Touching Scars (24 page)

She stood up on the bed and grabbed my face between her small fingers. Her grip was firm. I’d never seen Kat look so serious. “You can, and you will. Right now is not about what’s going on outside or whatever you’re playing over and over in your head. You bring it back to me, and let me take it away.” Her lip quivered. “I’ve never let a man touch me like you have tonight, and I refuse to walk away from this wishing our fucked-up worlds didn’t always stop us from doing what we wanted. What I want right now is for you to fuck me. Let me feel someone new, not the asshole who raped me.” I flinched at the word. “Fuck me and take us to a place that is just ours. Yours and mine. A place where nobody is dead and nobody hurts us. Now, Timber. Right fucking now.”

My chest was heaving from what she’d just said. I wanted to take her to a place that was just her and me. I wanted to fuck her so hard that the only thing we’d think about was how good it felt. I didn’t want to have the faces of my brothers in my head
.
Not while I was with her like this. My mind was made up. Grasping her hair, I pulled a handful of it back roughly and tilted her neck so she was exposed to me. I kissed a trail along the column of her throat and scraped my teeth over her earlobe. Lifting her up and wrapping her back around me, I pushed her
back up against the wall, she and I both grunting from the force.

“Hold on,” I commanded.

She clung tightly to me as I reached under her and placed my cock at her entrance. In one sharp movement I buried myself inside of her. A string of curse words left her mouth and I smiled. I took no time pumping
wildly in and out of her, each time her feeling her walls clamp around me. It felt like they were trying to suck me back in.

Her nails were digging into my back and I relished in the pain it caused. A pop sounded outside and my pace slowed. Kat reached up and slapped me across the face.

“No, Timber. Right here. Stay here with me.”

I was slightly stunned that she’d hit me, but it wasn’t an uncalled for reaction. It didn’t hurt or sting, she was just demanding my attention; so I gave it to her. I blocked out everything and found some sort of tunnel vision with just her on the other side. I looked into her hazel eyes and focused on her lips, her cheeks, and her breasts as they moved with each thrust.

“Harder! Oh my God…I’m going to come.”

“Come for me.” Increasing my motions, I ground out, “I’m not going to last much longer.”

Her body tightened with spasms as she screamed my name. I was still pushing inside of her, helping her ride out the sensations when my own movement faltered. Powering forward a few more times, release washed over me. I emptied myself inside of her, and continued to stand with her wrapped around me. Every part of my body felt languid and loose. Walking over to the bed, I gently set her down, sliding myself out of her. I was still semi erect as I stood there, letting her eyes rake over me.

“I like our happy place,” she said, gazing at me, nothing but seriousness in her voice.

I brushed my hand over her cheek and she leaned into it. “It was a good place, wasn’t it?”

I considered going and getting something to clean ourselves off, but decided better of it and made myself comfortable next to her instead. She put her head on my chest and traced the swirl of my tattoos.

“Sorry about hitting you. It just sorta… happened.” I could hear the smile her in voice.

I chuckled. “Yeah, about that. We need to work on your right hook. I barely felt it. I mean, if you were looking to give me a love tap, then you succeeded.” I faded off as she slapped me on the chest and I laughed a bit harder.

“Ass.” She looked up and rested her chin on her hand. Her face looked like she was considering something, then she spoke. “I think it’s time you tell me what happened to you. Maybe it will help if you get it out.”

She was right, and I knew she was right. I’d already told her some of my story, but it was time to explain everything. She needed to know why I blamed myself for their deaths. Why I had nightmares at night. I wanted her to understand that when I secluded myself, it was because my head wasn’t in a healthy place. I wanted to confess to her that I’d wished I could take their place more times than I could count. She needed to know that I’d actually tried to end my own life in the shower at the hospital a week after they’d died. I wanted Kat to know all of it. I didn’t want there to be any secrets between us. I instinctively knew she wouldn’t judge me for my insane thoughts. Instead, she’d listen and be open. She wouldn’t try to understand me; she would just accept me, because that’s the kind of person that she was.

Lacing my fingers through hers, I started from the beginning. I told her about each of the guys, and what it was like being with them every day for a solid year. We talked all the way into the morning as the sun rose. She laughed and cried, and held me tighter. She held her breath and flinched when I told her about the bomb going off and she’d kissed my chest as if she could feel my heart breaking. She told me that she wished she could have met them. I knew they would have adored her. I’d never felt more connected to anyone in my entire life. Kat was someone I was falling in love with. It wasn’t a fleeting feeling that came and went. She gave me a new sense of purpose. It went above and beyond any hero mentality I’d taken on. She made my life worth living. I wanted to heal her like she was healing me.

I watched as she grew quiet and her eyes got heavy. Resting my hand on the side of her face, I said, “You’re tired. Let’s take a nap and we can talk more in the car on the way home.” She yawned and said okay before she closed her eyes and quickly fell asleep.

I felt so light after letting every little detail out about the guys. Watching her sleep, it occurred to me that had I told her everything about me, but she hadn’t said much about herself. That was going to have to change. This afternoon, after we said goodbyes to my dad and Alice, I was going to put her in the hot seat and start asking some of the harder questions. There’d be no running away from me this time. We’d taken our relationship to another level last night, and it was time she learned to really trust me.

T
HE
RADIO
WAS
ON
IN
the car and I had my feet kicked up on the dashboard. My toes were twitching to the beat of the music, and Timber and I were quietly enjoying each other’s company. He was running his fingertips in circles on my palm, up my forearm, and back down again. It made me shiver and I could see him smirking out of the corner of my eye.

I was currently perched on Cloud Nine after the weekend we’d had. He opened up and given me the nitty gritty details of the boys he called his brothers. His eyes had been full of light and happiness as he reminisced over the stories he shared. I laughed at his light-hearted teasing and the pranks they had played on each other. It was a side of Timber that I had never gotten to see.
There had been flickers here and there when he had chased me around, or when he had talked with his dad about his upbringing. I wished that I could see more of that side, but I knew it was going to come in bits and pieces with him.

My mind drifted back to last night when I finally gave myself to him. And give myself to him, I certainly did. When he was up pacing the bedroom, the haunted look in his eyes was more than I could bear to see. The atmosphere in the room had been heavy with grief and desperation. He’d needed me, all of me. Any reservations I’d had took a back seat to his needs. His grief stricken eyes had pleaded with me to help him forget, even if was for just the night. The fireworks had really done a number on him.
He was paralyzed. Even through the thick fog of his nightmares, our bodies had been buzzing with need for each other. When he’d told me he wanted me, that was all it had taken for me to feel the moisture pooling between my legs. My nerve endings had ached for him to touch me.

Something that I wasn’t sure I could ever tell him about was my own battle within. The aggression in his eyes as he’d taken me had made my heart was feel like it was in my throat. I was reminded of Adam’s black eyes as he forced himself on me. Timber had been so gentle, yet demanding, when he’d come at me before. In that moment, he’d been incapable of trampling down the emotions working through his system as he pursued me. He’d been dominant and bossy, directing me what to do to myself as he penetrated me. The tense sensations that had been coursing through my veins melted away as he slipped inside me, and all I’d seen was a sea of blue gazing at me approvingly. I’d left the memory of Adam in the darker recesses of my mind and brought myself into the here and now with Timber. Every stroke and every hard caress had been between him and me. I’d given myself, mind and body, at that moment to him. I knew that after that
one
time, I’d be okay giving myself to him again when the time came.

“Hey,” he said, breaking into my thoughts. “Where’d you go?”

His thumb was soothing my wrist. “Sorry, I’m here. Just lost in thought.”

He frowned. “What kind of thoughts?”

I leaned over and smoothed out the lines between his eyebrows. “Good ones, cross my heart.” I motioned an X over my heart. “Just remembering last night.”

His frown relaxed, but his face was still flat. “I didn’t hurt you, did I? I was so lost in the moment it didn’t occur to me that you might not have been okay with how I handled you.”

I chirped a laugh. “How you handled me was just fine. And I promise you didn’t hurt me at all. I was just as into you as you were me.”

He glanced over at me, trying keep his eyes on the road. “I still could have been a bit gentler. I swear I’m not always that aggressive.”

I became quiet as I thought about how he manipulated me with his words. How his not-so-subtle demands were wreaking havoc on my insides and all I wanted him to do was fuck me…hard. I wasn’t a shy person, but how on earth was I supposed to tell him that his authoritativeness was exactly what I wanted again? I needed him to be assertive with me. It kept me from heading straight into the dark hole that made me wonder if I was doing the right things and if he was enjoying himself or if I was failing miserably as a woman. I hadn’t had much experience with sex. And with how much I had avoided it in the past, I couldn’t be sure that my motions with him were the correct things to be doing. Vocalization was exactly what I desired from him.

“There you go again. Care to come back and join me?”

I blushed. “Oops. I guess I just have a lot on my mind.”

“Care to tell me about it?”

I chewed on my lower lip. I felt him tug it free with his thumb while he turned my head in his direction. He had a look of concern on his face.

“Kat,” he said in a deeper voice that almost suggested that he knew where my mind was at. “What do you want to tell me?”

I squirmed, feeling myself getting slightly turned on by his tone. “Okay, you swear you won’t laugh or judge me?”

“Never. Now what is it, woman? You’ve got me worried over here.”

I cleared my throat, attempting to put on a brave front. “Okay, it’s just that with everything that’s happened to me, I wasn’t sure how I would feel about being told what to do while in the middle of… well, you know.” He nodded in acknowledgement. “And last night, I was so worried about you, and trying to bring you back to me. You were so distant. But then you sort of…I don’t know… got all male dominant on me.”

I’d trailed off. “Aaand?” He pushed me to continue.

“And I think I liked it.” My lip went straight back into my mouth so I could chew it.

The car suddenly swerved to the side of the road and came to a halting stop. Dust kicked up around us and a few cars honked their horns, disgruntled by Timber’s sudden change in path. He turned his entire body in my direction and stared me down with his piercing baby blues. His chest was rising and falling in quick bursts and I wondered what was going on.

“What on earth? Why’d you pull over?”

He ignored my question. “You
liked
me telling you what to do?”

I couldn’t tell by his tone if he sounded accusing or genuinely surprised. “Yes, I think I did.”

His gaze grew deeper as his eyes narrowed on me. “You
think
or you
know
?”

I could feel that now familiar dominance radiating off him. “I know.” I looked down at my hands, picking at non-existent dirt under my nails.

“Give me your eyes, Kat.” My eyes darted to his. “Are you telling me that you want me to tell you what to do?”

“I think so.”

He sighed. “There you go again with the ‘thinking’.”

I shrugged. “It’s just that when you do that, I’m not left questioning what you want next from me. It takes my mind away from places that I don’t want to go and I feel like I’m only with you.”

 He grunted in understanding. “I have to tell you, I’m somewhat relieved to hear you say this. I’m naturally a pushy bastard and I don’t know if I’m capable of reigning myself in when it comes to you. You make me absolutely crazy with everything that you do.”