Stripped (27 page)

After using the toilet, wash my hands, and find my clothes in the darkness. I dress quietly, facing away from Dawson. Even my bra chafing my nipples now feels sensual, arousing, because it reminds me of Dawson’s fingers and lips there. And my underwear, too, brings Dawson to mind, the way his tongue speared into my folds…I almost fall in and drown in that rapturous memory, but Dawson stirs and I’m shaken into moving.
 

I’m creeping out, watching Dawson return to sleep, and then stealing down the stairs, out the front door with my purse over my shoulder and the keys to the Rover in my hand. I don’t know where I’m going, except away. I’m too confused, and I can’t think around Dawson because I’ll just want him all over again, and I already do want him. Even sore and aching, each step making my core throb, I want him. I want more.
 

I leave the neighborhood, carefully navigating away from the overstated grandeur of Beverly Hills. I find myself in the long-term parking lot of LAX, at the Delta counter. I don’t even know where the ticket I just bought will take me, and I don’t care. Nothing sticks in my awareness. I’m on autopilot, struggling against the current of guilt, against the thunderstorm of warring thoughts, needs, fears, guilt, desires.
 

I shouldn’t love him.

But I do. And why not?

It was sin.

It was the greatest pleasure I’ve ever known, and I’ll spend every moment of the rest of my life wanting and needing more.

He loves me.

But he barely knows me, and what if he finds someone else? Someone prettier? Someone more experienced? What if he has to do a love scene and I can’t handle it? There’s no
if
there; I couldn’t take that. It would ruin me.

But I’m already ruined. No longer a virgin.
 

That’s not ruin, that’s beauty. The ache between my thighs is a reminder of love. Of the fervor of his desire.
 

My internal struggle runs on a continuous loop and it makes me dizzy. I make my disoriented way to a gate somewhere in the depths of LAX. I’m not really hearing anything or seeing anything. I hear announcements, boarding notices, warnings. And then people in the waiting area around my gate stand up and start gathering around the counter that funnels into the boarding tube. I think I see Dawson’s dark hair and broad shoulders, but it’s not him. He’s home—
his
home—sleeping. He doesn’t even know I’ve left.

I find my absent way to a seat by a window in the very back of the airplane. I hate flying, and I should be terrified, but I have no room for anything but the vortex of guilt and shame and love.
 

I ran away from Dawson again. He probably won’t come after me this time.

I’ve lost him.
 

I should never have
had
him.

After a while, the jet taxis, and the pilot’s voice comes on over the PA. Something he’s saying breaks through the fog: “…third in line to take off, so things should be moving along shortly. We’ve got some good tailwind, so we should have you landing in Atlanta in just a few hours from now. Thanks.”

Atlanta? I bought a ticket back to Georgia?

Oh, God. Oh, God. God help me, what am I doing? Why am I going back to Georgia?
 

A possible answer strikes me as we lift off: I’m going back to Macon to find myself. I lost who I am in L.A. Or maybe I never knew who I was, and L.A. only muddled that further.
 

It’s too late to get off now.

Chapter 14

I land in Atlanta at 10:40 in the morning after a stopover in Houston. My stomach flops as the wheels touch down with a soft bounce, and after a long taxi, we pull up to a jetway. People around me gather their carry-ons and purses and laptops; I have nothing but my purse.
 

I stink of sex and sweat. My hair is in a messy bun, which I did in the airplane bathroom an hour before landing, having realized I looked exactly like I was running from someone, with my mussed and unbrushed hair.
 

I stink of Dawson. I reek of his musk, his essence, his touch.
 

I sense him all around me, in me. Which is nonsense, but I can’t shake the feeling. I shuffle along the aisle to the jetway along with the other travelers, and I hate myself with every step. Dawson loved me, and I ran from him. I left him in the gray hours of dawn, and I’m running back to the one place I swore I’d never return. I can just imagine his heartbroken expression when he wakes up, about now, maybe, reaching for me, hunting for me in that palatial monstrosity of a house, and not finding me.
 

I didn’t even leave a note.
 

I follow the crowd out into the airport, and the noise of chatter and bustle washes over me. I take a few steps away from the gate, heart aching with guilt, a lovesick soul cut into a thousand broken pieces. I had sex out of wedlock with a man I barely know and I left him without so much as a note of goodbye. I don’t have a cell phone. I didn’t bring my laptop or Fourth Dimension–issued iPad. He has no way of knowing where I am, even if he is inclined to chase me.

I stumble unevenly away from the gate, hearing the familiar twang of Georgia accents. I feel my own accent coming back and I haven’t said a word.
 

I’ve had four and a half hours to stew and think, and I’m no closer to knowing what’s right or why I’m back in Georgia. All I know is I want to go home—go to my dad’s house, and take a shower and sleep forever.
 

And then…I feel the too-familiar tingling of my skin and the prickle of my senses and the lurch in my belly. Hot, strong, unrelenting hands close around my hips and pull me backward. I feel his chest at my back. I don’t turn and acknowledge him; I slump back against him and muffle my sobs with my hands.

“You can’t run from me, Grey.” His voice is soft and powerful and intimate.
 

“How…how did you know?”

He laughs. “I felt you get up. Heard you crying. I knew you were panicking, and I knew you had to do it. I let you go, and I followed you. I was right behind you every step of the way. I sat in first class, and you never saw me. But I watched you cry, all alone. I watched you agonize.”

“Dawson, I…I’m sorry.” My accent, which I worked so hard to eradicate, is back in full force, as strong as when I was a clueless, mostly happy fifteen-year-old. I sniffle back a deprecating laugh. “God, listen to me. I sound like a redneck all over again, and I’ve only been back for five minutes.”

“I love your accent. Let it out. Just be you. Be Grey Amundsen.”
 

We haven’t moved, and people swirl around us like muddy river water eddying around a rock.
 

“I don’t know who that is,” I say, letting my head rest against his firm chest.

He tucks a stray wisp of honey-blonde hair back behind my ear. “Yes, you do. You’re you. You’re Grey. A mixed-up film student. A pastor’s daughter from Macon, Georgia. You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met, and you’re the most dangerously sensual woman I’ve ever met. You’re hopelessly innocent, a little naïve, a lot stubborn, and absurdly cute when you’re mad. You make my cock rock hard with a single look, and you have no idea you do it. You gave me the best day of my entire life, and then you ran away from it, which I knew you’d would.” He’s whispering this in my ear; I’m not breathing as he speaks. “You love me. And I love you. It’s not a sin. Or if it is, I don’t care.
 

“And you miss your dad. That’s why you came back.”

“I—what?”

He takes my hand and leads me away. “We’re going to go see your dad. You miss him, and you want him back in your life. And you’re going to introduce him to your boyfriend, the famous movie star.”

“I do? I am?” I’m trotting beside him as he takes long, purposeful strides.

“Yep.”

“Oh.” I consider everything he’s said as he goes through the process of renting a car.
 

He’s adroitly ignoring the stares and whispers of people who recognize him, and I’m trying to do the same.
 

We find our rental car, a one-year-old convertible red Corvette. He slides into the driver’s seat and turns to me. “Address?”

I spit it out without thought. “16543 Maple Grove Avenue.” I blink through my confusion. “Wait. We’re actually going back to my father’s house?”

He backs out and pulls out of the parking garage before answering, punching the address I gave him into his phone, a GPS app, most likely. When we’re heading toward my parents’—my father’s—neighborhood, he just smiles at me. “Grey, just breathe. I love you. Unless you can tell me, without lying, that you don’t love me back, then everything’s going to be okay.”

“I do love you. I do.” I whisper it, and the words are lost in the roaring wind, as Dawson has the top down.

He hears anyway, or he reads my lips, or he just knows the truth. “Good. Then it’s going to be okay. You love me. I love you. We’ll work out the rest.” He gives me a sharp look. “Do you regret what we did? What we have?”

I shake my head vehemently. “No! I don’t—I don’t regret it. It was…it was earth-shattering. I’m just all…all mixed up. I don’t know what to believe.”

“Believe in me. Believe in the fact that I love you.” He grins at me. “And believe in the fact that, once we get things a little more settled, I’m going to make you come so many times you won’t be able to walk for days afterward.”

“I can already barely walk,” I admit. “I’m sore.”

He just grins. “That was just a warm-up, babe. I haven’t begun to shatter your world. You can believe in
that.
”

I shiver at the hot, hungry gleam in his eyes, and I do believe him. I’m still mixed up, though, but Dawson is here, beside me, loving me even though I ran.

I try to breathe, and I try to imagine what to say to Daddy. I don’t even know where to start.
 

After a nerve-wracking hour and a half drive from Atlanta to Macon, we pull up to the two-story red-brick colonial in which I grew up. There’s a “For Sale” sign in the front lawn, with a “Sold” marker in red across the top bar. My stomach lurches. The garage door is closed, no cars in the driveway. Daddy always parked in the driveway so members of his congregation would always know he was home and approachable. I get out of the Corvette, with Dawson behind me, and pull at the front door. It’s locked. I fumble my key ring out of my purse, so long unused, and try the house key I never got rid of. It doesn’t work; the locks have been changed.
 

“He…moved.” I’m stunned.
 

“Shit. Now what? Do you know his number? Or somewhere you can find him?” Dawson is beside me, and my hand is in his. I don’t remember twining my fingers in his, but it calms me enough so I can breathe.

I back away from the door, stumble down the three steps to the sidewalk, stopped from falling by Dawson, and he helps me into the car. I sit in the ivory leather seat and suck hot Georgia air into my lungs. “The church. He’ll be at the church. Go back out to the main road and turn right.”
 

Twenty minutes later, we’re in the mostly empty parking lot of Macon Contemporary Baptist Church. It’s a huge, sprawling edifice, with a towering, traditional steeple over the main sanctuary, all white stone blocks and dark wood pillars around the sides. There’s an older-model red Ford Taurus in the lot near the office’s entrance. The car belongs to Louise, Daddy’s secretary. Beside the Taurus is an ancient F-150 that used to be green, but is now all rust and red mud and dirt splatter, which belongs to Jim, the janitor. There’s another car belonging to Doug, the assistant pastor, and a few others I don’t immediately recognize. A few spots away from these cars is Daddy’s silver three-year-old BMW. He’s here. Of course he’s here.

I can’t breathe all over again. I’m suddenly twelve and waiting for Daddy to come out. Sunday evening, after second service and the staff prayer meeting. I would sit in the parking lot, in the back seat of the car, reading a book, waiting for Mama and Daddy to take me home.
 

“It’s all right, Grey. I’m here.” Dawson’s voice is a low rumble, breaking through my distorted memory.
 

I shake my head, breathe deep, and ground myself in the present. Dawson is here. He’s…my boyfriend. He’s mine. I’m his. He’ll help me face Daddy. I shouldn’t need help, but I do. I wipe my sweaty, clammy hands on my thighs and then step up out of the car, hiking my purse on my shoulder. Dawson slams his car door behind him and draws up next to me, taking my hand. I hesitate outside the glass door to the office wing of the church.
 

The black metal handle is hot under my hand, and through the glass I can see Louise walking away from the door, down the main hallway, a box in her pudgy arms. I pull open the door, and she hears it open, turns, and sees me. Her face goes momentarily blank. And then her southern hospitality kicks in, and she brightens. Louise sets the box down on the floor and bustles toward me, arms extended to hug me. Dawson lets me go and stands with his hands in his pockets as I embrace Louise. She’s the same as ever, medium height, carrying most of her extra weight in her hips, graying black hair coiffed into a thick helmet of hair-sprayed perfection.

I’m suddenly aware of how I must look, how I must smell. I’m sure Louise can smell the sex on me, see it in the rat’s nest of my hair. I wish I’d had time to shower, but there’s nothing to be done now.

“Grey, how are you sweetheart? Why, I haven’t seen you in an age! I thought y’all would never come back to see us! Don’t you look just beautiful, and my, oh my, who is this tall drink of water?” Louise chatters nonstop, her accent thick as sludge and twanging like a plucked guitar string. Then she really sees Dawson, and she recognizes him. “Oh. Oh. Oh my…but you’re—oh.”

She flaps her face with a hand, and her generous bosom heaves, eyes wide. She glances at me, and then her eyes widen even more, to saucers, as Dawson makes a show of wrapping his arm around my waist, low, nearly on my backside. I lean into him, rest my head against his chest, and it’s not a show. I need his proximity—I need to draw strength from him.