Afraid to Fly (Fearless #2) (27 page)

I shook my head, grinning. He was just too damn adorable. “Just be loose. Stop thinking about the fact that you’re in front of a camera. Haven’t you ever modeled before?”

“Uh, no,” he said running a hand through his hair. Click click click. Another one for my collection. “Why do you ask?”

“Just seems like you’d be the type,” I shrugged. The type being insanely hot.

“Nope. Sorry to disappoint you.”

“Who said anything about being disappointed?” I asked, zooming in on the way his lips sat in a natural, naughty smirk. Nope. Not disappointed at all.

When Dom grew tired of being my muse, he insisted he have a turn with the camera, making me his reluctant subject. I was used to being behind the camera, not in front of it. Seeing yourself through someone else’s lens seemed so personal, so intimate. I was afraid of how Dom saw me. Maybe even a little afraid of how I saw myself.

After he was done torturing me, we leaned against the hood of the car, watching the city lights spread out below us. I don’t know why I had brought him here. Maybe I had secretly hoped it would trigger a memory . . . something he had buried deep inside a long time ago. Maybe something he wanted to make right after all these years.

But . . . nothing. And I couldn’t say I was upset about it. I hated to admit it, but I was actually starting to like the guy, especially after seeing him so dejected yesterday morning. It made him seem more human to me. More
real.
Not the cold-hearted bastard I had told myself he was, when I stayed up late plotting my revenge. Planning all the ways I could hurt him just as he had hurt me.

“Thanks for getting me home safely,” I blurted out, not really knowing where it came from. I couldn’t remember if I’d thanked him, but I knew I was eternally grateful. He could have left me at the bar, piss drunk and sick. But instead, he showed me compassion. Something I hadn’t shown to him despite all his attempts to be kind and generous.

“Don’t worry about it,” he remarked, with a shrug. “We’ve all been there. Some of us more than others.”

I nodded, and fell back into listening to Foreigner sing about a love that felt like the first time. I closed my eyes and tried to block it out . . . the hurt, the humiliation. I was torturing myself. It was like I wanted to suffer more than I already had. More than
we
already had.

When Dom spoke next, his voice was pensive, almost regretful, as if he didn’t want to go down this line of questioning, but it was inevitable.

“What happened to Toby . . . before he found your mom? Was something done to him?”

I shook my head, because, honestly, I couldn’t answer that question. Nothing and everything had been done to my little brother. After I left, and Adel had fallen apart completely, he was neglected. She stopped caring for him, stopped feeding him, stopped cleaning him. So eventually, he had to learn to do it himself. He was nine then, so he was old enough to figure things out. But that was before the alcohol started. Then the drugs. Then the men. And by the time I came back for him, after learning about my mother’s death, it was already too late. He had lost his voice, along with what little hope he had left. Just as she had lost her will to live.

“He’s never told me himself,” I said to the moon. “But the doctors believed he had endured so much mental anguish through her years of drug use, that her death had tipped him over the edge. She was a shitty mom, but after I had left, she was all he had. And finding her . . . dead . . . face down in her own bile, it broke him. That little boy crumbled right there on the ground beside her dead, rotting body. By the time anyone found them, it had been three days. He stayed next to her corpse for three days and didn’t say a word. Or maybe he said his last words to her.”

My chest squeezed so hard, that I didn’t think I’d be able to choke it all out. I had never told anyone that story. No one. I was disgusted with myself for not being there. I was angry at her for allowing herself to die. And I was heartbroken for Toby. He was the real victim in all this. He was the one who had hurt the most.

I didn’t tell Dom about Toby’s stint in a mental hospital after he had gone mute, considering that he probably already knew. At first they believed he was in shock, and maybe he was. But it never got better. He would just sit and stare out the window for hours, never saying a word, barely moving. Sometimes I’d fear that his hope was to stop breathing. That way, he and Adel could be together.

Once they had decided he wasn’t insane or suicidal, they granted me full custody. I never told him that his own father, Gene Christian, had refused to take him. He had a new family, one that didn’t bring him shame and tarnish his good name. And taking in the poor mute kid that he abandoned, just didn’t fit into his life.

“I failed that little boy,” I found myself whispering. “I failed him. I failed myself.”

I felt his hand grasp mine, the warmth of his skin radiating up my arm and touching the cold place inside me. The place I had kept hidden from the world, locked up tight. The place he created, yet didn’t even know it. Yet, here he was, thawing it with his touch. Reclaiming the space he deserted so long ago.

His voice was full of secrets and thick with emotion. “You didn’t fail, Raven. You saved him. You saved . . .”

I looked at him then, needing to see his eyes. So much conviction there, yet he gave nothing away. I wanted him. Godammit, I wanted to give him my crazy. I wanted him to remember what it felt like to want me too. I just didn’t want him to remember
me.
Not like that.

“Be still.” Only our heated breath lay between us.

“Ok,” he murmured, leaving his lips parted. When he ran his tongue over the top of his teeth, the wind left my body. He had stolen it with that one, insignificant move that would serve as the straw that broke the camel’s back. The straw that broke me.

“You won’t touch me.” It wasn’t a question.

“If you knew about me. If you only knew the . . .” It wasn’t an answer.

We sat there for much too long, our lips much too far apart, breathing each other in as if that were some type of replacement for the one thing that we both wanted, yet refused to have. It was like being on a diet. You see the cupcake—you want it—you know it’ll be good . . . but you know it’ll be bad for you. And while it may be the best thing you ever put in your mouth, you know the guilt and shame will be twice as intense. And you’ll hate yourself for being too weak to deny that fucking cupcake.

He was the first to pull away. He was always the first one. And when he did, I still felt the guilt and shame. And I didn’t even get the satisfaction of eating the cupcake.

“I’ll drive,” he said, moving to the driver’s side. I fished the keys out of my jacket pocket and handed them to him. I didn’t have it in me to argue or demand he let me take the wheel. I wasn’t angry at him. Just the opposite, really. I respected his restraint. I only wished I had had an ounce of the same.

I’m lying,
I thought to myself as we made our way down the hill and onto the priority road. I’d been lying to myself this entire time.

I was angry. I wanted him to want me. I wanted him to want me so bad that it kept him up at night. I wanted him to need me to the point that I would invade his every waking moment. I wanted the madness of yearning. I wanted full blown, out-of-control, uncontained desire. I wanted his crazy, his ugly, his agony. And I wanted to give him mine in return.

It was a special thing to give yourself over to the one person who had destroyed you. Maybe I was sick in the head. Maybe this was a case of Stockholm syndrome, and I had merely fallen in love with my captor. The only difference was, he didn’t want to keep me.

We pulled into the driveway of Blaine’s house, and I was out the car before it even came to a full stop.

“Wait,” Dom called out, just as I took the first step leading to the porch. I had no plan once I got inside the house. He was our ride home, and I wouldn’t make a spectacle of myself just because my stupid, girl feelings were hurt. So I turned around, careful to school my features in its usual passive guise. He wouldn’t see me care. I wouldn’t let him.

He took his time reaching me, and for a second, I thought he was toying with me. But he was stalling. Whatever he needed to say, he didn’t want to, but he needed to. The same way I had felt before when talking about my mother.

“The other morning . . .” he began, catching my undivided attention. I had worried myself sick about what I’d seen. I didn’t want to bring it up; I didn’t think it was my place. I figured if he wanted me to know, I would know.

And now . . . he wanted me to know.

“My life wasn’t—isn’t—what it seems. And when I was younger, there were things done to me . . . things I can never talk about. Things that would terrify you, Raven. And I don’t want you to be scared of me. I don’t ever want you to feel like you have to guard yourself from me. So I’m not touching you because I don’t want to. I’m not touching you because once I do . . . I can’t stop myself. I can’t be with you, and be
me
at the same time. And I won’t do that to you.”

His face looked so pained, so defeated, that I couldn’t stop myself from touching him even if I tried. It was just the brush of my hand against his cheek, but when my skin met his, he groaned. As if the contact physically hurt him. I was hurting him. I had dreamt of doing that very thing, yet there was no satisfaction in it. There was no feeling of victory. Only this overwhelming need to take every ounce of his pain away.

I cupped his cheek with my other hand, feeling the soft scratch of stubble against my palm. He closed his eyes and groaned again, his jaw clenched tight. I moved my fingers to trace the angle of his chin all the way up to the shell of each ear. He shuddered under my touch, but it wasn’t enough to make me stop.

To make me stop hurting him. To make me stop healing him.

I was still standing on the step, putting us at eye level, and giving me full view of every single wince and tremor. It empowered me to know I could affect him, yet it was he who controlled me. This unattainable man that made me absolutely crazy with wanting what I shouldn’t have.

“What are you doing?” he gasped when I slipped my hands into his hair.

“Touching you.” I didn’t even recognize my own voice. It was too heavy with passion. Too desperate, too raw.

“But I told you—”

“You told me you wouldn’t touch me. You never said anything about me touching you.”

I’d like to think it was me who made the first move and closed the distance between our panting lips. But in reality, we met somewhere in the middle of resolve and resignation. And in that space, where two breaths became one, and all that existed was his taste on my tongue, I surrendered myself completely to the very man that I had vowed to hate. I let his hands run the course of my body, sliding up the backs of my bare legs, and wished he’d part them and wrap them around his waist. I let him lick and suck my tongue into his mouth, and I imagined they were my pebbled nipples, bruised pink with his hungry kisses. I let him pull me closer into his body, close enough for me to feel the growing hardness against my belly, and I longed to have it deep inside me, filling me with pleasure . . . filling me with pain.

If our past had hurt me, maybe our present could heal me. Maybe Dom could cancel out the ugliness of those memories by fucking me so beautifully that there would be no room to harbor my resentment. I would be too full . . . too full to feel anything but him.

When we pulled away, breathless, I was only partially aware of my dress fisted in his palms around my waist. He was blocking my front, but if anyone came outside or looked out the window of Blaine’s house, they’d get a full view of my white, frilly thong.

Dom gingerly smoothed the dress down over my hips, touching me so gently, it was as if he was afraid to make a mess. I could see it in his eyes—the panic. His regret was closing in, but I couldn’t let it take him. Not now. Not when I just got him back.

“Hey,” I smiled, causing him to look at me and abandon the task of fixing my clothes. “I’m all right.
We’re
all right. See?” I smiled so he could see just how happy he had made me. Because I was. I was fucking happy. And I didn’t want to apologize for that. I didn’t want to feel bad for having one goddamn thing for
me.

“Are you sure?” he asked warily.

“Positive,” I replied, before kissing his lips one last time. He tasted just like I remembered, maybe even better. Age and experience had done him well, even if it had cost him his dignity.

“God, Raven,” he gasped, when I pulled away. “I want you so badly. But it’s hard for me . . . it’s hard for me to be with someone and . . .”

“Yes?” What was he saying? That he was incapable of having sex? I knew that was bullshit. So why was he making excuses? When we both knew he had already screwed half of Charlotte.

“It’s hard for me to be with someone and . . .
care.”

“Care?”

“Yeah. I don’t . . . feel . . . what most people do when they have sex.”

“Then what do you feel?”

“Nothing. Numbness. Well, my body feels it . . . obviously.” He sheepishly looked down between us at the erection that was still straining against his jeans. My mouth watered involuntarily.
Shit.
“But inside, I can’t. I’m not there.”

“Then where are you?” I was trying to understand, but damn if I wasn’t frustrated. I didn’t get it—was he trying to scare me away? Giving me reasons not to sleep with him?

“Anywhere else.” His voice was so small, I didn’t think I heard him at first. But then he lifted his face to mine, and looked at me with those hazel-green eyes shrouded in secrets and lies. And I saw something I recognized. I saw hurt and shame and hatred. I saw myself.

I took his hands in mine, and did something I told myself I would never do. I broke my last cardinal rule. And I chose to trust him.

“I want to be anywhere else too . . . with you.”