DIRTY[COMPLETED]✔️

Chapter Fifteen

I didn’t emerge from the cocoon of my past to become an uninhibited, emotionally healthy butterfly. Nothing is ever that easy. Sometimes grief is a comfort we grant ourselves because it’s less terrifying than trying for joy. Nobody wants to admit it. We’d all declare we want to be happy, if we could. So why, then, is pain the one thing we most often hold on to? Why are slights and griefs the memories on which we choose to dwell? Is it because joy doesn’t last but grief does?
The confrontation with Gavin’s mother had left me shaken and determined to mind my own business from now on. Instead of tackling a new painting project, I enjoyed learning to bake cookies with Mrs. Pease, whose son did visit, eventually, if not as often as she’d have liked. And, I made an effort, a real effort, with Dan.
Since the extent of my cooking extended no further than sugar cookies at this point, Dan invited me to dinner at his place. I knocked on his door with a bottle of good wine in my hand, and the smile he gave me when he opened the door made me smile back. We did an awkward little dance for a moment before he took the lead and pulled me into his arms for a hug brief enough to remain casual but full of meaning just the same.
I felt a different kind of nervous around him. More anticipatory than anxious. I didn’t mind it. I followed him to the kitchen and we opened the wine as we chatted.
“Pasta � la Dan,” he said from the stove, where steam had wreathed his face. He turned, grinning. “My own special recipe.”
I cast a pointed glance to the empty jar of expensive spaghetti sauce he’d left in clear view on the counter. “Uh-huh.”
He raised an eyebrow. “You doubt me?”
I held up my hands and sat at the table. “Hey, anything I don’t have to cook is fine with me.”
He laughed and poured the pasta into a strainer, ladled it onto plates, layered the sauce over it and added a sprig of parsley. He slid the plate in front of me and sat down with his.
“Cheese?”
“That’s a nifty gadget.” I watched him shred Parmesan cheese in a minigrater like the kind they have in restaurants.
“Pampered Chef.”
I blinked. “You really do like Pampered Chef?”
“Hell, yeah.” Dan set the grater down and reached for the bottle of wine to refill our glasses. “Their stuff is excellent.”
“I don’t cook, so I guess I wouldn’t know.” That was true. “My domestic gene is broken.”
He looked up. “Seriously?”
I smiled. “Seriously.”
He pushed the basket of garlic bread toward me. “Damn. Here I thought I’d finally found me a woman who’d cook and clean for me.”
I rolled my eyes and took some bread. “Whatever.”
He twirled some pasta on his fork and blew on it, then tucked it into his mouth and sighed in contentment. I watched him eat. It was nice to see someone take such enjoyment out of something so simple. That impressed me about him. He was just as happy eating home-made pasta as he’d been at La Belle Fleur. It was refreshing and a little paradoxical, that the man who put me up against a wall could be the same as the one now cooing over spaghetti.
“Not hungry?”
He’d caught me staring, and I looked down at my plate. “Oh, yes…this looks great.”
“Tell me something, Elle.”
“Like what?” I looked up from the bread I’d been tearing into small pieces.
Dan smiled. “Anything.”
I sipped some red wine and studied his face. “The sum of the squares of the shorter sides of a right-angled triangle will equal the square of the hypotenuse.”
“The sum of the what will equal the what of the what-what?” He shook his head. “What’s that?”
“Pythagorean Theorem,” I told him. “You said anything.”
“How about something about yourself?” He poured us both more wine. I’d barely realized my glass was empty.
“I wear a size seven glove.”
“Really?” He made a show of looking at my hand. “I’d have said an eight, easily.”
“You make a habit of guessing women’s glove sizes?”
He looked up with a grin. “I’m better at guessing bra sizes.”
Another man saying the same words would have made me frown, but Dan…Dan got me to giggle. I put my hand over my mouth to cover it, but the sound slipped free. He looked pleased.
“I made you laugh. That’s good, right?”
I ran my finger across my lip and bit my finger gently before taking my hand away. “That’s good. Yes.”
The food was good. The wine better. The conversation easy and flowing, and as relaxing as anything could be, for me. It helped that his plates had a multicolored pattern of dots on a dark background. Counting the dots between bites kept me occupied.
He kept my glass filled, the sneaky bastard, but I didn’t mind. The wine was good, a rich, dark red with a fine flavor that was a pleasure to drink. I didn’t realize how much I’d had until I stood and had to grab the back of my chair.
“Whoa,” I said with a small laugh. “Wine.”
“I’ll take that.” He stole the plate and silverware from my hands and put it in his dishwasher. He lifted my wineglass and reached for my hand. “Living room.”
“You’re always doing that,” I told him, though I followed him willingly enough.
“What’s that?” He looked up as he settled my glass on the coffee table and moved the pillows on the couch so I could sit.
“Telling me what to do.”
As I sat, he grinned and leaned in very close, his mouth not quite touching mine. “You like it.”
“And that,” I breathed. “Telling me what I like.”
“Am I wrong?”
I turned my head a little, smiling. “So far…I don’t think so.”
He nuzzled my earlobe. “But you’d tell me if I was. I’m sure.”
I turned my head more, this time not to keep him from kissing me but to encourage it. “Of course.”
He’d put both hands on the back of the couch, one on each side of me. His lips brushed the side of my neck, then down, stopping at the small bump of my collarbone. He licked it. I shivered.
“Because you don’t really need me to tell you what you like. Do you?
“No.”
“Because you already know.”
I smiled at that. “Yes.”
He pulled away and put a finger to my chin to turn my face toward him. “Or is it that you know what you don’t like?”
I looked into his eyes. “That, too.”
“Nothing wrong with that, Elle. Not a thing.”
He kissed the side of my neck again, then sat next to me. I licked my lips, and his eyes followed the motion of my tongue before he looked back into mine. He stretched his arm out along the back of the couch, his fingertips an inch from my shoulder. I wanted to move closer. I didn’t. Then I did.
“Thanks for dinner,” I said after a moment of us staring without speaking. “It was delicious.”
He buffed his fingernails on his shirt. “Aw, it was nothing. Really.”
I reached for my wine and sipped it slowly. My head was buzzing, but unlike other times, when I’d sought oblivion, I wanted to savor the taste. Not get drunker.
We stared again in silence for what seemed like a long time. It became a game, like seeing who’d blink first. He put a hand on my shoulder, toying with the ends of my hair in a way that sent shivers creeping along the back of my neck.
“Elle.”
“Dan.” I liked the way his name tasted, like wine and garlic.
“I want to kiss you.”
Chewing my lower lip is a bad habit but one I can’t break myself of. Again, his eyes focused on my mouth. Self-conscious, I slid my tongue over the place I’d gnawed and forced myself to stop biting.
He moved closer, his hand moving closer to the slope of my neck. His thumb pressed against my pulse. He leaned in, moving with slow precision and concentration.
At the last second I turned my face. His kiss landed at the corner of my mouth, his breath hot on my skin and his lips soft. He didn’t pull away.
“No?”
I wanted to give a glib answer. More than that, I wanted to turn and let him kiss me on the mouth, to feel his tongue on mine, to open for him. I wanted so badly to open for him, but I simply…could not. I gave a minute shake of my head instead.
Dan kissed my jaw, then down toward my neck, and his lips found the place his thumb had caressed. My heart thumped harder when he kissed me there, and I imagined he must be able to feel the rush of my blood beneath his mouth.
The hand on my throat moved down to cup my breast. A sigh eased out of me, followed by a quick intake of breath when he passed a thumb over my nipple, already straining against the lace. He tweaked it through my clothes, then put his hand flat over it again. A hand over my heart and his mouth on the pulse in my throat, so in two places he could feel my blood rush through my veins.
His other hand slid up to curl around the back of my head, fingers threading through the hair at the base of my neck and tangling a little. Tugging a little. He sucked on my skin as his thumb traced another path over my nipple, and every muscle in my body thrummed under his touch. He pulled me closer as the hand on my breast moved down to inch up my skirt over my thighs, and he curled his fingers over my knee, caressing the skin with soft feather touches that made me jump.
“Ticklish?” He moved to breathe the question in my ear.
“A little.”
He slid his fingers higher, tracing little circles on my skin. “Now?”
I let out a small gasping giggle. “Yes.”
“Want me to stop?” A little higher, stroking.
“No.” A whisper.
Higher still, until his fingertips teased the lace of my panties. “Now?”
“No.”
When he finally touched me I moaned. He bit down on my neck as he put his finger inside me. His other hand pressed my back as I arched against him.
“Tell me what you want me to do to you, Elle. I want to hear you say it.”
Heat crept up my throat to burn my cheeks, and surely he must have felt it, but I gave him what he asked for. “I want you to touch me.”
“Where?”
“There. Where you are—”
He moved his hand against me. “There?”
I nodded and had to swallow hard to answer him. “Yes.”
“That feels good?”
He pulled back a little to look at my face. I blinked and faced him, acutely aware of our position, him with his finger inside me and all our clothes still on. He took his hand away, but slowly, so it didn’t feel like he was abandoning me but rather taking the time to take care of me.
“Do you always wear skirts?” He smoothed the hem up and down over my thigh.
I leaned back against the pillows, my hand still on his shoulder, his collar between my fingers and the side of his neck. “Not always. But usually.”
“I like that.” He smoothed the skirt higher, exposing my thigh. He rubbed my skin. “You don’t shave up here.”
I blinked. “I…no.”
Dan scooted down so fast I didn’t have time to react until he kissed my bare thigh, just above the knee. “How come?”
“The hair is blond, and it’s very fine. Shaving is more of a pain than it’s worth.” My answer was honest but difficult to give, as his mouth on my leg distracted me.
“I love it” came his answer as he ran his fingers up and down my leg.
I laughed, moving back a little away from him. His position made me nervous. “Do you?”
He nodded, looking boyish with tousled hair and that grin. He held my leg in his hands and ran his thumb over my knee. “What happened here?”
“I fell.”
He kissed the scar, and I frowned.
“Don’t, Dan.”
He looked up at me again. “Why not?”
“Because it’s ugly.”
“You think this scar is ugly?” He rubbed it lightly with the tip of his finger. “It’s not. It’s part of you.”
I shook my head. “It ruined my knee.”
“How’d you fall?”
“I was running, and I tripped. I landed in some gravel. It tore up my knee. Then, when it was healing, I ran into a coffee table and opened it up again.”
He wouldn’t let go of my leg. “How old were you?”
“Twelve.” I didn’t want to think about my scar.
He bent his head and again kissed the ragged, raised line. “It must have hurt.”
“It did.”
He kissed higher, on my kneecap, then just above, and then a little higher, nuzzling against the fine, downy hairs I didn’t shave. My breath caught, and I wanted to pull away. I watched him, his eyes closed as he kissed higher, working his way up to my inner thigh, pushing my skirt along ahead of him until my panties flashed white against the black of my skirt.
“Stop!” I put my hand on top of his head, and he paused, his mouth hovering over the mole nobody ever saw.
He looked up at me, then deliberately kissed it.
“Dan, I said stop.” I jerked away from him, though the pillows at the back of the couch made it difficult for me to get very far. I yanked my skirt down and pushed his hands away. Pushed him away.
He sat up, silent. He looked at me. I looked at him. My heart skipped, and I crossed my arms over my chest to keep my hands from trembling.
“What’s wrong?”
“I don’t…I don’t like that.”
“You don’t like me kissing your mole?” He tilted his head and reached out to tuck a strand of hair behind my ear.
“No.” I shook my head. “I’d rather you didn’t.”
“Because it’s ugly?”
That was not my reason, but I lied and agreed. “Yes.”
His eyes studied my face. His hand cupped my cheek before moving down to my shoulder. I waited for him to laugh at me or roll his eyes or scowl. To insist I do what he wanted. To press the issue. Men don’t like being told no.
He sat back and unbuttoned his shirt, took it off, tossed it to the chair next to the couch. I knew his body already. Knew its smell and taste and the smoothness of his skin. His chest was paler than his arms, but not by much, his shoulders freckled like his nose, but with darker spots. He didn’t have six-pack abs, though his stomach didn’t bulge. Curling hair a little darker than that on his head made a small vee in the center, surrounded the brown circles of his nipples, and made a trail down to his belly, where it
furred more thickly as it disappeared into his pants.
He bent his arm, showing me his elbow. “Soccer, ninth grade.” Set among the wrinkles of his elbow, the scar was almost invisible until he pointed it out. “Hit a rock when I took a dive to make a shot.”
He lifted his arm, turning slightly to show me his side, where a small dimple with some distinct lines stood out from the rest of his skin. “I had a mole removed. The intern who did it botched the cut. I had to get four stitches instead of two.”
He turned to show me his other side, pointing down close to the waistband. A darker freckle, larger than the others, shadowed his skin. “They told me to keep watch on this one, but so far, it’s been fine.”
“Why are you showing me this?” The display fascinated me, this step-by-step tour of his body’s flaws.
He tapped the base of his throat, where another scar seemed to suddenly appear, though it had been there all along, I had just not noticed. “Campfire accident. My brother and I were dueling with our marshmallow forks. He speared me.”
“Oh, God.” I winced at the thought and put an involuntary hand to my throat.
“Hurt like a son of a bitch. Little prick missed my jugular, thank God, or else I’d have bled to death.” He said it without rancor.
I sat up and touched the scar. “You were lucky.”
He closed his hand around my wrist and pressed my hand flat against his chest. “The way I see it, Elle, scars are proof we can survive.”
Beneath my palm, his heart thumped. Steady. Constant. Strong.
I looked into his eyes, then took my hand away. I unbuttoned my shirt and took it off the way he had. I reached behind me in the awkward, chicken-wing position into which women must contort themselves to unhook my bra, then coiled it on top of my shirt. Bared that way, I faced him.
Dan put his hands on my shoulders. His thumbs caressed the jut of my collarbone. His fingers curved to touch my back. His gaze traveled over me, inch by inch, and he lifted one hand to touch a mark just above my left breast.
“Curling iron,” I said. “I wasn’t paying attention.”
He brushed a fingertip along the slightly darker skin, then bent his head and kissed it. I took in a deep breath, but this time I didn’t pull away. He traced a finger down between my breasts to my belly, and pressed his palm flat on another scar.
“Appendix?” He asked.
I nodded. He smiled. Then he kissed that, too, his lips featherlight but not tickling.
Dan eased the elastic waist of my skirt over my hips, then off. He folded it as carefully as I would have and set it on top of my shirt and bra. He sat back and unbuckled his pants, and I helped him take them off, too. He pushed his boxer briefs down, and I slid out of my panties, my breath hiccupping a little, though we’d been naked together many times.
He pointed to a thin, white curving scar high up on his thigh, near the groin. “Thornbush.”
“Ouch.”
He grinned. “I was skinny-dipping in the neighbor’s pond, and he came out with a shotgun. I didn’t notice I’d left some of my skin behind until the next day.”
I touched it, and his cock, half-erect, stirred. “You weren’t skinny-dipping alone.”
“Nope. I was with the neighbor’s daughter.”
That made me laugh a little. “No wonder he came out with the shotgun.”
“Yeah. I got poison ivy, too. Not fun.”
I looked up at him. “On your—”
He nodded. “Yep.”
I grimaced. “Double ouch.”
“Tell me about it. Though I did come to appreciate the lubricating effects of calamine lotion.” He made a half-closed fist and pumped it back and forth a couple times.
I laughed again and shook my head. “I’ll bet.”
He pointed to another line on his shin. “Broke my leg riding my bike.”
“You’ve had it rough,” I murmured, with fondness. “Active little lad, were you?”
“Drove my mother crazy.” He put a hand on my thigh again, close to the mole on the pale inner flesh. “It’s shaped like a heart. Did you know?”
“I know.”
He rubbed my thigh lightly but didn’t bend to kiss it again. “Why don’t you like it? It’s pretty.”
I shook my head. “I just…I don’t like it. That’s all.”
He seemed to accept my answer. His eyes traveled over me again, cataloging the lumps and marks and lines that made my body unique. This time I didn’t pull away. I let him see it all, and I tried hard not to blush or shake when he found them, one by one. The proof I had survived.
He turned my right wrist upward. I have two creases there, one at the base of my hand. One a little lower. A bit beyond that, I have another line. A scar. A bracelet, I’ve heard some call it, like it’s an ornament. Something to show off. He touched it, then looked into my eyes.
“And this?”
“A mistake.” I didn’t pull my arm away, though I very badly wanted to. I wanted to cradle it against me, hide it. Actually, I wanted to forget it, but I never could.
“How old were you?”
“Eighteen.”
He nodded, as though my age made sense. He turned over the other wrist, which bears the same two creases but is unadorned by a scar. He used a fingertip to rub the unmarked skin.
“Only one?”
“I’m left-handed. And I changed my mind.”
He nodded again, then brought both my wrists together and lifted them to his mouth. He kissed them and once again I imagined how the rush of my blood must feel against his lips.
“I’m glad you did,” he whispered against my skin, then looked into my eyes.
So many times I have run when standing would have better served me. I can’t help it. Call it cowardice, or selfpreservation. Call it learned behavior. I call it habit. And like any habit, it can be broken.
“Are you?”
He nodded and drew me closer, until we were eye to eye. “Yes.”
I shivered, nipples peaking and gooseflesh raising on my arms. “It bled a lot. And it hurt. I didn’t think it would hurt so much.”
He didn’t ask me why, though I might have told him. Dan settled my arms around his neck and pulled me onto his lap, straddling him, our foreheads touching. His cock rose between us, captured between my pubic bone and his belly. My knees pressed the back of his leather couch, but it was soft and didn’t hurt.
“Everyone has scars, Elle.”
His mouth was very close to mine. I smelled wine on his breath and felt it against my lips. He did not move. He did not push. He did nothing but breathe and look into my eyes, our faces so close all I could see was the blue-green brilliance of his gaze.
And I kissed his mouth.
Birds did not sing, fireworks did not explode. No bells rang. I kissed him like I’d never kissed a man before, and in a way that was true because it had been so long. I kissed him because at that moment I could not imagine not kissing him. I kissed him as proof I could survive.
His mouth parted beneath mine and our tongues met. I put my hands to his face and slanted my head to open further for him, greedy for his mouth now, wanting to taste him and touch him with this intimacy, even though I shook as I did it.
He kissed me back, taking what I gave and giving what I needed. No questions. No demands. He let me lead the kiss, and when I pulled back, breathless, he didn’t ruin it with some smart comment. He only ran a hand over my hair and twirled his fingers in the ends.
Dan smiled at me with lips still moist from mine. I have seen clouds part for the sun. I have seen rainbows. I have seen flowers in the morning, covered in dew, and I have seen sunsets so brilliant with fire they made me want to weep.
And I have seen Dan smile at me, his lips still wet from my kiss, and if I had to choose which sight moved me the most I would say it was that one.
There seemed to be some words I should say. Something to mark the occasion. He saved me from it by leaning forward to kiss me again with firm confidence that gave me no time to shy away. His tongue stroked mine as his hand threaded through the back of my hair and brought him close.
We kissed a long time. Soft and hard, tiny feathering touches and deep soul kisses that sent shock waves of arousal through me. We kissed like we had nothing else to do, ever again. He breathed in, I breathed out, we shared air and spit and…trust. We shared trust.
His hands roamed my back, then down to grip my hips and press me against him. His penis throbbed between us. My clit rubbed against the base of it, and he rocked me, rubbing, and my arousal made both of us slippery.
His fingers dug into me, but I didn’t mind. We were moving together, our bellies a cocoon for his cock. My breasts scraped his chest. He put a hand flat on my back, holding him close, his hips thrusting upward and every movement urging another burst of pleasure from my clit.
The pleasure ebbed and flowed, the contact indirect enough to keep me pushing closer and closer against him and at the same time hard enough to reward me. He ground me onto his cock, my pussy slick and hot and wet with desire and my clit its own tiny erection. His fingers curled under my ass to add a small up and down motion that made me gasp into his mouth. We rocked together without friction, smooth, skin gliding on skin.
His tongue thrust inside my mouth the way I wanted his cock to fill me, and I moaned. He moaned, his hands hot on my skin, moving me, using my body as a tool for his own satisfaction, and it drove me wild to think that I could get him so hot without even putting him inside me.
He rocked me harder, and I shuddered. Just a little more. Just a little more. Just a little more, a little harder, a little faster, a little deeper.
He thrust against my stomach, fucking against me, each movement bringing me closer and closer to the edge. Sweat molded us together. My clit burned. My lips burned. My hips burned from where he clutched them.
He murmured my name into my mouth, then tilted his head back against the pillows. His eyes closed, his face contorted, his penis leaped and throbbed and his body shook.
So did mine. I came, watching him take his pleasure from my body. Bright sparks of pleasure rocketed through me. My thighs jerked. Heat flooded between us as he emptied himself against my skin. I could smell him, musk and sex mingled with my own fluids, and the scent made me groan as my body shook in climax.
He pulled me closer, his arms around me. He held me while our bodies quieted. Our breathing slowed. I tasted the skin of his neck and found it salty. My head fit perfectly on his shoulder.
I didn’t want to move. I didn’t want to look at him. I didn’t want to unglue us. It was too raw and new, this feeling of comfort. Too easily dissolved. I didn’t want to lose it. I didn’t want to chase it away.
We had to pull apart, of course, unstick ourselves from the aftermath of our passion. It was too physically uncomfortable to do otherwise. My thighs had cramped, something I hadn’t noticed when surging toward orgasm but was quite unable to ignore now.
Dan rubbed my back and helped me to extricate myself from his lap. I thought I’d be embarrassed, but he gave me no time to be. His belly and chest glistened with the evidence of our actions. So did mine.
“Want to shower?” His calm reaction to the aftermath allowed me to be calm, too.
Genuinely calm instead of merely blank; I noticed the difference but made no comment. I nodded and held out my hand for him. I helped him up, laughing at the way he hobbled upright, apparently as stiff as I felt.
He looked down at himself, then up at me. He linked my fingers through his. He tugged me closer, oblivious to the stickiness that had made me so squeamish.
The kiss he gave me was tender and almost hesitant, like he feared I’d pull away again. I didn’t. There could be no turning back now, I had crossed a line with him. Even I wasn’t so fucked up to pretend it hadn’t happened.
“Thank you,” he said.
A simple phrase, but one that made me flinch. I hid it well, or so I thought, because I knew he didn’t mean it the way it sounded. He couldn’t know what the words meant to me, how they made me feel, what they made me remember.
I thought I hid it well, but I didn’t realize how much he saw. He put a finger beneath my chin to make me meet his eyes.
“Elle, what?”
I shook my head. I didn’t want to talk, didn’t want words to ruin what we had done. I liked feeling close to him. I liked feeling that I could let him close to me. It made me feel normal. I didn’t want to ruin it.
“Shower,” I said, pushing past him and going through his bedroom to his bathroom.
I pushed aside the shower curtain and turned on the water. Hot. Steam began to fill the room, which was fine because it shielded the mirror so I couldn’t see my reflection, and I got in the shower before he could say anything.
Thank you. He didn’t know what that meant to me or why. It didn’t matter what he’d been thanking me for—the sex, the kiss, for helping him up from the couch. He’d meant to be polite. Considerate. I knew that. And yet I still turned my face into the too-hot spray and closed my eyes, the words echoing in my head but spoken in another’s voice. Someone who thought saying thank you after doing something wrong could make it all better.
He got in the shower behind me and reached around to adjust the water so it cooled enough not to sting. The shower was big enough to hold both of us but small enough to make it close quarters. When he moved, our bodies brushed. Elbow against belly, thigh against thigh, shoulder to breast.
“Turn around.”
I did, because he told me to, and because like so many other times, he knew what I wanted. Dan held up a blue washcloth and squirted shower gel into it, worked it to a creamy lather and turned me so I was out of the main part of the spray.
Then he washed me.
I know my mother did that for me in infancy and childhood, but I have no recollection of her doing it. I have suffered the touch of some and embraced it from others, but I’ve never had anyone bathe me. He started at my throat, eased the lathered cloth over my breasts, over my belly, my thighs, between my legs. He used soft, gentle motions, nothing rough, nothing hurried. He washed each arm, even each individual finger. He even knelt to wash my legs, lifting each foot to swipe it with the soap and rinsing them before he set them down so I wouldn’t slip.
Water splashed my face and stung my eyes when he knelt at my feet. It turned his sandy hair dark and parted it in odd places. It pounded against his freckled back, turning his skin pink with heat and spray.
“We all have scars, Elle,” Dan repeated as the water came down all around us, and then he stood aside to let it spray my body. Rinsing away the last of the soap.
Making me clean.