Giving It Up (10 page)

As I collapsed into his hardness, my heart felt overfull. Desperate to turn this into something familiar, something sexual, I grabbed his wrist and sucked his wet fingers.

I swirled my tongue around his fingers like a cock, offering.

He shifted on the bed so that he lay flat, accepting.

I crawled—prowled, really—on my hands and knees between his legs. The tense arousal on his face made me feel sensual, powerful. There
was
a certain power to my role, that I could incite this man to lust. He pulled down his boxers, and, with his hands in my hair, slipped my mouth over his cock. That’d been the shortest power trip ever.

Down and up, he directed me. Steadily, inexorably forcing more of his smooth, hard skin into me. My focus narrowed to my senses, what I could see or taste or feel. Every time I lost my way, he brought me back with his fingers at my neck, a soft grunt or a tensing of his thighs beneath my hands.

It wasn’t about sucking cock. This was Colin guiding, and me yielding. Colin giving, and me receiving. Or was it the other way around? It didn’t matter, so long as it never ended. There was a certain urgency about him, more than a man wanting to come, and I answered it by taking him deeper.

Even as my jaw tired and my eyes watered, I felt his pleasure like it was my own. His labored breathing, his fingers tightening in my hair, the small thrust of his hips—I wanted it all. My fingers fumbled, wrapping around him, stroking him below, fondling delicate skin.

Suddenly he surged up. Next thing I knew I was on my back, knees bent, and Colin deep inside me.

I gasped, belated.

“Fuck,” he said.

He wrenched back, then fished a condom out of the nightstand. A few seconds respite and then he thrust back inside me. He was too deep to move. Too deep to breathe.

“Colin.” Pleas had never worked, but he stilled.

With his nostrils flaring and a light sheen of sweat on his face, Colin looked savage. “Hurt you?”

“No, I…”

He rocked against me slightly, straining. “You what?”

I want you. Don’t leave me.
“Fuck me.”

He did.

And then I feel asleep, enfolded in thick arms, feeling like Alice falling down the rabbit hole.

* * * *

Sunlight beamed directly into my closed eyes, but how? Cheap vinyl blinds provided little relief, but my window backed up directly to the next apartment building. Besides which, it was coated in decades of goop.

My nose tickled. I took a deep breath and smelled—a man. Shit.

I snapped my eyes open. Chest hair. A familiar face. Ah, Colin. Safe. I shut my eyes again, fully intending to employ a fake-it-till-you-make-it approach to sleep.

The brightness pricked behind my eyelids. I peeked one eye open and glared at the big bay window with no curtains. This house needed a woman’s touch.

The night rushed back to me like the pop of a balloon. Well, damn. Looked like that was my job now.

Speaking of which, a certain piece of hot, hard flesh pressed into my hip.

Last night was the first time I hadn’t showered shortly after sex. I always had done so immediately after my date nights, even with Colin. Despite the fact that he’d used a condom, I felt surprisingly sticky—everywhere. I supposed it should be hot, the remains of sex, the morning after, but it was…awkward.

Naked, I slipped from Colin’s unconscious grip.

The bathroom held only the basics: a bar of soap, a bottle of shampoo-conditioner, shaving supplies. The shiny surfaces shone, too clean for a bachelor’s place. Had he just moved in? That would explain the minimalist but catalog-perfect furniture and lack of decor. I made a mental note to ask him and decided he wouldn’t mind if I took a shower.

I stood under the spray and flipped the tap all the way to hot, relishing the biting cold that steeped into a blissful scald. As I lathered myself using the minty bar of soap, I heard a snick from the door and Colin’s voice. “Excuse me.” Excuse what? I peered around the shower curtain to see two pale,
tight
ass cheeks, then snatched the curtain back in place with a squeak.

Damn.

He was using the potty. No, the toilet. Fuck! I was an adult. It was called a toilet.

“You okay?” He sounded amused.

“I’m fine.” I clutched the soap, which slipped from my hands onto the tub with a thud.

“Sure?”

I picked up the soap. “Never better.”

“Can you move today?”

I dropped the soap again. “Fuck!”

“What?”

“Nothing. Ahhh, moving. Hmm…” To be honest I hadn’t been entirely sure we were doing that, or whether the whole thing had been some weird date dream. And I really hadn’t expected it so soon, but leave it to Colin to be expedient.

“I don’t know,” I said. “Can we talk about it later? I have to go in to work this afternoon.”

“About that,” he said.

I didn’t like his tone. I poked my head out of the shower. Colin leaned against the bathroom counter, somehow looking not at all silly while totally naked—and hard.

“I was thinking you could quit,” he said.

I gaped but managed to eke out a, “What?”

He shrugged in the face of my shock. “It sucks. The pay is shit, and so are the hours. You don’t even like it.”

He added that as an afterthought, but of course, I
didn’t
like it. Damn him for knowing that. “Wait a minute. How do you know how much I make?”

His eyes flickered. “You work shifts in a low-end bakery. How much can it pay? Besides, I’m in the industry.”

That made sense, I supposed. But still… “It would take time to find a better job. How would I pay my share?”

“I didn’t ask you to move in because I need a roommate, Allie.”

The effect of his sarcasm was offset by the teasing light in his eyes. I tightened my grip on the shower curtain to shield myself from the cold air and his hotness. “How will I pay you back for the lawyer?”

He snorted. “It wasn’t going to be a loan. Besides…there won’t really be a regular bill.”

That alarmed me.

“Relax,” he said. “He’s a real lawyer. He’s already on retainer, that’s all, with my brother.”

I wanted nothing to do with his brother, and Colin knew it. I especially didn’t like the idea of using his lawyer, someone who might have a different agenda. And worse, if the lawyer was paid by Colin’s brother, I’d owe
him
.

“No,” I said.

Colin didn’t look the least bit perturbed, as if he’d known I’d say that.

“It’s not about the money. He’s good at what he does.” Colin paused to give me a look, confirming that yes, the guy had gotten them out of illegal shit before. “I wouldn’t trust just any lawyer to help with this, seeing as, well…fathers have legal rights. Visitation, joint custody.” He shrugged away the awful words.

“I see,” I said through clenched teeth. “If you think he deserves visitation and…custody, why are you helping me?”

Colin looked me straight in the eyes. “I don’t think he deserves anything. I don’t give a fuck about him. I’m doing this because you want it, and I’m going to get it for you.” Then he turned and walked out of the bathroom.

It was a rather dark shade of gray, his declaration, but I didn’t think I’d ever heard anything more romantic than Colin telling me he’d spend his money, break laws, do anything he had to, to give me what I wanted.

My best friend in fifth grade was my neighbor two doors down, Leslie Pritchard. We didn’t like each other all that much, but absentee parenting made for strange bedfellows.

Leslie was lonely on nights her mom worked, and so she got a kitten. Leslie and I would sit around in the evenings playing with him, and as if the kitten were our campfire, he would jump in the air and flick his frizzy orange tail.

She’d toss a string, and he would leap with abandon only to come crashing down to the thin carpet in a tumble of tiny limbs. Bug—that was his name—didn’t know that cats should always land on their feet, and he remained staunchly flippant throughout his adolescent years up until he got run over by my dad’s truck. That day marked the end of my friendship with Leslie Pritchard.

The cats around my old apartment were nothing like Bug. They scattered as I climbed the steps, Bailey in one hand, a double-layer cake in the other. All I needed was a handless trombone and I could star in a Dr. Seuss book.

I slid Bailey down my leg so I could knock.

My gaze traced the lines of peeling paint on the door, maroon with white underneath and a trace of blue between them. Like the rings in a tree, marking the time. It had been two days since I’d fled Colin’s house, making empty promises about
calling him
and
soon
. I knew what I had to do, but it could be hard to leave home, even if home was a shitty apartment in the scary side of town.

Shelly opened the door.

“Hey, ladies.” Her voice was hoarse, and her smile didn’t quite reach her bloodshot eyes.

Shit, shit, shit. Maybe it was just the tiredness resulting from staying up late. But this was Tuesday, and she usually didn’t have a client on Monday. In fact, I left her alone most of the time on Mondays to let her sleep it off. Besides, lack of sleep wasn’t enough to affect her like this. Shelly was like a prey animal. Her problems never manifested in her appearance. If she looked like this, then things had truly gone to shit.

“Shelly?”

Her eyes slid away. She opened her mouth, to answer maybe, but then clapped a hand over it. Leaving the door open for us, she stumbled back through the hallway. The thud of the bathroom door punctuated her departure.

I found Shelly curled up on her bed on top of the covers. Bailey tried to go to her, but I distracted her with a chunk of cake that would be hell to clean up later.

I returned to the bedside. “Jesus, Shelly. Which one?”

“Things just got out of hand,” she mumbled, her eyes closed.

It had been a stupid question, because the answer didn’t matter. She could hardly go to the police. I’d been too afraid to ask the important question, but I asked it now. “How bad is it?”

“Not bad.”

I sighed. “Just tell me. I’m going to find out anyway.”

She looked so thin. When she swaggered around, dressed provocatively and with that half smile, she looked every inch the femme fatale. But lying there, she seemed almost childlike. I reached for her, my hand hovering in the air as if she might break if I touched her. Except she’d already been broken. I gingerly pulled up her shirt to reveal angry, red welts that streaked the length of her back and down under her jeans. I’d seen them before, back when Shelly had first started in the life, before she had regulars to keep her safe.

“He did this,” I said, my voice detached from my head as if I had a cold. I meant the one who liked to rough her up. I told her not to see him, and usually she didn’t take on clients like him, but there was something about him that kept her going back.

“It wasn’t him. I took on a new client.”

“Why? Why would you do that?”

She gestured toward the nightstand, and I opened the drawer. On top of the mess of beauty products and a few books was a single white envelope. A thick one.

I looked inside. Money, and lots of it.

“Shit,” came out on my exhale.

“Five thousand.” Pride colored her voice—I didn’t know whether that was a good sign or bad. Five thousand fucking dollars. That was ten times her regular nightly rate, as much money as she made in a month. Of course, she wouldn’t be able to work now for the next couple of weeks, with her back all torn up.

“But why? We agreed you wouldn’t do shit like this. Christ, Shelly. You could have been really hurt. You
are
really hurt.”

“It’s for the lawyer,” she said. “A retainer or some shit.”

Oh, fuck. No.

I threw the envelope into the open drawer, hundred dollar bills spilling out in a vulgar array.

“We need a lawyer. You know that. You can’t run from this. Where would you go? A lawyer will figure this out. Make it right.”

I couldn’t even think about that, not in the face of her gory sacrifice. “You did not do that for me. Tell me you didn’t do that.”

She sighed like I was the irresponsible one. I wanted to rail at her, except she’d already been beaten, hadn’t she? And for me.

I thought I’d known what my own stupidity would cost the people I loved, but I’d been wrong. My father had been doubtful of my future, but I’d cinched the deal when I’d ended up pregnant and alone. Parenting was a laughable term for the desperation with which I kept Bailey in generic-brand baby food.

I’d even failed Jacob. No one understood, not even Shelly. He had lusted after me, wanted me, all that time, not that I’d deserved such devotion. I should have walked away from our friendship once I found out. Or maybe just sucked it up and been with him. Anything other than remain friends but without fucking him. That was my mistake.

And that night. I’d done a million things wrong that night. I shouldn’t have worn that dress or hung out with him alone or stayed there with him when he’d been drinking. But most of all I shouldn’t have said no, because then it would have just been sex. It would have been a hookup, not rape. And right now I wouldn’t be a victim.

I’d allowed Shelly to be an escort—no, a prostitute—all this time. Not that it was my prerogative strictly, but I could’ve made her stop. I should have found a way to make her stop.

Bailey fussed, mashing the last bit of frosting into the carpet, but I stood rooted to the spot, my eyes stinging.

“Hey,” Shelly said softly. “You didn’t ask me to do it. Don’t take that on yourself. I want this fixed as much as you do, okay? It was for me. You have to take it.”

I took the money. I had to, because she’d given up strips of her skin for it, and the very least I could do was make it worth something.

With dry eyes I washed Bailey up and brought her into the room. In that age-old way of children she seemed to recognize Shelly was hurt. She curled up in Shelly’s arms and planted a sloppy, wet kiss on her cheek. I circled the bed and crawled in from the other side.

I wanted to hold Shelly, to be the big spoon, but she wouldn’t appreciate being touched like that, especially not now with her back torn up. So I settled for facing her back on my side, like a sentry, until she settled into sleep.