Kissing Fire (13 page)

Knowing he would need a bit more convincing, I
shoved him off of me. For a moment his eyes looked pained, but when
I sat up and pulled my shirt off, and then took off my bra, that
look was replaced with something altogether different.

Shimmying next to him, I picked up his hand and put
it on my breast. “If you won’t do it on your own, I guess I’m gonna
have to do it for you.”

“Oh God Avery.” He dragged his thumb across my stiff
peak and I moaned. He pushed me back down on the couch and began to
lightly explore my chest with his hands. At first, he wouldn’t look
away from my face.

“I want this Preston.” I grabbed one of his hands
and placed a kiss on his finger right before I took the tip of it
into my mouth and sucked on it.

Chapter 12

Preston

When she opened the door and plowed into me, we
scared each other half to death. There was no way in hell I could
keep my arms from pulling her close to me. She was dripping wet and
gloriously naked. I’d never seen anything I wanted so badly before
either. She ran that tongue of hers across her lips and that was
all I could stand. My mouth was on hers before I could stop myself,
and I’d never tasted anything so sweet in all my life. Jesus, what
this woman did to me was not normal. My whole body jerked in
reaction to her as she pressed herself against me. I wanted to
absorb her into me. All of her. Her hair was wet and all messed up
and looked so damn sexy like that. But there was one thing I didn’t
get and it was that crazy idea she had about her body. She thought
she was fat when she was nothing but perfect.

Before this went any further, I had to tell her the
truth about me. She had to know. When she came downstairs, I did
and it felt so great when she held me but then she took her top off
and I froze. I wanted her, God I wanted her. But she still didn’t
know everything.

“Avery, please.” I looked at her face and she saw
the regret in my eyes. “Please let me talk to you and tell you
everything. You have to know things about me before we do
this.”

“I know enough,” she started but I put my fingers on
her mouth, hushing her.

“No, you only think you do. Please?”

She nodded so I handed back her top to put on. She
gave me a funny look and did that cute little wiggly thing with her
head. “Well, you said you wanted me naked, didn’t you?”

“That I did. But if you don’t put this on, I’ll be
very distracted and we won’t get anywhere.”

Then she stuck that lower lip of hers out and I
raised my brows.

“What?”

“You know what,” I answered right before I took that
lip between my teeth and then sucked on it. “You know how I feel
about you sticking that lip out at me.”

“If it keeps getting that kind of reaction, I’m
gonna keep sticking it out at you too.” Then she stuck her tongue
out at me. Well, damn, I didn’t stand a chance with this girl. I
lunged at her, but that was a mistake. She cowered and her hands
flew up in front of her face.

Jesus, we were both a mess, I thought.

“Avery, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything by that.
You must know I would never hurt you.”

“I do know that. It’s just a stupid reaction. I’m
sorry.”

“It’s not stupid and you don’t have to be sorry. I
think you have a very mild form of PTSD.”

“What’s that?”

“Post traumatic stress disorder. It’s from when you
were attacked by that son of a bitch.”

“Oh. You really think I have that?”

“Yeah. I do. I know, because I have it too.”

“You do?”

“Yeah, but mine is much more severe.” I scrubbed my
face. “It’s from being in prison and getting the shit beat out of
me constantly, among other things.”

Every bit of color drained out of her beautiful
face.

“Oh Preston.”

“It’s okay.”

“No, it’s not okay. Don’t ever say that. No one
deserves what you went through.” She pulled her top on and I began
to tell her everything. I didn’t hold back because I wanted her to
know it all. If she was willing to bare her body to me, then I’d
better be willing to show myself to her. The most difficult part to
see was the pain reflected in her not blue not green eyes. At
times, tears threatened and I knew she wasn’t the kind of girl that
cried very easily. I reached my hands out and brushed my thumbs
beneath her eyes.

“Don’t shed any tears Avery. It’s all in the
past.”

“But Preston, the things you did for your job. It
makes me so sad for you that you had to live that way.”

“Well, I chose it for the most part.”

“I don’t believe that. I think you made a conscious
choice to become an agent, yes. But if you could do it all over
again, would you change it?”

“Hell yes I would. I would’ve gone to law school and
been a boring lawyer. My dad would still be alive right now.”

She squeezed her eyes together but a few tears still
escaped, leaving their lines down her cheeks. I kissed them away
with my lips.

“Preston, I don’t think any less of you because of
what they did to you.”

I looked at her again, hard in the eyes, trying to
read everything that was there. There was pain, sadness and
something else that I couldn’t define. At the risk of pushing her
away, I knew I had to put everything out there. If I didn’t now,
there would never be another time.

“Listen to me Avery. You’ve been put in a terrible
situation. I’m so sorry all this has happened because to say it’s
disrupted your life is an understatement. You’ve also put a great
deal of trust in me, in more ways than one, so you deserve all of
the truth. My life is tarnished. My body is tainted. Not just
because of what happened to me in prison. Oh, that’s part of it,
yes. But, ever since then, I’ve chosen only to be with...” I found
it so difficult to tell her this. I swallowed the fat lump in my
throat and forced the words from my mouth. “I’ve only been with
prostitutes.”

Her eyes nearly popped out of her head. I looked at
her for a few seconds and then stood up. Her reaction was what I
had guessed it to would have been.

“Now you understand why I don’t see myself as being
worthy of someone such as yourself. I’m dirty Avery. I won’t let
myself be with someone like you. You represent everything that’s
good about the world and I am quite the opposite. Do you understand
what I’m saying here? I haven’t been with a woman, someone I’ve
made love to in a long, long time. I know this sounds crude, but
I’ve only been banging prostitutes ever since I was in prison. You
deserve so much better than this.” I dropped my head and scoured my
face with my hands.

In a small voice, she asked me, “Weren’t you afraid
of getting HIV, or other things?”

Raising my head, my eyes locked with hers. God, I
hated opening up with her, giving her all the dirty details about
myself. “I was cautious and used protection. I would also get
tested after every, well, you know, so I’m clean Avery.”

“I see.”

Silence then permeated the air around us as I got up
and moved into the other room to refill my glass. I had placed the
bottle of wine in the wine cooler so I was bent over, retrieving it
when I felt a hand on my back side. That was not a good thing for
me, as it took me back to my days in prison...days when I would be
attacked and tied down, and then raped.

My mind and body switched into overdrive and as I
stood up my arm flew out and grabbed my offender by the throat,
pushing him against the wall. The other arm was locked in place
over his diaphragm, cutting off his air supply. It took a couple of
seconds for me to realize I had Avery in a deadly body lock. Tears
were running down her cheeks but she couldn’t speak because I was
choking her.

“Fuck! Fuck!” I shouted as I quickly released her.
She immediately cowered from me as her hands came to her face and
she sucked air into her lungs.

“Are you all right?”

She didn’t answer me right away. She just kept
gulping in air.

“Avery, please say something.” She was shaking from
head to toe. And I felt like a total shit. “God, I am so sorry. I
know it doesn’t excuse what I did, but it was just a reaction. I am
so terribly sorry.” I rubbed my face and I honestly didn’t know
what to do.

“You really scared me.” Those eyes of hers dug right
into mine and I’d never felt so awful in my life.

“I know and I didn’t mean it. It’s just that...” I
bent my head down because I was so ashamed of what I had done to
her and it was all in response to what had been done to me. “Avery,
when I was in prison, they, um, raped me. Not once but dozens of
times. They would grab me from behind, like you did. And then they
would tie me down, and...well you don’t need to hear the gory
details. It doesn’t excuse in any way what I just did to you. I’m
so sorry for hurting you. I would never have done that had I
realized it was you. I just snapped when I felt your hand back
there, and suddenly I was in prison again. Fuck. This is why I
don’t want to touch you Avery. I’m a dirty fucked up shit.” I left
the room, unable to look at her beautiful face any more, knowing I
almost punched her lights out.

Now it was me who needed the air. The back deck was
calling my name and if I didn’t get there quickly, I was going to
puke all over the damn floor. With my stomach churning like a damn
stormy sea, I bolted for the sliders and hit the back deck just in
time. Shit, this was never gonna end as far as I was concerned. And
this one wasn’t a quickie either. Sometimes when I got sick, it was
over and done with fairly quickly. Oh no, not this time. I kept
heaving until my guts felt like they were on fire and there was
nothing left but bile in there.

The cool evening air was like heaven against my
burning cheeks and I let the breeze fan my face for a few more
moments before turning around to make my way back inside. She
must’ve followed me out there because there she stood, leaning
against the house with her arms wrapped around her midsection.

“Does this happen to you often?” she asked me. Her
voice was so soft that I could barely hear her.

“It depends.”

“On what?”

“On whether or not I think about the time when I was
in prison.” And there it was again, knocking on my gut’s door. I
ran back to the edge of the deck and was sick again, only now there
wasn’t anything left in my stomach to throw up. I never knew what
was worse...having it this way or the other.

“Is there anything I can do to help you?”

Who in their right mind would want to help someone
that just tried to knock the shit out of them?

“Oh God Avery. How can you even ask me that after
what I just did to you?” Talk about feeling like a POS now.

“May I touch you?”

“Why would you want to? I just tried to hurt
you?”

“Preston, may I touch you?”

“Yes.”

I felt her hands on my shoulders, softly at first
and then she began to rub those tiny circles on my back. She had to
feel the tenseness of my muscles for I was wound up like the
tightest of springs. But her hands felt like magic and they kept
rubbing my shoulders, then my neck and finally my back.

“Preston,” she whispered, “can you turn around
please?”

I didn’t really want to because I was terribly
ashamed of what I had done to her, but I didn’t want to refuse her
either.

When I was facing her, she stepped close to me and
hugged me. It was an automatic reaction to hug her back, and it
felt so natural to have her in my arms.

“Now it’s my turn to say I’m sorry...sorry for what
happened to you. I wish I could turn back time and make it all go
away, but it’s impossible. Nevertheless, I’m still sorry for what
you went through.” She held me like that for just a few moments,
then stepping away from me, she took my hand and walked me back
inside.

“I’m thinking you might want to go and brush your
teeth and I’ll pour us some more wine while you do.”

Not knowing what to say or do, I simply nodded and
walked up the steps. Brushing my teeth was a great idea and it made
me feel good all over. When I joined her back downstairs, she
handed me my glass of wine and asked me if my stomach was up for
eating dinner. It wasn’t so we sat and talked for a bit. Then she
told me all about Avery.

Avery was a funny girl. She had all sorts of comical
stories that had me quite entertained. We talked about her family
and how tight she was with them. She and her mom had been very
close, but when Justin’s first fiancé had been killed, her mom had
changed. Everything became about her. No one really understood it,
but her fun loving mom was gone and in her place was a
self-centered selfish woman, only focused on her own happiness.
Avery missed her old mom immensely.

“I don’t even know if she’ll notice that I’m
gone.”

“Do you really think that?”

“No, I was just saying that to feel sorry for
myself.”

“You don’t seem the type to feel sorry for
yourself.”

“I’m not. I usually just get mad and then do
something really stupid.”

“Oh yeah? Like what?”

“Throw something and break it and then get pissed
because it was something I adored and I can’t find exactly the same
thing to replace it. So I wander around for days lamenting the fact
that I screwed up to begin with by having a tantrum.”

“Avery?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you always ramble a lot when you talk?”

“Always Preston.”

“I thought so.” I scratched my head. “Avery?”

“Yeah?”

“I wanted to let you know that Justin and Caroline
are fine. I talked to Pete and they are in their apartment with
protection. Some men tried to break into their house, but were
caught and they’re being interrogated as we speak.”

“Really? What apartment?”