The Girl On The Half Shell (22 page)

“Do you want to know what I thought the first time I met you?”

Instinctive fear rises through my center and the small child in me screams:
No, I don’t want to know! Go away, Alan. I don’t want you or anyone stumbling around in my lockboxes!

“I thought, what a beautiful girl. How is it possible she’s so sweet and charming and innocent in this fucked up world? So emotionally fragile that she playacts to hide how afraid she is. Sweet and charming and totally forgettable.”

I feel as though I am shrinking, diminishing.

Alan arches a brow. “Then I met Rene and I thought, how interesting. What’s wrong with Chrissie that she would have a friend like that? Maybe there is something beneath the surface of the girl she doesn’t let people see.”

The child in me screams:
There is nothing. There is nothing. Go away!

“And now three days in New York,” he continues with a voice like velvet and words that burn, “I’m wondering how Jack fucked this up so completely. You’re a pretty fucked up girl. You hide it well by being charming. For what it’s worth, I think you should work at being less charming and more real.”

Scrambling in an emotional avalanche, I snap, “I am not fucked up and Jack didn’t fuck up a goddamn thing.”

His calm in the face of my welling panic is wholly defeating. It is the truth. No one ever sees it. No one ever speaks it. No one ever sees my truth. I don’t know what to do with this or what to do with him.

Alan rises, grabs the dishes off the counter and deposits them in the sink. “I don’t do bullshit, Chrissie. That’s why you are here. There are seven bedrooms. Pick the room you want.” And without looking back, Alan walks from the kitchen.

I sit in the quiet, in the kitchen that somehow got clean as though no one was ever here, and I want to run, but I don’t know why I’m not running or why I am still here.

I’ve been angry for so long, with all the things trapped in my lockboxes, and then finally there is truth in the room. I thought this moment would feel better. It doesn’t. It feels only different; a different kind of weirdness. The weirdness of letting truth in the room.

I suddenly know why I am so obsessed with Alan, and what is pushing me toward him. Alan Manzone can see right through me. It should make me run, it should terrify me; instead, it draws me toward him.

Alan sees
me
and has done so from the first night we met. I push off the counter and I am trembling and afraid.

Chapter Eight

The room is so quiet it is deafening.

I find Alan on his bed, casually reclined against a stack of pillows, dressed only in flannel pajama bottoms, and reading—of all things—the
Wall Street Journal
. There is a fire lit, the silver candlesticks flicker with flame, the bedcovers invitingly turned down as if in preparation for some sort of romantic scene. But he is focused on the
Journal
.

He doesn’t look at me and I feel stupid hovering by his door, so I start to wander around the bedroom, trying to still my frantic pulse. It’s a good thing that it’s an interesting room, otherwise my deliberate study would seem silly.

Even Alan’s bedroom is something I find weird and demands a certain amount of mental analysis. It looks like something from a nineteenth century English manor, elegant to the point of being almost a touch prissy. There’s an antique mahogany king-sized bed facing the fireplace; floral wingback chairs with pillows positioned before the hearth; and high-tech conveniences camouflaged in antique furniture. There’s a Monet on the wall; tall, polished sterling silver candlesticks; crystal; and fine, leather-bound, first edition books of classic literature. I sink down before a small, mahogany table where I find a stack of newspaper:
Barons
; the
New York Times
; the
Washington Post
; and the
Daily Telegraph
.

The warmth of the fire surrounds me like a caress, but I am quaking like a leaf. I wasn’t sure what Alan expected after he walked out of the kitchen. It would have been logical to assume that I would leave. But he knew I’d follow him. I don’t know why he’s ignoring me now. I look at the lit candlesticks—he wanted me to follow him.

I bite my lower lip and stare at my knotted fingers. I stayed alone in the kitchen for what seemed like ages, and now that I’ve done exactly what he expected me to do,
nothing.

I struggle for something to say to break the silence. “You do have seven bedrooms. I counted them twice. But there are seven only if I include yours.”

He folds the
Journal
, tosses it on the table and fixes those penetrating, mesmerizing eyes on me. “Is this the room you want?” he asks, his voice gentle. “I meant it when I said you could have any room. It doesn’t have to be my room for you to stay.”

Does he not want me in his room?
A ragged breath forces its way from deep in my lungs. “Do you want me to go?” I murmur.

“Of course not. I want you here.” His voice is husky and his eyes are wandering in a leisurely hold that is tender and oddly comforting. “But I’m not going to fuck you, Chrissie. I want so very much to make love to you.”

His gaze is intense, and the effect of his words travels through me. His precise tone, his odd phrasing; it should have made me laugh from nothing else but the weirdness of it. Instead, I want to cry because that statement reveals a lot of what he sees inside of me.

“Can we turn the lights out?” I whisper.

He crosses the room and stands in front of me, staring down into my eyes. “If you want, but I undressed you last night. I’ve seen you nude. I saw every part of you. Everything.”

I flush…
everything?
... what is he trying to tell me? Then the lights flip off and there is only the sweetly forgiving glow of firelight, and Alan is lifting me from the floor.

He is surprisingly strong, and he carries me with so little effort that it makes me feel fragile and beautiful and weightless. Tentatively, I touch my lips to the warm flesh of his neck, the taste of him running through my veins like fire, my blood pumping all through my body. But I get only a fast taste of him before he eases me down on the bed. I think he’s going to cover me with his body, but he doesn’t; he settles on his hip in a relaxed arrangement of long body parts beside me.

Every move he makes is with such exquisite, slow grace, but his eyes are smoky with eager desire. I take the initiative and curl into his chest to kiss him, wanting him to feel my own urgency, but he changes the flow of the current so subtly, it takes a moment for me to realize he is slowing me, calming me with his mouth, moving me where he wants. I want to melt into him, into the play of his fingers, the feel of his lips, but he holds the space between us.

His mouth leaves mine in a slow disconnect, and agony shoots up my center. He opens his eyes. The corners of his mouth lift in a diffused, sort of blurred smile.

“What do you like, Chrissie?” he whispers and leans down to kiss the inside of my thigh, hidden by my dress.

He hovers over me, watching my shifting emotions as I squirm with need.
What do I like? I don’t know. I’ve never done this before.
He is so seductive I realize that there isn’t anything I wouldn’t want to do with him.

“Everything,” I breathe and he answers me with a soft, raspy laugh.

Then one of my legs is in his hands. He’s slipping off my shoe, a kiss on the ankle, a gentle return of my flesh to the mattress, and then the other leg, surrounded by his touch, air hitting toes, lips touching ankle.

“You have no idea how beautiful you are,” he says softly. His hands are on my sundress. “Why can’t you see it? Why are you so unaware of your own beauty?”

Cold air surrounds my flesh. My dress is gone. My breath hitches, excitement and fear, knotted-bands running through my senses. I can’t look away from him. He is staring at me naked beneath him, seeing every inch of my flesh, and all I can do is watch him look at me.

His fingers are fluttering along my thigh, tracing and touching everywhere, and his other hand is on my breasts, and he is kissing me: my mouth, my neck, the rise of my breasts, the swell, the nipple, my belly, my navel. My skin is burning. Every move is patient, deliberate and potent.

Oh…it is getting stronger. It is getting wonderfully worse. I want to touch him. He begins to move slowly up my body with his kisses, and my nipples harden beneath the play of his mouth and fingers. I can feel his breathing, ragged and hard, and yet I’m bathed in that exquisite slowness of his moves. He is drawing me into him.

I want to melt into this slowness, hover in this deliciously wet and aching anticipation.

“How do you want to come?” His fingers gently tease me and then he cups my sex. “My hand or my mouth?”

I’ve never done any of this. I don’t know what I want. I want to hover in this as long as I can, and yet my body is demanding completion. His hand or his mouth?

Through the dim, flickering light I hear more laughter.

“I’m going to take your silence as my choice.”

He eases back and gently opens my legs. His fingers float up the inside of my legs, my thighs. He hovers. I squirm with need. A kiss on my ankle. A touch behind my knee. I am going to climb out of my skin and climax before his mouth ever touches me. He kisses the inside of my thigh. Lightly. A light breath. My fingers curl around the sheets. Another kiss higher. A light breath. A kiss on the top of my pelvis. I tense and he kisses lower, lighter, feather-light.

My head moves on the pillow. My hips begin to move. He steadies them with his fingers. And then his mouth is there, in a knowing rhythm of tongue and fingers and kisses and touch. And I am quaking and moaning, being seduced to the edge, and then pulled back, over and over again. It is not me controlling my body. It is not me stopping the delicious pleasure that is repeatedly stirred. It is him. He is coaxing me there and pulling it away, deliberately.

“Oh… please,” I beg. I want him to finish me. The building is painful and demanding and I want it. I want it now. What is he doing to me?

“Don’t fight, Chrissie. Stop fighting your body and come alive,” he murmurs, before the work of his mouth and fingers devour me, this time guiding me straight on the path, knowing exactly where he is taking me. My legs stiffen. My back arches. I don’t even recognize the panting groans in the room. Every part of me releases into his touch and mouth. A complete, slow event all on its own.

His mouth closes over mine, swallowing my breaths as he covers my body. I’m still quaking as I feel the head of his erection at the entrance of my femaleness. He is moving slowly, touching me ever so slightly in there, teasing me to drive me mad. But the pounding urge to feel him inside is overpowering. I arch up, pushing him deep inside of me, then a rip and a burn that makes me cry out.

Alan stills, his eyes blazing, bright with question and something else I can’t identify. At the moment of penetration, Alan has stopped.

“Jesus Christ, Chrissie.” His voice is breathy. Ragged. Intense.

His mouth is open slightly, his breathing is harsh and I can tell he is struggling to stay still. He doesn’t move. The way he’s looking at me, his intense stare and frozen posture, makes me collapse inside. It wasn’t that bad. Why doesn’t he just finish it? No guy stops. You hurt, they finish and then it’s done with.

I taste the salt and realize I am crying. The tears come harsher, thicker, in a steady stream. It’s almost as if by acknowledging the tears I’ve broken a pipe.

He closes his eyes. “Please, Chrissie, don’t cry.”

The kiss he drops on my lips is sweetly tender. My eyes round and I stare up at him.

“I’m going to start this very slowly,” he whispers, his voice quiet but urgent. I feel his thumb, gentle, lightly brushing my cheek. The effect is calming and arousing.

I close my eyes, trying to keep my breathing and flesh under control, wanting to absorb the tenderness of his touch, his kisses, that drown the memory of the pain and make me acutely aware of his body filling me.

He eases in and then out with careful slowness. A gentle kiss. A quiet move of his flesh. A touch. The glide of his flesh out. His mouth, here and there, every part of me kissed, stirred and made chaotic. His fingers gentle in tending, knowing and cautious. My fingers, moved to touch him. His, erotic in my mouth. And the feel of him,
there
, even when he is not there.

We move in a fluid rhythm and there is no pain. Every touch bringing me to the point where I could match his was patient, tender and arousing. Every kiss pulled me deeper into him. My body meets his in unforced perfection as my hands roam his flesh in wayward sureness. Ours bodies are soaring in a single glide and it is beautiful. It is giving. It is tender. It is Alan.

* * *

An ember crackles from the fireplace, jolts me from deep sleep, and I open my eyes. The nearly pitch black room is warm, the flesh beside me is warm, but I am cold and shaky. Alan is sound asleep and he is facing me. And I haven’t made up my mind if I should stay and face him.

As wonderful as last night was, there hovers in the room all that was deliberately left unspoken. Slipping from the bed, I find the shirt Alan was wearing yesterday laying over the back of a chair and I shrug into it.

As cozy and elegant as his bedroom is, his bathroom is the opposite. It is pristine, glaringly colorless, cold and filled with unforgiving light. Spartan and spotless, it is dominated by a giant mirror filling the wall above the double sinks. There is a tub, a shower, a commode and a bidet.

I sink on the icy marble floor, hugging my legs with my arms, facing that gigantic and grotesque mirror. What did Alan see when he looked at me last night? I can’t remember the last time I looked at myself nude in front of a mirror. And I have never let anyone else, not even Rene, see me completely undressed.

I change in the bathroom of our dorm even though Rene ruthlessly taunts my little girl behaviors, and at the beach I’m never without my one-piece suit and wraparound sarong. Rene makes fun of that, as well.