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Pop boots up the computer, already looking for what the news didn’t say. “Well,” he says, sighing, “Savannah Mesa was hell on wheels. In and out of county for possession, intent to sell. Parties, clubbing downtown, and before it closed, was a patient at Quiet Meadows.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Zarah
Isleep longer than I normally do, and I feel guilty about it. Zane works, Stella’s studying for finals before winter break, and I’m... in recovery? I hate saying that, and I hate hearing it from other people. “Oh, what do you do, dear?” “Nothing,” Zane will say. “My sister is in recovery.” Like I can’t possibly do anything else while my doctor is weaning me off drugs.
The problem is, I don’t know what I want to do. I could go to school, yes. Stella’s classes don’t pertain to anything right now—she’s still taking generals like history and sociology. I wouldn’t have to decide right away what I wanted to be when I grew up, but the idea of going to campus scares me and I can’t enroll in online classes. Unlike Stella when she worked for Ash, I wasn’t using a computer and learning new software during my years at Quiet Meadows. New laptops look foreign to me, so sleek and thin, and I’m sad because I vaguely remember putting together Zane’s party, remember how it felt to use my contacts, be in control.
I want that power back, but I wouldn’t know what to do with it once I had it. I need to start small—I’m not going to plan parties for five hundred people right away, but today if I go into the city, I can buy a laptop and poke around on my own. Log into my social media accounts, if I can figure out how to reset my usernames and passwords or create new ones. I haven’t checked my email in over six years. The provider probably purged my account.
Maybe Gage can help me.
I love him.
Stretching under the blankets, I turn that around in my mind, and I hide my face under the sheet. I know my cheeks are flaming, thinking about what he did to me last night, what Iwantedhim to do to me last night. So kind, gentle, giving me what I needed without taking. I opened myself up to him, exposed myself, risking everything, and he accepted me, helped me find pleasure in something that had caused me only pain for so long.
Thinking about Gage’s finger inside me makes me wet, and I touch my clit. I’d never had an orgasm before last night, the pleasure tearing through my body as Gage ravaged my mouth, his hard cock pressed into my hip. He knew how to touch me, how to twist his finger to heighten the sensation.
I wasn’t scared, and that’s a big deal. Gage is huge, in all the ways a man can be. He could rip Ash to shreds if he wanted, but his strength doesn’t frighten me. In fact, it does the opposite. When Gage holds me, I feel completely safe. Like he would protect me from anything,anyonewho wanted to hurt me.
Swirling my finger around the tight nub, the unfamiliar urgency grows inside my belly. A fireball of longing, of wishing Gage was the one touching me, licking me down there, urging me to come. I’ve never been eaten out before. None of the men Ash sold me to bothered to give me any sort of pleasure beforethey took. I wonder how Gage’s scruff would feel between my legs, against the insides of my thighs.
Gently, I pinch one of my nipples, and a slight zing of pain stills me. Gage said some people like a bit of pain when they have sex. I can understand why. My core clenches, increasing the burning between my legs, but I can’t tolerate much, if any. I have to stop associating pain with sex or I’ll never enjoy it. I’ll always fear it.
I’m going to come soon.
Tentatively, I push the tip of my finger into my vagina. I’m very wet. Besides washing up down there in the shower, I haven’t explored my body since I was a teenager. Ash’s jobs stole the pleasure from sex, and in Quiet Meadows, I was too drugged up to care. Over this past year, I’ve been concentrating on recovering emotionally, but Gage has brought my physical recovery to the forefront.
I can’t be scared to touch myself.
My labia are slippery and wet, and I’m swollen. I can feel it inside my body, the pressure. On a reproductive level, my body wants to make babies. I’m in the prime of my life for it, and whenever I look at Gage, my biological clock shrills the alarm. Stella said she would help me go on birth control and I should do that. I’m not ready to have children. I can’t take care of myself.
Drawing my knees up, I continue my exploration, and it feels wicked, dirty. I push the thought back. I won’t be dirty if I enjoy intimacy. Gage didn’t look at me last night like I was dirty. He was so excited he came in his jeans.
The other men came, too. They liked I was dirty. They reveled in my filth because they’re dirty, too.
No. They were the ones who made me dirty, wiped their dirt onto me. Therapy and the love of my family will cleanse me. I can’t recover for Gage. I have to recover for myself first.But Gage can help me, like Jerricka, and Stella, and Lucille and Ingrid. I can get better for myself with them by my side.
I slick my finger over my clit. There are dirty names for what’s between a woman’s legs. Cunt and pussy and snatch. Gash and slit. Making love has bad words too, like fucking and screwing. Nothing pretty, nothing that means a man and a woman are in love, nothing that means when a woman is giving her body to her lover that she’s giving him her heart. That’s what I’ll be doing when I make love to Gage—giving him my heart, my future, my forever, as I give him my body. I don’t know when I’ll be able to do that, but Gage will never do anything unless I’m ready. Unless I ask. Last night was proof of that. I led him on, and he could have forced me to have sex, claiming I offered it, but he didn’t and I trust him with all my heart.
Testing myself, I squeeze my breast again, this time liking the zip to my clit. I imagine Gage biting my nipple, little love nips as he fingers me. I’m close to coming, but I hold off another second, savoring the anticipation.
I can’t ask Gage for too much more without giving. I didn’t touch him last night, and I wonder if he noticed that. His cock was huge, pressed against my hip, and it terrifies me that if we have sex, I’ll have to fit it inside my body.
God, I sound so naïve. I doubt he’s tried to have sex with a woman who couldn’t accommodate him, and he’s not going to ram into me like the other men. He’ll be gentle and make it pleasurable for me too, no matter how much time I need.
I want to make him come. I want to hold his cock in my hand, glide my palm over his soft skin, watch him spurt as he orgasms. I’ve touched cocks before. I did do a little fooling around in high school, and Ash and I played a bit before he turned mean.
I never touched Max, though, and Gage will be the first man since Ash sold me.
I’ve given blowjobs when I haven’t wanted to, and a hand to the back of my head might always be a trigger, like the night in the gallery when Gage helped me fend off a panic attack. I’ll need to remember to use my words, tell him what bothers me, what can trigger me, and he’ll understand. He won’t know if I don’t tell him, and I’m in for some embarrassing conversations. If we can explore together, have some fun like Stella and Lucille said, maybe those conversations won’t be so horrifying.
I sigh and press the side of my face into my pillow.
I’m complicated. I hope he doesn’t get tired of it.
Of me.