Stripped (24 page)

“Tell me how I’m stripping away all the ideas of who you think you are. Explain that.”

“I thought you were going to tell me—”

“It has to be my timing. And I need to understand this. Because I want you to be you. I don’t want to strip away who you are.”

“It’s not like that. Or maybe it is. It’s hard to explain.” I clutch the blanket under my chin and roll into him. He snags a pillow and tucks it under our heads, nooks me into his arm, and I let it spill out. “I was a pastor’s daughter. For so long, for my whole life. That was my identity. I was a mama’s girl. That was another part. But then Mama died, and I ran away to USC to go into film school, and my father disowned me for it. I haven’t spoken to him—phone, text, letter, email, nothing—since I left Macon more than two years ago. I never will, I don’t think. I chose my way. I chose sin. So he’s done. So that left me without being a pastor’s daughter, without a mother, alone in L.A. Alone at USC. I never really made any friends. I was…too busy with school, and then the scholarship ran out and I had to find work to stay here, because I’ve got nowhere else to go, nothing else to do with my life, so failure’s not an option. And then I was too ashamed of what I do—”

“
Did
,” Dawson interjects, forcefully.

“What I did,” I agree. “And I just…I’ve never made friends easily. I had one real friend back in Macon, Devin, a dancer at the studio where I took lessons. But I came here and she went to Auburn, and we lost contact. We still email every now and then, but…it’s not the same. I can’t…I can’t tell her things. So…I never made any friends. All I was, all I am, is school. And stripping. But now stripping is gone, and school isn’t…it isn’t enough. And so there’s you. I was just going from day to day, surviving, basically. I wasn’t dancing, and that was as close to an identity as I had. You gave that back to me just now. And when I’m with you, I feel like I’m—like I’m a person again, not just this point of sentience floating from class to class, essay to essay, test to test, stage dance to lap dance to VIP room. And this, being here with you, this feels like…like…
home
.” I whisper the word, and it’s a single, broken syllable.
 

Dawson is breathing hard, like he just lifted a thousand pounds. He’s trembling all over. I crane my neck on his shoulder to look at him, and his eyes are closed, as if trying to summon something from deep within. Or fighting back emotion.
 

“Home.” He utters the word much like I did, almost a curse, shaping a syllable that has no meaning on its own.
 

His eyes open, and he meets my gaze. A tear shimmers in the corner of my eye, and he leans in, kisses it away.
 

“So—so…” I struggle for the courage to say this next part. “So if this, if me and you, if this isn’t real, then don’t—don’t play games with me, Dawson. If it’s not real for you, then tell me and I’ll go—”

“I love you, Grey.” He speaks over me, cuts into me with three razor-sharp words.
 

I thought I would cry when I finally heard those words spoken to me again, but I don’t. I bury my nose in the hollow of his throat and breathe in his scent, and feel my tension bleed away. I hold the nape of his neck and just breathe him. And he lets me. He doesn’t demand anything from me. He just holds me, breathes deep breaths of my hair and strokes my back over the quilt.

“My mom made this quilt,” he says, apropos of nothing. “In rehab. It’s really all I have of her. You know, she never told me she loved me. Neither did Dad. The closest I ever got to hearing those words was from Vickers, once. He’d just bailed me out of jail for speeding and reckless endangerment—drag racing Dad’s Ferrari—and he just looked at me, Vickers, I mean, and he goes, in his perfect, arch, British accent, ‘Lord love you, dear boy. This wild hair of yours will get you killed yet.’”

“No one? Ever?”

He shakes his head, then shrugs in a strange rolling motion. “Well, I mean, I’ve
heard
it before. But not from anyone who’s really meant it. In the heat of the moment things from a one-night stand don’t count.”

I grew up knowing I was loved. Mama loved me. Completely. Daddy did, too, in his own way, just not unconditionally. Not enough. But I knew, down to my atoms that Mama loved me inside and out. If she were alive, she’d still love me, stripper and all. And Dawson…he’s never had that. Not ever.

I summon all my courage, and I roll over so I’m mostly on top of him. My breasts squish against his chest, and the quilt—which I understand to be the only evidence Dawson has of his mother’s maternal affection—slips down around my hips. I wriggle and writhe against him, shifting until I’m pressed entirely into him, every inch of me against every inch of him. My leg is thrown over his hips, and I feel something thickening and growing against my thigh.
 

I know this is true, so I say it, because he needs, more desperately than me, I think, to hear it: “I love you.” I don’t garnish it with his name, or anything else. I just let it float out, let it hang. And I hold my breath for his reaction.

His eyes are closed tight. His hands are curled into vises on my hips, holding me against him. “Say—say it again. Please.”
 

I’ve never heard such vulnerability in a man. In anyone. He’s just completely open, bare to me. I see the nerve endings of his heart, the pinkness of his inner need, the thick, tough skin peeled away to show the tenderness not meant to be seen.

I writhe closer, pressing against him, cradling myself to him. I brush my lips over his jaw, then nip his earlobe as I utter the words again, a whisper so quiet it barely counts as speech but I know he hears it like a bullhorn shout. He flinches at every phoneme, every breathed letter.
 

“
I love you.
”

Dawson shudders beneath me, shaking, and I know he’s as pierced and speared as I am by this moment. All the world is silent and still. The sun hasn’t moved in its arc across the sky. Motes of dust hang in the sunlight, frozen like beads of amber. There is only him, his heart beating against mine, the slow tangling of him into me, and me into him.
 

His eyes flick open, and they’re all-colored and fusion-hot. He doesn’t have to ask me to do it. I reach down of my own will and push away the quilt, roll to my back, and strip away my underwear. I’m naked but no longer vulnerable. I’m nestled in the cocoon of Dawson, of his love, his need. His eyes rake me, take me. Cover me. Face, cheekbones and lips and eyes and nose; the delicate curve and hollow of my throat. He takes in the heavy swell of my breasts, the erect nipples, my ribs and taut belly; hips, belled and generous; my strong thighs, the sliver of a gap between them, knees and calves and feet; then back up, to my core waxed smooth, tight and touched only by his hand. And mine, once, briefly. My hair is a tangled mess spread across the pure white duvet. My skin a natural tan in contrast to the white sheets.
 

And then there’s him. Male perfection. Evidence of God’s handiwork. I believe in Him when I’m looking at
him.
Dark hair that’s not brown nor black nor dirty blond. It’s a color like his eyes, nearly black when wet, but now it’s drying and lightening in color, muting into a kind of auburn. Messy hair, uncombed, gel-free, un-styled and perfectly imperfect. Trimmed close to the scalp at the back and around his ears, but long enough on top to style artfully mussed or swept to one side in a classical, sophisticated part. The changeable beauty of his eyes, technically hazel but brownish when he’s feeling kind and soft, almost blue when he’s angry, faded moss-green when he’s raw with lust, always somewhere in between, never one shade. High cheekbones, a jaw like chipped granite, lips that can curl into a smile or a leer and still make women swoon. His chest is massive muscle with deep-cut washboard abs that ripple down to a trim waist. Strong muscular arms encircle me. His almost swarthy dark skin, a thin dusting of hair at the center of his chest, a thicker trail of hair on his belly.
 

I need to see. I lick my lips and run my hands over his chest, and he tenses, flexes. My palms flatten against his stomach, and then my fingers turn to face his toes. I slip my palms down to his hipbones, sharp knobs under my hands. I don’t dare take my gaze from his as I swallow my nerves and fear and summon the boiling ocean of desire. The shorts are loose at his waist, an untied drawstring hanging over the elastic waistband. I slowly and too gently peel his shorts down, down. His breath catches, and my eyes are now inexorably drawn to his erect manhood as I bare it, inch by inch.
 

A broad pink head, a groove running around underneath that where he was circumcised. Veins and tightly drawn skin, tan and thin-looking, stretched over so much manhood. I’m not breathing. My lip hurts and I realize I’m chewing on it, and I release it. But I don’t stop my hands as they draw his shorts off; he frees one leg, then the other, and now we’re both naked. I’m in bed, naked, with a man.

But I love him, and he loves me.

So this is okay.
 

Right?

I can’t and won’t stop, even if it’s not.

He rolls with me, places his hands on either side of my face, kneeling next to me, but not straddling me. His lips lower to mine, and now I don’t just lose myself in his kiss, but actively throw myself into it. I dive deep, drown myself. I suck his lip in between my teeth and lick it with my tongue, and I hold his face in both hands, then caress his neck and shoulders with one hand while searching the hard ridge of his jaw with the other. Then my hands explore more. Oh, lord, oh, god. There’s so much to explore, so much man to get to know. He kisses me unhurriedly and lets me learn him.
 

My palms follow his chest, his ribs under his arms, over his back and down his spine. I hesitate, and then my palms move closer, clutch his backside in both hands. Cool and hard, firm. I explore the fullness of his backside and then down his thighs. I curve my hands over his quadriceps and to his hips, and then he’s collapsing to one side and onto his back.
 

Now it’s my turn to hover over him, weight planted on one hand near his shoulder. My breasts are heavy pendulums swinging freely, and then they’re caught in his hands, and I gasp at the heat and strength of his touch. His thumbs graze over my sensitive nipples, and they turn hard as diamonds.

It’s time.
 

I watch my hand as it travels to hover near his erection. Dawson is holding his breath, eyes narrowed, watching my hand as well. My fingers curl into a fist around him, grasp him gingerly. He expels his breath in a long, slow, steadying sigh. I just hold him at first, marveling at the way my small hand looks wrapped around his manhood. I love the feel of him in my hand. It’s nothing like I thought it would be. It’s hard and hot, but it’s also soft and springy, cushion layered over iron. I try to breathe, partially succeed, and then I slide my hand down, feeling the ridges and veins against my palm, and I cradle his…I’m at a loss for what word to even use to think of that part of him…but they’re even softer than his erection, pulled tight, prickling with trimmed hair. I cup him there, hold him, touch him, and then my hand resumes its curling grasp of his shaft and slides upward. The tip fascinates me. There’s a tiny hole at the very top, and immediately beneath that he’s spread out into a mushroom wideness. It looks soft and springy, and it is, when I rub that area with my thumb.
 

Dawson is tensed all over, shoulders turned into boulders, and his hands are loose on my breasts. I glance at him, at the narrow-eyed look of concentration. I cannot fathom his thoughts.
 

“Am I…is this okay?” I ask. “I just…I want to see you, feel you.”

He smiles at me, and his expression is tender. “Of course, babe. Anything, everything. As slow as you want.”

But he’s struggling, it seems. With what, against what, I can’t know.
 

I stroke him with my one hand and then move so I’m kneeling next to him, out of his reach. He crosses his hands under his head and watches me as I touch him. Not just his erection but his chest and stomach and thighs as well.
 

I still want to taste him. I know this is something women do to men, because men at the club have asked me if I’ll do it, sometimes offering exorbitant amounts of money if I will. I never thought I would actually do it, though. Today I am. I hold him in one hand, then both, hand over hand, spanning most of his length. His tip and a sliver of the shaft rise above my top hand, and I bend over him, lower my mouth to him. I kiss the tip first. An actual kiss, but that doesn’t seem quite right. So I extend my tongue and taste the groove. He’s salty and soft. I put my lips around him, and I taste something smoky and salty on my tongue, and then I move my upper hand away and lower my mouth slightly.
 

Dawson groans and his back tightens, arches. I take in more of him, thinking this is what I’m supposed to do. And, in truth, I do like the way he feels, the way he tastes. My lips are stretched and my jaw is forced wider as I take his full width into my mouth, and now the tip of him is brushing the roof of my mouth and pushing at the back of my throat, so I pull my lips away, so slowly.
 

“Grey…Jesus, Grey.” He takes my face in his hands. “You have to stop that now. I’m not ready for that, and I
really
don’t think you are.”

“Ready for what?” But then, yes, I do know the mechanics of how sex works, of course, and I realize what will happen if I keep touching him, keep my mouth on him.
 

And no, I’m not ready for that. Someday I’ll experience that, but he’s right. Not now. “Yeah, you’re right,” I say, and lie down over him, settle my boobs on his chest and my mouth on his mouth, and his erection is hard between us, against my hip.
 

He must see the question in me, because he answers before I can form the words. “The things you do to me, Grey. God. It’s all I can do to hold back right now. You are so perfect. The way you touch me…” He buries his fingers in my hair, tight against my scalp, and interrupts me with a fiery kiss. “You make me feel…so good. It’s never felt like this before.”