.”

“She cleared me while you were in the tub,” he says. “And I’m not taking anything. I’m fine.”

“Who cleared you while I was in the tub?” I ask, stopping in the dirt near the helicopter.

“The doctor.”

“The hottie adulterous one? She was here again?” I ask.

His expression is blank, unaffected by my temper. “Don’t pick a fight with me so you don’t have to go,” he says wryly, ignoring my question as he ushers me into the open door by the small of my back. I glare at him as he shuts the door, leaving me to be disgruntled without him.

I sit down beside Riley, buckle my seatbelt, and adjust the front of my gown to keep myself covered. “Are you excited?” I ask her. “We’re going to a fancy house for dinner.”

“Yeah, I guess,” she says, shrugging her shoulders. As we rise up into the air, I look around at the guys, Deloris, and my sister wondering if they’ve noticed how naked I feel. The sound of the rotor soothes the angst running through my bloodstream, wrapping itself around my bones, one by one. I close my eyes, grasp Riley’s hand, and listen to my own breathing until I feel us start to descend.

When I look out the window, I see a neighborhood of enormous houses. They all have pools, and, if I hadn’t known better, I would have assumed it was a neighborhood of apartment buildings. The houses are that huge. We circle one of them, a dark brown mansion with a fountain in the courtyard and Corinthian columns. We come down with one small hop on a portion of the grass near the house.

Suddenly, looking at this mansion surrounded by manicured grass, I feel very, very unworthy. I don’t belong here at all, let alone in all my nakedness. The rotor stops and Kolton opens the door, letting all of us out. I don’t unbuckle my seat belt. It’s as if my hands don’t work.