Time Served (17 page)

Chapter Sixteen

I haven’t seen or heard from Dean since saying goodbye Thursday morning, so I’m not entirely confident he’ll turn up for our Cranston trip on Sunday. I buy a bouquet of flowers, and grip them tight enough to crush the stems as I exit the building at twelve o’clock on the dot. I can’t decide if the fluttering in my chest is nerves or pleasure when I find Dean leaning against the wall, waiting, hands tucked into his pockets. He’s not wearing sweats for once; instead he’s in dark wash jeans and a black T-shirt, with casual shoes instead of sneakers.

“Hey,” he says, pushing away from the wall. He looks me over, his perusal as tangible as fingers tracing my body. I wasn’t really sure what one wore to place flowers on a grave, and had relied on my standard uniform of a black skirt, white silk top and strappy sandals.

“I wasn’t sure you’d come,” I say, taking him in. Big and solid, terrifying and reassuring.

“I said I would.” This is punctuated by the predictable shrug as we fall into step and head down to the end of the block where I’d parked the car.

“This is us. I rented it this morning.” I don’t know much about cars; it’s dark blue, automatic, has four doors and air-conditioning. I wouldn’t know what to do with more features.

“Cool.” Dean sticks out his hand. “Hand ’em over.”

I glance down at the flowers. “What for?”

He nods at the keys. “I’ll drive.”

“Ha.” I start to walk around the car. “I don’t think so. Do you even have a license?”

Dean snags me by the back of the shirt and pulls me into his chest. “Of course I do,” he says, dipping his head to speak into my ear. “You think they take your license away when you go to prison?”

I ignore the way my entire body lights up when he touches me and say, “You don’t even have a car.”

“So? Neither do you.” He corrals my clenched fist and tries to steal the keys.

“
Dean.
I’m driving.” I try to stomp on his foot but he evades me.

“Try that again and I’ll dump you on your ass,” he warns.

I lift my foot and bring it down, this time finding his toes. It’s not hard enough to do any real damage but Dean curses, the arm around my waist tightening, and he twists me around so we’re face-to-face, breathing hard.

“Push me down and I’m never having sex with you again,” I warn, doing my best to keep my eyes locked on his and not get distracted by his mouth.

He smiles slightly. “Can’t have that.” He backs me into the side of the car and trails his fingers down my arm, wrapping his hand around the fist clenching the keys. “Give it up, Rachel. You’re not driving.”

I’m finding it a little hard to breathe, and as much as I try to tell myself it’s because of the anxiety I feel about the trip, my libido would swear that that’s not true. Wrestling with Dean is “relaxing” in all the right ways. “That’s bullshit,” I gasp when he nips the side of my neck with his teeth. “I rented the car.”

His fingers squeeze the inside of my wrist, finding whichever tendon or ligament he’s searching for, and sure enough I feel my fist opening despite my determination to keep it closed. He snags the keys and backs away calmly.

“Dean!”

“Relax,” he says, pressing the button that unlocks the car. “I opened your door for you.”

“You’re a real gentleman.”

He winks at me and strides around, climbing in the driver’s side while I take the passenger seat, tossing the slightly rumpled flowers into the back. Dean’s smiling as he starts the car, turns on the air-conditioning, and adjusts the seat and mirrors.

“You can pick the music,” he offers generously, shoulder checking and then pulling away from the curb.

I watch in the side mirror as my apartment building shrinks, feeling my heart rate kick up as I remember why we’re in this car in the first place. I realize then that I’m sweating, and though I try to attribute it to struggling with Dean, I know that’s not it. My throat feels tight, my stomach is twisting itself up and my fingers are cold.

Dean sighs. “You really pissed?” he asks, glancing at me out the corner of his eye. “You can drive if you’re gonna be mad about it.”

I bite my lip, distracted. “I’m not mad.”

“You’re acting that way.”

“I’m just nervous.”

“About what?”

“About going back there.”

“You afraid of cemeteries? You worried dead people are going to crawl up out of the ground and drag you in?”

That’s a pretty apt metaphor for what concerns me, but I’m not going to explain it. Dean, after all, is one of the people from my past I’d hoped to never see again lest he pull me back into that world, and yet, here I am, sitting in the passenger seat while he drives me back to hell.

I realize then that he’s not just teasing me, he’s actually waiting for an answer. “I didn’t like being there on Wednesday,” I say finally. “And I wasn’t even near the cemetery. I feel like today will be worse.”

“So why are you going?”

That’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it? I’d always thought that the past was better ignored, locked away in a dingy trailer with all my pathetic little secrets. And while having Dean in my life hasn’t exactly been the easiest, I’m realizing it hasn’t hurt me, either. So maybe the past doesn’t have to remain locked away and unresolved. Maybe what I need is closure, and since Renee and her three thousand dollars are part of what sent me running from Riverside in the dead of night, maybe I need to visit her grave and say...something.

I’m sure it’ll come to me.

We take the turnoff for the highway and start to pick up speed.

“I just feel like I have to,” I answer. “For closure or something.”

“I think you closed the door pretty damn tightly, Rachel.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Do I?”

“It’s what you’re doing with me, isn’t it?”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” The words are harsh but his tone is mild. And then, because I haven’t bothered to choose a radio station, Dean fiddles with the dial until he finds something playing classic rock. He keeps the volume low, suggesting that he’s still waiting for clarification.

I let out a breath, embarrassed. “You know how you said you wanted me out of your head?”

“Uh-huh.”

“That’s so you could have closure. So you could move on. Get it out of your system.”

“What out of my system?”

“Revenge or whatever it was.”

“You think I wanted revenge?”

“Yes. Pretty much.”

“Does it feel like revenge when I’m fucking you?”

Now it’s my turn to shrug, avoiding Dean’s dark stare. “Sometimes.”

“Sometimes how?”

“Do you understand what I mean by closure?”

“Yes. Sometimes how?”

“I don’t want to have this discussion right now,” I say tightly. “We’re driving to a cemetery—let’s talk about something else.”

Dean’s got one big arm sitting on the armrest between us, the other on the wheel. If I’m not mistaken, he’s gripping it harder than is strictly necessary.

“Tell me about prison,” I say.

He gives me a cold look. “What’s to say?”

“Did you... Was it awful?”

“It wasn’t great.”

“Did you have friends?”

“Yes.”

“Enemies?”

Dean rolls his eyes. “Nothing too serious.”

“Did anything bad ever happen to you?”

“Apart from going to prison, you mean? No. I didn’t get raped in the shower if that’s what you’re asking.”

“That’s not what I’m asking.” Or it sort of was. “What’d you do all day?”

“Tell me what you meant about revenge fucking and I’ll tell you whatever you want to know about prison.”

I gnaw on my inner cheek for a moment. The opportunity to get Dean to actually talk about something is a rare one, and while I don’t really want to continue our previous conversation, I do want to know about prison. “I didn’t say ‘revenge fucking,’” I clarify.

“You want to call it closure fucking? Don’t split hairs, Rachel. Tell me what you didn’t like.”

I risk a look at his profile, the strong line of his jaw, the sharp cheekbones, full lips. His face is stony, shoulders set and tense, and I realize that his pride is wounded; he thinks I didn’t like the sex, which I did, even if I didn’t always like what motivated it.

My face heats as I try to find the nerve to answer. “I didn’t like how you put your finger in my ass that first night,” I say hastily.

Dean’s jaw ticks but he doesn’t speak.

“I think you did it to humiliate me.” I
know
he did. I have pretty much no experience with ass play and I’ve never really desired it, but if and when it was to happen, I’d rather it be with someone who wasn’t trying to show me how little regard he had for my comfort or how much he hated me.

His voice is tight. “I told you what to say if you wanted to stop. Why didn’t you say something?”

I blink away the flashback of that night, face pressed against the door, Dean’s angry voice hissing in my ear, ordering me to give up. I remember how wet I was, how much I wanted something I knew I shouldn’t. And how even though I was afraid, I felt like I should stay because Dean was motivated by a wound I had inflicted and I’d foolishly thought there was something I could do to speed up the healing. “Because I was sorry.”

“What?” He looks at me a second longer than he should before yanking his gaze back to the road.

“I answered your question. Let’s talk about prison.”

“Because you were sorry?” he echoes.

“Yes! When I stood you up that night and you waited for me after work, you said you wanted me out of your head. Well, I wanted you out of mine too. And I felt bad. I felt bad about how I left you in Riverside and for hurting your feelings by not going to your apartment. And I felt so stupid showing up at your door, and then you just...”

“Did you fake it?”

“What?”

“That orgasm. Was it faked?”

“No.”

He looks slightly mollified. “Did it hurt?”

“The orgasm? No.”

“Not the orgasm, Rachel.” His tone is sharp, like he’s gathering facts and has no patience for fools. “The finger. In your ass. Did it hurt you?”

“Was it supposed to?”

Dean runs a hand over his face and I know I’ve caught him.

“You know what I wanted?” he asks.

“What?”

“You’re going to throw yourself out of the car when I tell you.”

I glance over at him. “Did you want to kill me?”

He laughs humorlessly. “No.”

“Rob me?”

“No.”

“Then what?”

He glances over as though trying to judge whether or not I can handle the answer. “I wanted you ass up, face on the floor, dress over your head. I wanted to fuck you up the ass so hard you begged me to stop. I always figured that if I found you, I’d make you regret it.”

My heart stops beating. It’s a struggle to breathe. My fingers and toes feel numb. A tear spills out, making its way down my cheek and dripping off the end of my chin before I even know I’m crying.

Dean notices but plows on through clenched teeth. “When I shoved my finger up your ass I was just getting started. I wanted to stretch you enough to get my cock in. But you were so tight, Rach... And you wouldn’t tell me to stop even though I knew you wanted to.”

More tears come, but mostly I’m just numb. He’d wanted to humiliate me that night, which I can understand, but this confession is one I didn’t see coming and it hurts more than his planned revenge.

“I hated you, Rachel. I hated you and I wanted you. And then I had you and I couldn’t do it. All of a sudden I didn’t feel the way I thought I would. I was so angry but I didn’t want to hurt you, I wanted to make you come. That’s what I wanted to feel. I thought maybe if I knew I could make that perfect little lawyer come for me, I’d feel better.”

“Did you?”

He thumps his fist lightly on the steering wheel. “No. You said five words and walked out, and I felt like shit. Worse still, I wanted to do it again.”

“So it was revenge.”

“It was supposed to be, but I certainly didn’t feel like I’d fucking avenged anything. You’d had the power all those years in prison, and when you left that night you took it with you all over again.”

I fold my arms across my chest and take a shuddering breath. I made the mistake of starting to feel comfortable with Dean, and now I’m paying for it. If I hadn’t started to...
like
him, this news would hurt less. I guess that’s the risk you run when trusting ex-boyfriends. And ex-cons.

He’s watching me closely, probably checking to make sure I don’t try to launch myself out of the car. “Did it feel like revenge the second time? You said not to touch your ass and I didn’t.”

I think back to Dean’s bossiness, his coldness, his control. And what I’d thought was his determination to get the most out of his limited opportunity to fuck me, I now realize was his effort to work it out of his system, to take back the “power” he imagined I possessed.

“I guess not,” I mutter at length.

“Any of the times after that?”

I shake my head no.

“Then what? What’s your good friend Todd like in the sack?”

I snort. “As if.”

“What? He better than me?”

“You just told me you wanted to rape me up the ass, Dean. Do you really think I’m going to compare and contrast that with what Todd did? There is no comparison. He didn’t hate me the way you do, he didn’t fuck me to hurt me. He didn’t
fuck
me at all.”

“Did he call it
making love
?”

“What Todd called it is none of your business. I can’t believe we’re having this conversation. I’m visiting my mother’s grave for the first time, I’m stressed-out and you were supposed to come along for moral support, not remind me why I never wanted to go back to Cranston.”

“Why don’t you?”

“Because everybody hates me!”

“What makes you say that?”

“Seriously? You want to tell me that story about your rape fantasy again?”

Dean strums his fingers on the wheel, obviously trying to stay calm. “Nobody raped anybody. And I told you already I don’t hate you.”

“You have an awesome way of showing it.”

He shoots me a dark look. “And I’m sorry if I hurt you that first night.”