Beg Me (4 page)

Then he shoved to his feet and grabbed his
beer, moving away from the couch.

“
What’s this favor you want, Tania?”
He turned away from her and drained his beer.

She was quiet for so long, he wondered if
he’d scared her, angered her.

But she was just waiting for him to look at
her, he guessed, because as soon as he turned back around, she
said, “Did you know Kyle had told his brother about…” She swallowed
and took a deep, nervous breath before she finished. “He told him
about our sex lives.”

“
He
what
?” Drake stared at her. Pieces fell into
place, forming a picture. A
horrifying
picture.

Yeah, Drake liked rough games. But they were
games and he never went any rougher than his partner liked. He had
his own limits, too. Anything that went more than rough play or a
little discomfort was over the line for him—yeah, some people got
off on that, but he wasn’t one of them.

But Drake knew things about
Kent—things Kyle had
known
but hadn’t wanted to admit. Kent didn’t just like rough
games—he liked hurting people. A lot. The one calming influence in
his life had been Kyle.

Tania stared at him, her eyes full of
shadows and misery. “He told him. The morning Kent broke in,
he…”

Crossing the floor, he sat on the coffee
table and caught her hands. They were cold, shaking. “You don’t
have to tell me this. I can piece it together, baby.”

“
Ever since that day, it’s like he
broke something inside me, damn it,” she said, her voice trembling.
There was misery in her eyes, but fury as well. “Ever since that
day, a part of
me
is
missing.”

Drake smoothed her hair back from her face,
brushed away a tear.

She closed her eyes, took a deep
breath. “He stole it, a piece of me. I hate it. I hate that I can’t
even think about my husband without remembering what his brother
did to me. I can’t even have a fantasy sex life now because what
I
liked
was what he ruined—he
told me the same things that I used to love hearing from Kyle when
we were messing around, but it wasn’t a
game
with Kent. I begged for him to stop, told
him I didn’t want it. I
meant
it and he wouldn’t
stop
!”

She was crying now, crying and shouting.

It broke his heart.

He reached for her and pulled her against
him. “Shhh. I know. Shhh…”

Damn it, if she hadn’t already killed Kent,
he would have done it in that moment.

“
Why did he do that? Why did Kyle tell
him, and why did that bastard think he could do that to me? I
didn’t
want
him!”

Stroking a hand down her back, Drake stared
off into the distance. “Kent was always a little fucked up, Tania.
Ever since we were kids.” Shit, that was only touching on part of
it, but Drake didn’t know it would help her or hurt her to know all
of it. Pressing a kiss to her brow, he said, “Kyle helped steady
him, but with his brother gone, I guess Kent lost it.”

“
He broke me—somewhere inside, I feel
broken.”

“
No.” Drake eased back, cupped her
face in his hands. Looking into dark, damp eyes, he repeated, “No.
You’re not broken. He hurt you, but you’re only broken if you let
him win.”

“
But
I
am
. I can’t even be me, because those memories win
out. I can’t even want what I
want
, because of him. I can’t think about Kyle
without remembering him—I can’t look at my damn wedding pictures
without remembering. That’s letting
him
win. He has that piece of me, and until I
take it back,
he
wins, and
I’m
tired
of it.”

Abruptly, she stopped—she closed her
eyes and took a deep, slow breath. “I’m tired of it. I’m so damn
tired of it and I’m
done.
It
stops. I’m taking my life back, my memories, all of it.” She opened
her eyes and looked at him. “That’s why I asked you
over.”

Oh, hell.

And he knew. Now he knew. That inkling he’d
had was more right than he’d guessed.

She wasn’t wanting just training wheels.

“
I need my life back. I need my
fantasies back. But I need to do it with somebody I can trust. And
I can’t think of anybody I can trust more than you.”

Fuck
.

Drake stroked a thumb over her damp, soft
mouth.

Training wheels. Teddy bear. Band-Aid.
Basically, that’s what he was going to be. Oh, and a fuck toy.

He leaned in and pressed his brow to hers.
“You sure about this, Tania?”

In response, she angled her head and kissed
him. When she pulled back, she whispered, “Yes. I’m sure.”

“
Okay. When?”

“
Tonight. At least…I want to try.
Maybe just not all-out sex. Hell, for all I know I won’t even be
able to get far before I freak out, but I’m tired of waiting for
things to fade—I’m not waiting anymore.”

With a pained glance, he pulled away. “I
wasn’t exactly prepared for something like this. I don’t have
anything with me…”

Tania shrugged. “I do. And I’ll be honest. I
don’t think I’m going to be up to having sex tonight.” With a weak
smile, she said, “We might make it to third base before I freak
out.”

“
Third base.” He chuckled. “Well, I
don’t think I’ve done any hot and heavy necking in a long time.
Might be fun.” He skimmed his hands down her back. “I think I want
another beer. You want any more wine?”

“
Yeah. I think I do.”

He took a few minutes longer than he needed,
letting his blood cool, forcing himself to think.

He was about to go out there and
engage in sexual antics with the woman of his dreams…but not
because she had any sort of romantic feelings for him. It was
because she
trusted
him.

Shit
.

Back in the living room, he gave her the
wine and sat down with his beer. “Before we do anything, we need to
talk.”

“
Do we have to?” She scowled, staring
into the wine.

He laughed. “Yeah. Considering that I don’t
want to screw this up, we probably should.” He reached up, brushed
a strand of her golden brown hair back behind one ear. “If we were
just going to have some quick anonymous sex, no strings, no
baggage, it would be one thing. But we aren’t anonymous, there is
baggage…and what we’re going to be doing isn’t just typical sex. Is
it?”

She slid him a look from the corner of her
eye.

“
You want to make this complicated,”
she muttered.

“
It
is
complicated, to an extent.” He took the wine from her, set it
on the table next to his beer. Then he caught her hand, tugged.
“Come here.”

She nibbled on her lower lip and then eased
across the couch.

Not good enough. He pulled her into his lap,
her back against his front. “You smell good. You’ve always smelled
so good,” he said absently, stroking a hand up and down one thigh.
“I don’t think I ever mentioned that it drives me nuts.”

She was tense.

“
Am I making you nervous?”

“
I don’t know. A little.” She rested
her hands on his thighs. “But it…well, it feels good. You feel
good.”

“
So do you.” He wanted to tug that
short little skirt higher but he didn’t, not yet. “I think you
should tell me what happened two years ago.”

She went rigid. He heard her swallow and he
braced himself for her to bolt off his lap. “Why?”

“
Because whatever he did, if I do it,
it will trigger some bad memories, I bet. I don’t want that.” Then
he stroked a hand down her hair, brushed it aside to bare her nape.
“And…while I could be wrong, but I don’t think I am, I suspect you
haven’t ever told anybody what really happened. At least not all of
it. Have you?”

She shuddered. Then she shook her
head. “No.” She turned her head away, dipping it low so that her
hair hid her from him. “You know what some people will think
about…what I liked. Hell, they say it about women who
don’t
have a taste for rough sex. If
they’d known I had a thing for kinky sex, that Kyle and I used to
have all these role-playing things where he pretended to rape me,
where I’d beg him to hurt me, where I’d beg him not to touch me
even as I was burning up for him…”

“
You were worried they wouldn’t have
believed you about Kent.” He blew out a breath.

“
Yeah.”

He lowered his head, pressed his brow to her
shoulder. “I’m so sorry, baby.”

“
It was early. Almost three in the
morning. Can you hand me my wine?”

He reached for the glass but when he pushed
it into her hand, she was trembling so hard, she could barely hold
it. “Here,” he murmured, shifting her in his lap and turning her so
that he covered one of her hands with his, steadying her as she
lifted the glass.

She took a deep, deep drink, then lowered
it. Her brown eyes stared off into the distance, seeing
nothing—nothing but her memories, he suspected.

“
I was sleeping. I can’t remember what
woke me…I guess I heard something. There was a shadow in the door.
At first, I thought I was dreaming—it was so like Kyle. There had
been a few times when we’d done that sort of thing. He’d wait until
I was asleep and… Anyway. Then I thought maybe the past year had
been a nightmare and Kyle wasn’t really dead, because he looked
so
familiar
.”

“
But then he touched me, and I knew.
Even when Kyle was being his roughest, there was a care there. He
always made sure he never really hurt me. And that was the first
thing Kent did.”

She reached up, touched her cheek. “I
screamed and he covered my mouth, squeezed so hard I thought he’d
break my jaw. Then he laughed and said, ‘This is going to be fun.
I’m going to take my hand away in a second, just so you can beg me,
bitch. We know you like it this way, right?’ He let go and I
screamed, told him to leave me alone, asked him what he was doing.
He slapped me. In the face. I…I don’t like being hit. Spanked,
that’s one thing, but he hit me. Laughed. Told me that I was going
to beg for his cock, the way I’d always begged for Kyle’s. I told
him no, that I didn’t want him like that.”

She was crying. Silent tears that ran down
her face. “He covered my mouth and told me not to be so
loud—somebody would hear, they wouldn’t understand. When I wouldn’t
shut up, he ripped my panties off, shoved them in my mouth. Then he
held my hands over my head and raped me. He tried to get me to
touch myself a few times, but every time he let go of my hands, I
fought him, hit him. Once I got him in the throat and…” She
stopped, paused. She closed her eyes and then blew out a breath. “I
think he realized then that I wasn’t exactly on board. And he
didn’t care. Hell, I think it excited him even more. He finished
fast. Climbed off the bed and walked over to turn on the lights.
While he was walking over there, I grabbed the gun out of the
bedside table. While he was talking over there, he said something
like… ‘No wonder Kyle was so into fucking you. We’ll clean you up.
Do it again, and this time, you’ll do some of that shit you did
with him.’ Then he turned around. He saw the gun and he laughed.
‘That’s a new one.’ I told him to leave, and he just smiled and
started back over toward me. I shot him.”

She rubbed the heel of her hand over
her chest. “The cops showed up about two minutes later. One of my
neighbors
had
heard me
screaming and somebody else reported the gunshot. They took one
look at me and knew what had happened.”

Drake knew the rest. It was all documented
in an official report. She’d been questioned, but anybody who
looked at her that day could see how she’d been brutalized. He’d
visited her in the hospital, he’d stood guard outside her door for
hours. Once they’d let him in, he’d sat at her side throughout the
night, holding her hand.

Each bruise he’d seen, each mark, they were
like scars he’d carry on his heart forever.

Knowing the words were useless, he said them
anyway, “I’m so sorry, Tawny.”

“
Tawny…” She smiled. “I like
that.”

“
Are you sure you want…? Damn it,
after what he did, maybe this just isn’t your thing
anymore.”

She shook her head. “No. I’ve spent
the past two years thinking that. Thinking
just
that. I’ve done counseling, I’ve tried
nice, friendly
safe
men—they
touch me and it’s just as bad. I’ve tried to give myself time. But
I’m still lost, and I’ll stay lost until I find the pieces of me
that he took, until I take those pieces back. I’m not letting him
win.”

“
Okay.” Drake nodded. Laying one hand
flat on her thigh, he waited, gauged her reaction. She held still,
staring at his hand. “There are a few more things I want to
know.”

“
Like…”

“
I need to know what you do like, what
you don’t.” He used his free hand, brushed her hair aside once
more, baring her neck. He pressed his lips to her there.

“
Right now, I don’t know if I’ll like
anything.”