Strip Me Bare (13 page)

I go to slip off my dress when Ryan stops me,
“Not here.”

“Why not here?”

“Because, I don’t want our first time to be
on a leather couch that has a hundred thousand miles on it in the
back of a crowded night club. Or anyone getting a glance of your
ass in the air either, it’s mine.”

“You also don’t want to give the other women
any ideas?” I quip.

“Something like that.” He sits up so we’re
nose to nose. “You’re so fucking incredible,” he says, then kisses
me slow and hard, boiling the blood in my veins and roasting the
muscles in my body, signifying exactly where this night is headed.
And I can’t wait.

“You ready to get out of here?” He wraps my
dress back around me and ties the string, double checking to make
sure the knot is tight; the look in his eyes is carnal, almost
predatory.

I nod, because there is suddenly a lump in my
throat the size a boulder from the anticipation and fear. Oh God,
sex with Ryan, and Jack the Stripper. Reality has just kicked
in.

We barely get into Ryan’s apartment with
clothes on.

We did nothing but paw and pull and press on
each other in the elevator and down the hallway to his front door.
My whole body is screaming for him to touch me, anywhere,
everywhere. Right. Now.

He pushes me back onto his bed and
aggressively attacks my neck with kisses, stroking every inch of my
body with his hands, shoving my dress up past my waist. He groans
as he grinds his hips into mine. He’s ready. We both are. I think.
Shit. That’s my problem. I think too much. I think about Ryan
slipping out from between the beads with another woman, I think
about what we did behind the curtain and wonder if he enjoyed
himself as much with her as he did with me. I think about all the
women he’s had; and all I’ve had is him.

I need to stop thinking and get out of my own
head.

“Alana?” he’s kissing me. “What’s wrong
baby?”

“Nothing, why?” I try to kiss him back, but
I’m losing momentum.
Shit.

He pulls his face away with a
don’t be a
bullshitter
expression. “Don’t lie to me Alana, I can feel it,
something’s wrong.”

“Nothing’s wrong,” I try to pull his lips
back to mine, but his head won’t budge. He just stares down at me
with a forceful glare.

Resigned, I ball my fists over my eyes and
sigh. “What do you want me to tell you? I’m insecure? I’m trying
not to think of all the women you have all over you? Or of all the
women you’ve had?”

“You’ve been with other people?”

“
One
other person Ryan. One other
person besides you, and it was a disaster. I don’t even think it
counts.”

“What do you mean?” he asks confused.

We never did dredge up my intimacy issues or
talk about my sexual past, if you could even call it that. One boy
my sophomore year of college, the all-around nice guy I could never
pull the trigger with. Even though I tried, desperately. I couldn’t
muster up enough courage to go through with it. I was so messed up
after Ryan; I had trouble letting anyone in.

Sexually that is.

We’d start but never finish. And the one time
it got to the point of penetration I absolutely freaked. We stopped
speaking after that and I swore off men ever since.

“Intimacy was hard for me,” I tell him,
“because I was always afraid I’d wake up, and whoever I spent the
night with would be gone. I didn’t want to hurt like that again.” I
look away from him. This conversation sucks. I don’t want to look
weak. It’s a character flaw embedded by my father. Remingtons
aren’t weak. They don’t show emotion. They don’t even have
emotions.

I’m not a very good Remington.

“Alana,” he coos, and I want to slap him.
Maybe kiss him. “I didn’t know.”

“I didn’t want you to know.”

“You have to talk to me.”

“Talking isn’t my problem, Ryan.”

Thinking is.

“You didn’t tell me,” he stipulates. “Do you
really think I’m not going to be here in the morning?”

I shrug, because for all intents and purposes
I do believe he’ll be here tomorrow, but there’s still a hurt,
eighteen year old girl inside me who needs to come to terms with
what happened. That Ryan didn’t leave because he wanted to. He made
a choice that affected more than just us. And it hurt us both the
same.

“I don’t want to disappoint you,” I mumble;
and now I’m beet red. I’m pretty sure when Emily told me to be
vulnerable in Ryan’s arms, she didn’t mean like this.

“Alana, you could never disappoint me,” he
shifts while still on top of me. “I may have had more lovers than
you, and I may take my clothes off for countless women, but you are
the only one who can strip me bare.”

I take a deep breath, his words are like holy
water washing over me; a baptism of the soul.

His declaration is all it takes. And just
like I reassured him all those years ago,
it will be perfect,
it’s with you,
he reassured me all these years later.

We’re even now.

I smile at him. A genuine, indisputable,
unquestionable smile and pull his lips to mine.

There’s no hesitation for either of us. It’s
right. It’s the right time, with the right person, in the right
place.

Ryan rips my dress open, disintegrating the
string. Both of us hot and heady and breathless, and in no time at
all there’s nothing between us; no clothes, or doubts or
inhibitions.

He pushes inside me and I cry out, clinging
to his body.

He’s gentle, but commanding, and holy crap,
he knows exactly what I need. I’m lost quickly; every part of him
touching every part of me. Physically and spiritually. I hold on
tighter as my whole body tenses; all warm and ready and needy for
him. “Alana,” Ryan moans, almost insufferably, as I match each one
of his sensuous, stabbing, soul consuming thrusts. Reveling in the
sound of his rapturous voice, I suck on his skin and nip at his
neck straining in ecstasy as he drives me harder and higher until
he pushes me right over the edge. Twice. I barely register it when
he stills inside me; the two of us sweaty and slick and panting
uncontrollably.

“I love you, Alana,” he breathes. “I swear to
God I never stopped loving you. You were the only thing that got me
through.”

And I know exactly what he means; got him
through those years in prison.

“I wish I could have been there for you,” I
skim my fingertips softly up and down his bare back, his chest
rising and falling against mine from his heavy breathing.

“Me too,” Ryan drops his head in the crook of
my neck. “Me too.”

“Are you sure you
don’t need a date?” Ryan asks for the millionth time. I’m trying to
talk hands-free as I pin my hair up with the phone wedged between
my shoulder and ear. It isn’t working so well.

“Yes, I’m sure,” I fumble, “and besides,
Emily sent the head count in weeks ago. There isn’t a seat for you
at the table.”

“I am not above wedding crashing. I can stand
at the bar all night.”

“Ryan,” I laugh.

“Fine. Send me a pic of you in your dress at
least.”

“I will,” I smile, “but I gotta go, the limo
will be here any minute. I’ll call you later.”

“Okay, love you babe.”

“Love you too.” I hang up, then stare down at
the phone. There isn’t anything I want more than for Ryan to come
to Emily’s wedding with me. It doesn’t really matter about the head
count, there would’ve been no problem adding him. Especially if he
was my date. But what would I tell my father? Dad, this is Ryan my
secret boyfriend who strips for a living? Who, by the way, you also
convicted five years ago on a drug charge. Why don’t you just lock
me in a tower now?

I can only imagine my father’s interrogation;
where are you from, what’s your family background, where did you go
to school, what’s your occupation?

And when Ryan answers every single question
wrong, my father will freeze him out. Then forbid me to see him and
when I refuse he’ll rip the carpet out from underneath me,
forsaking me as his daughter.

Ryan will meet my father on my terms, when I
know he can’t take him, and everything I want, away. It may take
years, but I’m more than willing to sacrifice. I just hope Ryan is
too.

There’s a beep in front of my house. It’s
time. I run down the curved staircase, my mint-colored bridesmaid
dress rippling at my knees.

I hop into the white Navigator limo to find
Emily is decked out in the most beautiful wedding dress I have ever
seen. It’s over the top; an ivory Lazaro bridal ball gown. The
corset is covered with a sheer overlay that elongates her bodice.
The skirt is organza, asymmetrically layered and flows like a
waterfall down to her feet.

She’s absolutely glowing. My uncle John the
same; so proud and full of love for his daughter.

He’s dressed in a black tux with a mint green
vest that matches the bridal party colors.

As I sit across from them, I can’t help but
feel a pang of envy.

What I wouldn’t give for my father to look at
me that way.

To see me at all.

At least I have my uncle John. He loves me
like a daughter, even if I’m not his own.

I’m grateful for that. For him. For
Emily.

They’re my only true family.

I stand by the bar sipping champagne. Emily
and Alex’s wedding went off without a hitch, and now I’m just
taking it all in. I can’t believe my cousin is married. I can’t
believe she actually went through with it.

I feel his presence before I see him. It’s
like a gust of cold wind. My father. The honorable Merrick J.
Remington is standing next to me.

“Alana,” he says, like I’m an
acquaintance.

“Daddy.”

“You look very nice,” he says
impassively.

“Thank you.”

Silence.

I see a woman patting the corners of her
eyes, she’s been crying. I think she’s one of Alex’s aunts, I
remember her from Emily’s bridal shower. She’s a very nice older
woman who dresses impeccably and treats her two Pomeranians like
the children she never had. It reminds me of the last time I cried.
It was shortly after my mother died. I was ten and it was Christmas
morning, and there were all sorts of presents under the lavishly
decorated tree. But I couldn’t bear to open one. Not without her.
My father came downstairs and just looked at me from across the
room. He didn’t say a word. Just stared as I cried my eyes out.
Then he forced me to open my gifts, wallops of tears shredding my
face. When I was finished, surrounded by piles of soaking wet
wrapping paper, he stood up in his smoking robe and slippers,
looked down at me and said, “Remember this feeling Alana. It’s
weakness. And Remington’s are not weak.” Then he disappeared for
the rest of the day. I was only ten but I was appalled. My father
was calling me weak because I was mourning my mother’s death.
Someone I loved. And, because I was showing emotion. But I also
knew if I wanted to survive in this house without her, I was going
to have to man up. So I cried every single tear I could that day,
and then never cried again.