Spiral of Bliss 01 Arouse (13 page)

I woke to the reddish glow of my clock. One thirty-two. Pushing aside the covers, I went into the kitchen for a glass of water. The living room curtains were partly open, allowing a thin stream of moonlight to illuminate Dean stretched out on the sofa. Clutching the glass, I moved closer to look at him.

It should have been strange to me that his presence was a comfort rather than cause for apprehension, but it felt entirely… normal.

I put the glass down, then sat on a chair by the sofa and looked at him. He seemed younger in sleep, the lines of his face eased, his closed eyes concealing the flashes of darkness whose source I still didn’t know.

I could almost see him as he might have been as a boy—full of youthful energy and confidence, knowing he would blaze a trail through the world, surrounded by people who admired him.

A band tightened around my heart. How different from my own wariness, my inability to envision my own future beyond the tangled, dark forest of my childhood where an oppressive queen ruled.

Dean opened his eyes. We looked at each other for a moment before he pushed up to sitting. He dragged a hand through his hair, over his rough jaw.

“Hi,” he said, his voice hoarse with sleep.

“Hi. Thanks for staying.”

I couldn’t believe how comforting it was to have him here, how grateful I was to wake up and not be alone. Even when I was at Twelve Oaks… I’d never felt so warmed by the presence of another person.

I have been so fucking lonely.

My throat tightened.

“You okay?” Dean asked.

“Can I get you anything?” I whispered. “Something to drink?”

He shook his head. Moonlight slanted through the curtains, a stripe of it cutting across the shadows on his face.

I owed him an explanation. I knew that.

I took a breath. “Dean, I’m… I need to tell you some things about me.”

Faint wariness flashed in his eyes. “Okay.”

“When I said I traveled a lot as a kid, it was because of my mother,” I explained, resisting the memories pushing at the back of my head. “Crystal. She was very self-centered. Controlling. She’d been a spoiled, coddled child… actually had a successful career as a child model for a couple of years and was in a national commercial.

“But the career offers waned when
her
mother got a reputation for being unreasonable and demanding, a typical stage mother. No one wanted to work with Crystal anymore. She was in some beauty pageants and talent shows, but then she got pregnant with me when she was seventeen. Changed her whole life. She never stopped resenting me for that.”

I reached for my water and took a sip. “Her parents disowned her because of the pregnancy. She had to drop out of high school and move in with my father. They never got along. They fought a lot about money… or lack thereof. They broke up when I was seven.

“I found out later that my father was having an affair.” The word lodged in my throat. “He was going to leave my mother to be with the other woman. My aunt Stella, my father’s sister, once told me he’d still wanted to have a relationship with me, you know, still be my father. But my mother said she’d never let him near me again.

“So she packed up her car and we took off. She was restless, always wanting to be somewhere else, always wanting to find the attention she’d had as a child. We moved a lot. I lost track of the number of cities and towns we stayed in.”

“How long did you and your mother live like that?” Dean asked.

“Until I was thirteen. I finally told my mother I was going to live with Aunt Stella up in Pepin County. I wanted to have a normal life. My mother and I had a huge fight about it.

“We were in Dubuque. I woke up one morning and she was gone. She’d taken the car, most of our stuff. I had just enough money for a bus ride to Madison, where I called Stella to come and pick me up. I didn’t hear from my mother for years.”

“You lived with your aunt after that?”

“Yes. Through high school.”

“When did you see your mother again?”

An ache crawled over my heart. “When she came to visit right before my senior year. She wanted me to come with her again, but I refused. She’ll never forgive me for leaving her.”

And in some ways, I would never forgive myself.

“Did you ever see your dad again?” Dean asked.

“No. I guess Aunt Stella heard from him a few times when he was looking for me, but she didn’t often know where we were either so she couldn’t tell him anything. Then when I was eleven, we got word that he’d died.”

“How did your mother manage to support you?”

“She hooked up with a lot of men,” I said. An unwelcome barrage of male faces and voices went through my brain. “That was how she found places to stay. She’d convince a guy to let us live with him for a while with the understanding that she’d share his bed. Most of the time, she waited until they agreed… or sometimes after she’d moved in… before telling them she had a daughter.”

“What the—”

“She told me to hide a lot,” I explained. “To wait in the car while she spent a few hours at a bar. Sometimes she left me at a public library, then came back to get me after she’d found a guy. Sometimes she made an effort to earn money by selling jewelry that she made, but I think she found it easier to rely on men to support her.”

I stared at my hands clutched around the glass of water.

“She was quite beautiful,” I said. “That was part of the reason she never had trouble finding a man. She had long blond hair and green eyes. A great figure. And she was confident as a woman, secure in her sexuality. Even if she wasn’t looking for someone, men were attracted to her. The problem was that it was rarely the right kind of man.”

My voice faded. There had been good men in the six years we were on the road. A karate instructor who gave me forms lessons and talked to me about things like respect, focus, and self-discipline. An insurance salesman who built model airplanes as a hobby. A camera-shop owner who taught me the basics of photo composition.

An MIT-graduate-turned-hippie named Northern Star who convinced me I was worth something.

I pushed the thought of him aside. That one hurt too much.

“Through men and sex, my mother found the attention she’d lost when she was younger,” I said. “It seemed so… easy for her.”

“But it was horrible for you.”

“I hated every minute of it,” I admitted. “When she left me alone, I was so scared she’d never come back. And I couldn’t stand having to live with men I didn’t know, sleeping on dirty sofas or on the floor. I’d often hear my mother having sex in the next room. A few times I walked in on her and some strange man. It doesn’t take a genius to understand why I’m still a virgin at twenty-four.”

Finally I looked up at Dean. He was watching me, wary, tense, as if steeling himself against what I hadn’t yet confessed.

“I was… I’d always tried hard to be invisible so no one would notice me,” I said. “And for a while it worked. My mother was so stunning, so forceful, that no one paid attention to her quiet, mousy daughter. I’d also learned there was safety in hiding, that if people didn’t know you were there, they couldn’t bother you. That was exactly how I wanted it.”

I drew in a breath. “But my luck ran out when… when one of the men messed with me.” I spoke in a hard rush, desperate to finally get it out. “Another one tried a year later, but I got away from him in time.”

Dean swore—a violent, cutting sound—and shoved to his feet.

“The guy was… he masturbated in front of me,” I said, bile rising in my chest as the memory stabbed the back of my head. “First when I was asleep. I was nine. I woke up once in the middle of the night and saw him standing beside my bed. I didn’t know at the time what he was doing, but I knew it was wrong. I… I didn’t know what to do, so I pretended I was still asleep.”

“Jesus, Liv.”

“My mother… she knew about it.” I could hardly speak past the tightness in my throat. “I saw the door open one night, Dean. There was… there was no lock on the door, and I
saw her
look in when he was doing it. I thought for sure she would stop him, that she’d protect me, that she’d do something, but…”

“She didn’t?” His voice was strangled.

I shook my head, the harshness of the betrayal splitting open inside me. “I watched her close the door. I didn’t move. Couldn’t. She’d left me alone with the sick bastard.”

“Liv, I—”

I held up my hand. “She wouldn’t listen when I told her we had to leave. All I could do was avoid the guy as much as possible and pray he didn’t do anything else. Then one day he brought me a cake for my tenth birthday. Told me he’d only let me have a piece if I touched his penis. He took it out and started to… and before I could get away from him, my mother walked in.”

“What… what did she do?”

Old, raw anger and fear pierced my heart. My vision blurred.

“She blamed me for exciting him,” I confessed. “Said if I’d been wearing a looser T-shirt, he wouldn’t have been tempted.” I hugged my arms around myself. “It wasn’t the last time I’d hear some version of that accusation.”

“What the hell, Liv?” Rage flared through Dean, his fists clenching. “What kind of mother says that to her daughter?”

“She had problems of her own.” Sensing his anger about to explode, I rose to approach him. “I’ve tried to accept that, but it takes work. A couple of weeks later, we finally left the guy’s house. I’d never been so thankful to move. God knows what else he would have done.”

Dean swore again and pressed his palms to his eyes. “I’m so fucking sorry, Liv. I suspected something had happened to you, but I hoped to hell I was wrong.”

Oh, there’s more.

I couldn’t tell him all of it, though. Not now. Too soon.

“Is that the cause of your panic attacks?” he asked.

“Some, yes,” I admitted. “I’ve been through a lot of therapy. Learned how to deal with it. But I want you to know before…”
…this goes any farther.

He lowered his hands to look at me. “Before what?”

“I don’t… I don’t expect you to stick around and try to deal with my issues.” My chest hurt as I forced the words out.

Dean looked at me for a minute before he cupped my face in his warm hands.

“I meant what I said the other night, Liv,” he told me. “If you don’t want to do anything, we won’t. If you want to go slow, we’ll go slow. If you want to end this right now, I’ll walk away from you. It’ll kill me to do it, but if you want me to, I will.”

The choice is yours, Liv.

He didn’t have to say it. His gift of a
choice
was a balm to my cracked heart.

“I don’t want you to walk away,” I said.

“Good.” The lines between his eyes eased with relief.

I gripped his wrists, a knot of fear binding my throat. “But you… you might want to go,” I warned.

Darkness flashed in his expression. “Why?”

My eyes stung. I swallowed hard.

“Here be monsters,” I whispered.

A heartbeat of silence, brewing with danger, filled the space between us. Then Dean tightened his hold on me and, with his thumbs, brushed away the tears that spilled down my cheeks.

“Liv,” he said, his voice rough with tenderness, “you don’t have to be afraid.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’ll slay monsters for you.”

CHAPTER NINE

eptember eased into October of our first year together. Burnished leaves flared from the trees and began to fall in a blazing carpet of yellow and red. A pleasant chill bit through the air. Classes continued, the rhythm of the semester settling into a soothing march.

Being with Dean was so easy that my fear began to subside. If anyone could slay monsters, he could—though I would never ask that of him. I did know he was the one with whom I could discover all the hot, sexy things I’d imagined but never done.

I knew he was waiting for me to let him know when I wanted more, that I had to be the one to make the next move. I knew he would wait for as long as it took.

It didn’t take long. I thought about him a
lot
. My dreams burned with memories of his lips crushing mine, his hand sliding up my naked thigh, my breasts pressed against his chest. I woke breathless and throbbing, often rubbing myself to orgasm before I even got out of bed.

A week after my confession, I invited him over to watch a movie. Which I asked him to pick. Which was my mistake.

“Oh, Lord.” I dumped a pot of fresh-popped corn into a bowl and rolled my eyes. “Is that another key to unlocking you, then? Obscure foreign movies?”

He looked offended. “This is not an obscure movie. It’s a classic Tarkovsky film about a fifteenth-century Russian icon painter.”

“Oh, well in that case…”

“Give it a chance, would you?” He put the disc in the machine and hit the play button before settling back on the sofa.

I’d give it a chance because he looked astonishingly sexy sprawled out over my sofa, one arm slung over the back so that the material of his T-shirt stretched across his broad chest. His hair was all disheveled, his jaw coated with the stubble that I’d come to expect on casual evenings and weekends.

As long as I could sneak glances at him from the other side of the sofa, we could have been watching a movie about the bubonic plague, for all I cared.

I handed him the bowl of buttered popcorn and sat down, tucking my legs underneath my skirt. The movie started with a man getting entangled in the ropes of a hot-air balloon, which then caught a gust of wind and carried him through the sky.

After that somewhat promising start, there was drama about people seeking shelter in a barn to escape a rainstorm, then a philosophical discussion between two monks about grief and knowledge.

Fifteen minutes in, I took the popcorn bowl back and ate a few handfuls. Twenty minutes in, I yawned. Thirty minutes in, I felt Dean glance at me.

“No?” he asked.

I snored.

“Ah, Olivia.” He sighed and reached for the remote control. “You’re breaking my heart.”

“My being bored by a movie about a
Russian icon painter
is enough to break your heart?” I said in disbelief. “What happens when I tell you that medieval history puts me into a coma?”

“Quick!” Dean clutched his chest. “Administer mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.”

I giggled. He straightened and winked at me before turning off the TV.

“Okay, then,” he said. “A Russian icon painter doesn’t do it for you. What does?”

“This really handsome medieval history professor.” My breath escaped me with the blunt confession.

Our gazes collided across the expanse of the sofa. A current of electricity crackled between us. We hadn’t kissed since that night in his apartment. I knew we both wanted to. I also knew I had to be the one to initiate it.

I pushed the popcorn bowl aside and got to my knees. My pulse intensified as I moved across the sofa and knelt by his side. A slight tension rippled through him. I put out a hand and placed it on his warm chest. His heart pounded.

“What does the R stand for?” he asked.

“The R?”

“Olivia R. Winter. Rachel?”

“Rose.”

“Olivia Rose Winter.” His voice wrapped around my name, deep and caressing. “Pretty.”

“Thanks.” I tilted my head to study him. “Have you ever dated a student before?”

“You’re not my student, but no. Never.”

“So why me?”

“Couldn’t stay away from you.” He lifted a hand to cover mine where it rested on his chest. “Didn’t want to.”

“I’m not…” I swallowed to ease the dryness of my throat. “I’m not like other girls.”

“I know.”

“And you’re okay with that?”

“More than okay.”

I wondered why, but couldn’t bring myself to ask for fear he might expect more of my own revelations. I was twenty-four, and I had yet to explore my own sexuality deeply and thoroughly. I’d wanted to for years, but was thwarted by so many things—fear, danger, shame, inhibitions.

None of which I experienced with Dean.

I knew I could be unreservedly passionate with him. He’d take me places I’d only dreamed about and keep me safe the entire time. Even when I’d confessed about the scars knitting through my soul, he had not retreated.

Just the opposite, in fact. He’d drawn his sword in readiness to protect me.

I curled my fingers against his chest. “I’ll need to go slow.”

“I can go slow.”

“It might be too slow for you.”

Dean looked at me for a long minute, a shallow crease between his eyebrows, as if he were trying to figure me out.

“I like downhill skiing,” he finally said.

I blinked. “Okay.”

“I like speedboats and bungee jumping.” He leaned forward and put his hand beneath my chin. “I also like hiking, rock climbing, and fishing.”

“That’s… um, very diverse of you.”

A smile tugged at his mouth. “My point is that fast is fun. It’s exciting, an adrenaline charge. But slow is no less satisfying. In fact, it can be even more of a rush to work and savor every step rather than fixate on getting to the end.”

“Well.” I exhaled a long breath, my skin tingling at the idea of savoring every step. “That’s good to know.”

“I’ll wait.” He lowered his hand from my chin and sat back. “Until you’re ready for me.”

“And you won’t…”

“I won’t pressure you.”

“I know.” I stared at the half-circle of tanned skin above the collar of his T-shirt. “I meant, there’s a lot of
other
stuff besides intercourse that I’d like to do with you first, but I’d hate for you to think I’m…”

“Playing games?”

“Or being a tease.” I forced my gaze back to his.

Pain and anger flashed in his eyes, emotions I’d seen that night I told him about my childhood.

“I don’t think that of you,” he said. “I won’t.”

“Okay.” My heartbeat sped up a little. “So we can fool around but take it slow and see where it leads us?”

“We can do that, beauty.”

Beauty.

I smiled, pleasure diminishing my unease like sunlight on shadows. I turned my hand where it rested on his chest so our palms met. His strong fingers closed around mine.

“Can I tell you something?” I asked after a few minutes.

“Sure.”

“Remember when I told you I…” My belly tightened. “Uh, when I told you I’m not frigid?”

“Actually, you didn’t have to tell me that.” Amusement creased his eyes. “I already knew.”

I blushed. “Well, I have a lot of fantasies.”

“About what?” His heartbeat increased beneath our entwined hands.

“Lately… you.”

“Me.”

I nodded.

“And what kind of fantasies do you have about me?” His voice was getting husky.

“Pretty explicit ones.” My blood grew hot as I remembered my fantasy from that very morning of me wrapping my legs around his hips as he drove into me hard enough to make my body tremble.

Definitely wasn’t ready to confess that one yet.

“I’ve done a lot more in my fantasies than I have in reality,” I admitted.

He didn’t ask why. He waited for more.

“But my fantasies have always been about anonymous encounters,” I continued. “Never about a man I know. Until you.”

He leaned closer to me, his eyes brewing with heat, but he didn’t touch me beyond the clasp of my hand against his chest.

“And what do we do in these fantasies of yours, Olivia Rose?” he asked.

I swept my gaze to the line of his mouth, my pulse spiking at the memory of his lips crushing mine. “Lots of kissing and touching.”

“Nice.”

“Oh, it’s nice.” I brushed my thumb against the secret notch beneath his lower lip.

Though Dean’s eyes fairly smoldered, he didn’t move to kiss me. The last remnants of my unease slipped away as I closed the distance between us and pressed my mouth to his. His lips were so warm and firm that I melted at the sensation of them moving against mine.

I curled my fingers into the material of his T-shirt, flicking my tongue out to probe at the seam of his lips. My pulse leapt when he opened his mouth to let me inside, then I put my hands on either side of his face and deepened the kiss.

A lovely haze descended over me. He tasted like butter, his breath hot against my lips. My heartbeat continued to throb, every beat pulsing heat through my veins. After a long moment of kissing, I paused to stare into his lust-filled eyes.

“Don’t you want to touch me?” I whispered.

“More than I want to breathe.”

“I promise I won’t freak out this time.”

He exhaled hard. “I promise I won’t act like an ass if you do.”

“You didn’t. I’m just not used to this.” I tightened my hand over his. “But I really liked the way you touched me.”

“One day I’m going to touch you in a thousand different ways and show you how to touch me.” Dean slid his hand around the back of my neck. “But right now we’re just going to make out.”

He pulled me closer, easing back so I could stretch out on top of him. I loved the coiled strength of his body beneath mine, the way our chests pressed together and our breath moved in tandem. He drew my head to his and kissed me, the pressure slow and exquisitely easy.

The man knew how to kiss. He rubbed his lower lip against mine, slid his mouth down to nibble at my neck, flicked his tongue out to lick the corners of my lips. His hands spread over the back of my head, angling our mouths together. My eyes drifted closed.

Heat and pleasure billowed through me. I sank into the sensations, unafraid, tunneling my hands into his hair to hold him against me. Our kisses went from soft and gentle to open-mouthed and hot, then back to soft and gentle again. I lost track of time as my heart beat in time to the instinctive rhythm of our kissing, the gentle easing in and pulling back, like waves rippling the glass-smooth surface of a lake.

Dean pressed his mouth to my cheek, trailing a path to my ear where his breath tickled the strands of hair against my neck. He lifted his head to look at me, his eyes filled with both desire and affection, and stroked his hands down to rub my back.

“Okay?” he asked.

“Okay,” I breathed.

His fingers flexed against my waist as our lips met again. I closed my teeth gently over his lower lip, eliciting a groan from deep in his throat. Emboldened, I spread my hands over his chest. The heat of his body burned through his shirt and up my arms. His heartbeat pounded against my palm.

Through the cloud of passion, I was dimly aware of his erection pressing against my leg, and my own body softened in response. A coil of urgency tightened through me, but even then I knew we wouldn’t go any farther than this heart-melting, delicious kissing.