Commencement (9 page)

“No, it’s okay,” he said softly. “The tattoos mark pivotal moments in my life,” he continued. “Both good and bad. Anything that I feel has left a mark on my soul, I mark my body in kind. As remembrance.”

“Wow.”

“The one at my wrist, the one you noted earlier, it was the first.”

I swallowed and searched for something to say. “It was bad,” I said lamely.

“Very bad,” he whispered. “The kind of bad that divides your life into before and after. The kind that blows you apart into a thousand jagged pieces and you can’t imagine that there will be any way to put yourself together again. So you don’t. You don’t even try, not for a very long time. Instead, you just walk through life a glued together facsimile of a man. All the joy of the world passing through the cracks in your facade like water through a sieve, nothing ever staying, nothing ever filling you up.”

My breath caught in my throat and I felt hot tears prick at the corners of my eyes, threatening to flood my vision.

“I know exactly what you mean,” I whispered, and he crushed me to him.

“
I
s my nose still red
?” I asked him. We lay in my bed, my head on his chest, his arms around me, stroking my hair.

I’d made a mess of myself crying all over him in the shower, the recognition of our shared trauma surprising me, overwhelming me. He’d just held me, lifted me in his arms and carried me to my room.

“Let me see.”

I raised my head from his chest and set my chin on my hand.

“A bit,” he said, tapping me lightly on the nose.

“Great.” I rolled my eyes. “That’s a good look.”

“Nonsense, you look adorable. Like the consumptive heroine of a Pre-Raphaelite painting.”

I arched an eyebrow at him. “Seriously?”

“What? That’s a compliment. I love classical babes.”

“So I assume you had Rossetti posters on your teenage walls and not Farrah Fawcett?”

“Farrah Fawcett? How old do you think I am?”

“I don’t know!” I shrieked as he tickled me, slapping his hands away from my ribs. “From how you talk about Shakespeare I just figured you guys were friends.”

“Oh my God. I’m only thirty-two.”

Duly noted
, I thought. Filing the information away for the next time my mother decided to interrogate me.

“How is it that you’re a Scrabble champion?” he asked me as we lay in my bed. “I’ve been thinking about it for days.”

“Oh, I exaggerated that a bit, intimidation tactics.”

“Minx.”

“Hey, Scrabble is cutthroat.” I smiled. “And I did play tournaments, actually, at a retirement home I worked at a few years ago.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, after high school I needed to get out of town.” I laid my head back on his chest and traced small circles on his skin with my fingers, choosing my words carefully. “My, uh….my thing…”

“Your thing,” he echoed. “The thing that happened that created your ‘after’.”

“Yes, that.” I nodded. “My thing happened in high school, and afterwards I just needed to get away, from everything.”

“Everyone?”

“Yeah. So I moved to Maryville and took as many crappy jobs as I could. One of which was the retirement home.”

“And your duties there included playing Scrabble?”

“No.” I laughed. “I used to go in on my one day off and play with the residents. I didn’t have much of a social life. I worked nearly 24/7 for three years until I met Sasha and she offered me the job at Clouds.”

“Hmmm.”

“What is it?” I said, looking up.

“I’m curious what your mother thinks of you working there?”

“She’s fine with it, I guess,” I said, rolling to my back. “I’m sure she’d love it if I were doing something else but she’s very much in favor of women owning their sexuality.”

“That’s consistent with her profession, certainly. But you’re her daughter.”

“Yeah, but that philosophy goes double for me and Charlie, actually.”

“Oh?”

“My dad really humiliated her in the divorce. He told the whole town she was frigid and a shrew.”

He turned towards me and placed his hand on my stomach, stroking my skin, his touch warm and firm, reassuring.

“It was monstrous,” I said, turning to face him, my head propped on my arm, and his hand slid to my hip. “Dad had been cheating on her for years, and his excuse was that she was this cold, sexless, bitch that had deprived him of love and pleasure for the entirety of their marriage.”

“Having met your mother, although granted, under extreme duress…I can’t see how anyone could believe that. She’s charming, warm, and clearly very loving towards her family.”

“She is all those things.” I smiled. “She’s also a firecracker, with a vengeful streak, a long memory and the patience of Job. Dad won the short game but she obliterated him in the long one.”

“How’s that?”

“During the divorce and for a while after, she kept her head down, worked, took care of me and Charlie, and quietly completed her degree, changing her career focus from family therapy to sex therapy.” I trailed my fingers over his chest to his neck, and smiled. “Then she opened a practice in town, across the street from my father’s office.”

“Oh my God.”

“And
then
she proceeded to fuck every one of his friends.”

“Oh my God!” he said again, his eyes wide.

“Well, all those who were single. She’d never do to another woman what was done to her.”

“Very decent of her.” He nodded.

“She did all this publicly, too. I mean she did it all with class, as she does everything. But she never got exclusive. She dated a few men at a time, and rocked their worlds so thoroughly that no one believed my father’s pathetic claims anymore.”

“Good Lord.”

“And it was great advertising for her practice. She started those classes I told you about, and encouraged people to come to her not just when they were in crisis, but also when they just wanted to boost their sex life a bit.”

“I’m impressed.”

“Yeah, she’s pretty impressive. Anyway, the point of all that was to explain why she doesn’t have a problem with what I do. She wants me to be happy and as long as I am that is all that matters to her.”

“Are you happy?”

“More and more every day.” I smiled at him. “Hey, so…can I ask…how do
you
feel about my job?”

He sighed and flopped over onto his back, running a hand through his hair.

“As long as you’re happy…” he began.

“That’s not an answer,” I said, poking him in the chest.

“What? It works for your mother.”

“Come on.” I poked him some more.

“It’s complicated.” He captured my finger and pressed my palm flat to his chest.

“No, no. Don’t use that Facebook philosophy on me. Answer.”

“I think you’re very good at your job,” he said, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear. “You’re an excellent performer and you infuse humor into your acts. I like that. And I very much enjoy watching you.” He raised my hand to his lips. “Your body is obscenely beautiful; you bewitch me.”

“That’s a pretty glowing endorsement.” I grinned at him, blushing at the compliment. “But that only tells me how you feel about me dancing for you. Not how you feel about the fact that other men are watching me.” I arched an eyebrow at him.

He turned towards me again and ran a hand up my thigh and over my hip, his eyes following the movement.

“I wondered how I’d feel about that myself,” he said. “That’s why I came to the club last night. I was hoping to sit in the back, unobserved. But we know how that worked out.”

“You weren’t going to tell me you were there?”

He shook his head. “No.” “But then that ass started mauling you and I couldn’t just sit by.”

“You didn’t call me all week,” I said. “You told me we’d talk later and then I didn’t hear from you.”

“I know,” he said quietly. “I’m sorry. I thought I was giving you some space, some time alone with your mother. But I was giving myself some space too.”

“You needed space?”

“I did,” he said, his hand gliding down my waist and up to palm my breast, his thumb brushing my nipple lazily. “But it’s not what I need right now.”

“What
do
you need, then?”

“More of you,” he said, pulling me towards him for a kiss, his tongue stroking over my lips before darting past them to taste my mouth.

“You still haven’t answered the question,” I said when he released my lips. “About other men watching me dance, seeing me naked?”

His gaze held mine, a hint of something elusive dancing in his eyes.

“I feel,” he said, his hand traveling to my breast again, “aroused.”

“Aroused?” I asked. My eyes went wide. That was not the answer I was expecting at all.

“Yes.” He laughed. “I was surprised to discover it. The truth is, intellectually I didn’t like it at all. The entire experience awakened primal and territorial instincts in me. I wanted to pluck the eyes out of every man there. At the same time I was completely,” his head dipped to kiss my lips, “totally,” his lips coasted over my neck, pressing small kisses as he went, “firmly, aroused.” His hand found mine, and pulling it to his hips, he thrust himself into my palm, thick and impossibly hard.

“Oh God,” I moaned, my fingers curling around his length for one exquisite moment before he pulled my hand away again and held it in his.

“Dance, and let me watch you, let those men watch you, want you…but…” He bent to kiss me again, his tongue thrusting into my mouth fiercely, desperately, before moving his lips along my jaw to my ear and whispering, “only I get to have you.”

“That’s awfully demanding,” I said. “Possessive. We aren’t even an item.”

“Aren’t we?”

I gulped. “I don’t…”

“Yes you do,” he said, lowering his head, “We are inevitable.” His lips closed over my nipple, and he sucked hard, his tongue circling over the tip as his hands pushed my shoulders back to the bed.

“Jesus Christ…” I shivered, my nipple pebbling hard and painful in his mouth as he nipped it with his teeth.

He released my breast and lifted his head, towering over me, caging me between his forearms, pinning me to the bed with the heat of his gaze.

“I want to be the only one who touches you.” His hand stole mine, holding it to his cheek before pressing a soft kiss to my palm.

He pushed my hand back to the bed, knotted our fingers together, and held me there.

“The only one to kiss you,” he said, his free hand stroking a fiery trail across my stomach and down, “the only one to tease this sweet pink flower until it’s weeping for me, begging for me.” His fingers found the damp cleft between my legs.

“I want to be the only one to feel you, from the inside, your cunt gasping and sucking at my cock as I fuck you, plunging into you over and over until you erupt around me.” His fingers drove into me, his clever thumb rubbing my clit as his mouth claimed mine.

“Okay,” I whispered against his lips, my senses totally overcome. “Just you.”

His hands owned me then, his fingers thrusting deep at my words, a ceaseless pattern, slicking in and out, over my clit and back inside.

“I want to see your face when you succumb,” he growled, “when I empty into you, your cunt draining me, sucking my cock, of all I have.” His other hand never left mine, never gave way, holding it like a lover’s lifeline as he continued to thrust.

“Just you,” I said again, my voice hoarse with passion.

“Come for me, Jane,” he said, and I did, my free hand clawing and seeking purchase in the hard tensed muscle of his shoulders.

“Only you, Thomas,” I rasped, my muscles clenching and spasming around his fingers as the orgasm lifted me higher and higher.

He caught me when I fell, kissed me when I cried out, the sound a mix of ecstasy and alarm as I felt my heart melt as surely as my body did under his hands, pleasure crashing through me in waves.

I trembled—from aftershocks or fear I wasn’t sure. It was too much. This man was too much. This feeling was too much. I didn’t dare name it, didn’t dare to look at him. But his gaze sought mine as his arms folded around me, and those electric blue eyes pierced me to the core.

He stroked my cheek and kissed me, whispering intensely, inaudible sweet nothings against my hair. I wanted to say something, do something, anything to let this fierce and beautiful man know how I much I felt for him. But when the words rose in my throat I choked them back, and stuffed unbidden emotions back into the dark and dusty boxes that lined my mental shelf. I sighed into him as he cradled me, closed my eyes and took the cowards way out.

I slept.

When I awoke, he was gone.

T
here was
a note on my kitchen counter. It was tented by the coffee maker, a freshly brewing pot bubbling behind it, the Professor’s…er…Thomas’s neat script adorning the front. I picked it up and flipped it open.

J
ane
,

I didn’t want to wake you, but I couldn’t stay. Have some coffee, then text me?

~
T

I
poured a cup
, added cream and sugar then fished my cell phone out of my purse.

H
ey
. Just woke up, thanks for note n coffee.

H
e didn’t answer right away
so I took the phone with me into the kitchen while I made some toast. Halfway through buttering, he texted back.

G
ood morning beautiful
!

U
r too happy
. Starting 2 suspect ur a morning person.

I
am
! Just got out of the shower after a three mile run. I love mornings.

I
hate u
.

N
o you don’t
. Quite the opposite. ;)

U
GH
. He was right. I took a bite of toast and tried to think of a clever response—one that would deflect this playful repartee that waltzed a little too close to truth. Nothing clever came to mind, so I went with curiosity instead.

Y
did u leave
?

B
ecause I was
about to eat you for breakfast.

I
read the text
, felt my panties dampen and promptly choked on my bite of toast. I tried to wash it down with a gulp of coffee.
HOT! HOT! HOT!
Good Lord this man was going to kill me.
Ummm
….I drummed my fingers on the countertop, stumped.

Y
um
. ;)

I
grimaced
at my lame response, then tried again, with something a little more flirtatious.

S
o technically
…we slept together.

H
a ha
. Technically… I didn’t sleep a wink. I was awake and hard for you all night.