2

The road to Tom’s cabin was rough. The dust swirled around my tires as I dodged one small pothole after another. I had found the gate hidden halfway down a utility road, like the one in front of Ronnie’s house. After I opened it I stood there under the trees for a moment, breathing deeply of the spring dusk, wondering how I had come this far in so little time. Less than twelve hours and I had been fucked by a man I hardly knew.

And now I was going back for more.

The trees began to clear out, and suddenly I was there, coasting to a stop in front of a quaint two-storey cabin. It was made the old-fashioned way, solid logs lined with chinking, carried out to the ends in the traditional pattern. The porch was wide and deep, and the roof of that porch was weathered tin. Under the shadows a swing waited, and in that swing was Tom.

I climbed out of my truck. The sound of the door closing was loud in the little clearing. I made my way up the three steps and met Tom at the top of them. I handed him a bottle of wine. He didn’t even look at the label. His eyes were on me and nowhere else.

‘Hi,’ I almost whispered.

‘Hello,’ he whispered back. ‘I’m Tom.’

‘I’m Kelley.’

‘Now that we’ve been properly introduced . . .’ he teased, and pulled me to him for a kiss.

My hands went around his neck and I melted into him. His body was already familiar to me. The strong lines of his shoulders and the firmness of his thighs felt like comfort, and the rhythm of his breathing felt like marking time, counting down the minutes until I would have him inside me again. If I had taken the time to really analyze what I was doing, I would wonder at the aphrodisiac of newness, at how good it felt to act so out of character.

Tom ended the kiss with a slow sucking on my bottom lip.

‘How do you feel about all this?’ he asked.

I laid my head on his shoulder and watched as a squirrel ran along the railing and picked up nuts that had obviously been left there by a deliberate hand. The squirrel chattered at me while he worried the nut around and around in his little hands. I blew him a kiss and the animal quirked his head at me.

‘I feel comfortable,’ I said, and it was the truth.

‘Steaks are on. Want to help me with the salad?’ he offered.

Tom’s home was just as charming on the inside as it was on the outside. The furniture had seen better days, and so had the hardwood floors. Quilts hung everywhere, and were even used as curtains. The fireplace was glowing with embers of an almost-forgotten fire. The ceiling fan whirled lazily above us, and on every end table there was a stack of books.

I picked up a few of them. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Jurassic Park. Hurricane, the story of Rueben Hurricane Carter. The collection of books was eclectic and interesting. I flipped through The Little Book of Love while Tom watched me from over the kitchen bar.

‘Read much?’

‘Every chance I get. I don’t have your book here, though. I have to get that.’

‘I’ll autograph it for you,’ I said. ‘I’ll make it very personal.’

‘Personal, huh?’ His eyes were bright with laughter. He tossed a tomato my way, and luckily I caught it before it knocked over the table lamp. ‘Get over here and get personal with this set of knives. I’m starving, you know. Somebody tried to wear me out earlier.’

I wandered into the kitchen. There were slate countertops, just like in Ronnie’s house. The kitchen table was big enough to seat eight, but right now it was set for only two. The obviously expensive china gleamed in the light from the tapered candles. Tom had buried the wine in a silver bucket full of crushed ice. The smell of steaks over charcoal drifted in from the open back-porch door.

I turned to chop tomatoes and lettuce. My mouth was watering. I had been hungry for him before I got here, but the good smells were making my belly rumble in want of food.

Tom kissed the side of my neck as I wielded the knife. I shook it at him with a stern expression. He ignored the warning and kissed my ear. When he reached my lips, the vegetables were forgotten. We spent a few enjoyable minutes there by the counter, until the smell of the steaks became too much for either of us to bear.

By the time he pulled the steaks and potatoes from the grill, the salad was ready. I placed the old wooden salad bowl in the center of the table. I watched him open the wine, his strong shoulders flexing under the cotton of his flannel shirt. I liked the fact that he didn’t try to dress up for me. He was comfortable, and that was exactly how I already knew I liked him best.

‘If I weren’t so hungry,’ he said as he poured the wine, ‘I would have taken you on the front porch. And the living room. And the kitchen table.’

‘That would be five times in one day. You sure you could do that?’

‘Nobody says I have to come every single time,’ he said, and the blatant way he said the words made me blush. After what we had done earlier and what was sure to come later, the fact that he could make me blush was incredible. He gave me a wicked smile as he settled beside me at the big kitchen table.

We ate from one another’s fork. We drank from one another’s wine. We fell into conversation on books, and debated the writing styles of biographers. He told me about the intricacies of hunting, and explained in detail how to choose a good bow. We discussed his stint in the military and his security job, but he never delved into too much detail. I asked him where he had been, and he simply shrugged and said, ‘Everywhere.’

I pushed the steak around on my plate, hungry as a bear but too filled with anticipation to really eat much of anything. Tom, on the other hand, cleaned his plate and started stealing bites from mine.

‘You really should eat,’ he said. ‘You’re going to need your strength.’

‘Feed me,’ I murmured.

‘I didn’t hear you.’ Tom gave me a look that said he had heard exactly what I said.

‘Feed me. Please.’

Tom pushed his chair back from the table. He sat looking at me for a long while, until I blushed and looked away. As soon as I did that, he reached out and touched my jaw, turning my face back towards him. I was forced to look right into his eyes.

‘We need to go to the basement,’ he said.

I nodded. I knew what was down there. I thought of Michael – his weight bench was in his basement, too. Down in the bottom of the house, where no one could hear the noise. I realized that I was out in the middle of nowhere with a man I hardly knew, and I had already asked him to do wicked things to my body, in a place where no one could hear me scream.

The thought should have given me pause. Instead, I stood up and slipped my hand into his.

‘Take me there.’

The basement was quiet, a tomb of steel and concrete under the earth. The lights were set into the ceiling and somehow muted. They cast shadows over the surprising array of equipment that filled the two large rooms. There were Nautilus systems and a Bowflex, just like the one I had seen on television during too many sleepless nights. There was a treadmill and a stair climber, both of them apparently professional machines. A variety of boxing bags hung in one corner. There was the weight bench, dwarfed by all the other things surrounding it. There was even a small hot tub in the corner of the back room. This was a space carved out by a man who took very good care of his body.

‘I was a quarterback in college,’ Tom said. I turned to look at him, but he didn’t meet my eyes. ‘We were playing ’Bama. The linebacker slammed me right under my knees. I heard the snap, and then I heard another one when I hit the ground. The first one was my knee, and the second one was my elbow.’ Tom shook his head as he looked around the room. ‘Glory days were officially over.’

‘So you have a gym packed with more equipment than most people even know exists . . .’

‘Yeah.’ Tom shrugged. ‘Old habits die hard.’ He stood with his hands in his pockets, suddenly small and shy beside the massive machines. He reached to adjust something on one of them, but we both knew it was only a way to find more emotional space.

‘Look at me,’ I demanded.

Tom met my eyes, but it took a supreme effort. The power between us had suddenly shifted, and we both felt the unsteadiness of it.

‘When we lose what matters, we have to find a way to reinvent ourselves,’ I said. ‘I think the way we remember while we do that is the true measure of what it meant to us. You remember well, Tom.’

‘I’ve lost so much,’ he said, and with those words I saw a new side of Tom.

I reached for his arm. He reluctantly came to me, his eyes downcast. I wrapped my arms around his shoulders and he returned the embrace with such force it became hard to breathe. He held me there for long minutes, and I didn’t dare try to move. Somehow I knew that moving away from him would be a mistake on many levels.

Finally Tom took a gentle handful of my hair. He pulled my head back and gently kissed my lips.

‘There’s your weight bench, sweetheart.’

I turned in his arms and looked at it. The bar on the top held several large weights. The bar on the bottom was definitely more than I could ever think of lifting. The thought that Tom worked with that much weight on a regular basis gave me a new respect for the bulging muscles under his shirt.

‘It’s bolted to the floor,’ I said in surprise.

‘It has to be. With the amount of weight I lift, the bench would shift after too many reps.’ He ran his fingers through my hair. ‘But don’t you worry,’ he whispered. ‘We might not move the bench across the floor, but you’re going to wish to God we could. Because I’m going to fuck you so hard, you will beg for any kind of mercy you can get.’

I shivered. My nipples were instantly hard. My mouth watered. I stared at the weight bench and deliberately pictured Michael, pictured the things he had told me, the memory that he loved so much.

‘I want you to tie me to it,’ I said.

‘Boy scouts are always prepared,’ he said, and turned me towards the stainless steel cabinet in the corner. What I thought held workout gear wasn’t used for that purpose at all. I gasped in shock when he opened the door.

Shackles. Floggers. Paddles. Blindfolds. Gags. There was a sampling of every sex toy imaginable. Leather and steel winked at me from the dimly lit corners. Some of it looked exciting, some of it curious – and some of it looked downright ominous.

I started to tremble, suddenly afraid for reasons I didn’t understand.

Tom held me tightly against his chest. Together we stared into the cabinet.

‘You still have the option of backing out,’ he said.

‘I never expected this.’

‘Why are you so surprised? Lots of people are into this. You are, aren’t you?’

‘Yes. But . . .’

‘But I’m not the kind of man you expect?’

I shook my head and reached out to touch a riding crop. It swung lightly on the hook. ‘I know you were rough on the picnic table earlier today, but you were careful, too. You didn’t strike me as the dominant type.’

‘I’m not in the conventional sense,’ he said. ‘I think there is something deeply satisfying about power play. I’m just learning, really. I’m a novice in every sense of the word.’

I stared at the toys, thinking that ‘novice’ was probably not the word I would have used.

‘There’s something we need to do first,’ he said. I nodded, still mesmerized by the array of toys and the wicked things we could do with them. Already my imagination was running rampant.

Tom gently turned me away from the cabinet and led me to the weight bench. Slowly he began to undress me, his hands reverent and careful. It was a heady contrast to the naughty things going through my head.

‘First,’ he whispered as he nibbled at my ear, ‘you need to do something for me.’

‘Anything.’

‘You need to make love to me.’

The word hung in the air between us, weighting it down, making it hard to breathe. My leggings slipped down to the floor. My shirt went down on top of them. The rest of my clothing fell away and I was naked in more ways than one. Instinct begged me to drop to my knees in front of him, but I held my ground, uncertain of what I should do.

‘You aren’t the only one exorcising old ghosts,’ he said softly.

I looked up at him, startled by the admission. The emotion in the room was becoming too much, too strong to deny any longer. Tears pricked at my eyes. I hadn’t expected this when I had come to his home. Never had I expected any of this when I woke up in my lonely bed this morning. It seemed the normalcy of my life was a million miles away.

But Tom was here, standing in front of me. Waiting.

I opened the buttons on his shirt, one slow inch at a time. Even in the dim light, his tan was dark and exciting against my pale hands. He let me slide the shirt down his arms. Next came the jeans. He was wearing nothing underneath them, and that made me smile. I removed the unassuming gold chain from around his neck. I ran my hands through his hair and messed it up. I ran my fingertips over every inch of his body that I could reach, until he was trembling even more than I was. Exactly what he needed was slowly dawning in the back of my mind.

‘I don’t know what she did to you,’ I said. ‘But I will do whatever I can to make it go away.’

Tom shuddered under my hand, and I knew my instincts were correct.

‘What are you afraid of right now?’ I asked.

‘I’m afraid that I won’t be all the things you want.’

The words cut through the tension. Once the admission was out in the open, it wasn’t as threatening. I kissed his ribcage, one rib at a time. I kissed his solid chest. His throat was covered with fine stubble, and I ran my tongue along it. I held him close, hiding my face against his body, giving him time to adjust to the newness between us.

‘Tom, honey – you already are.’

He lay down on the bench and looked up at me. His eyes were dark, shadowed by things that he wasn’t yet ready to tell me, and might never be able to say. I straddled him and settled the warmth of my pussy right over his cock. He was already hard and long. His hands rested lightly on the bar behind his head.

‘Tell me exactly what you want me to do to you,’ he said.

I slid back and forth on him. Within seconds he was slick with my own arousal. When I touched my hard nipples, he sighed in appreciation.

‘I want you to shackle me to this weight bench,’ I said. ‘I want you to use most of those toys in that cabinet over there. I want you to put clamps on these,’ I murmured, squeezing my nipples. ‘I want you to put a gag in my mouth, except for the times you are fucking my throat with that long cock of yours.’

Tom groaned and shifted under me. The head of his cock pressed hard against my pussy, and I slipped down, letting him glide into me. He filled me completely, and I closed my eyes at the sheer thrill of it. It hurt a little, but I chalked that up to the long period of celibacy before Tom came along.

‘I want you to spank my ass until my skin is red. I want to carry marks from your hands. I want to carry marks from your teeth. I want you to bite down on places where I can’t hide it. My throat, under my ear, maybe even all over my body. I want you to mark your territory.’

I began to move on him, and Tom’s hands weren’t relaxed now, but tense, holding on tight to the bar above his head while he watched me with those wicked brown eyes.

‘I want you to yank my hair and slam a toy into my pussy and call me names. Then I want you to fuck me. First with a toy, then with yourself. I want you to do it hard, and if I cry out I want you to gag me to make me shut up.’

Tom arched up into me. His powerful motion almost knocked me off. I slid my hands up his shoulders and braced myself there, letting him take my full weight. I began to fuck him with long deliberate strokes.

‘Then I want you to slip that toy into my ass. I want you to fuck my pussy while you do it. Fuck me so hard that you would move this weight bench across the floor, if it wasn’t bolted down.’

I slammed down hard and Tom groaned. One hand came off the bar and reached for me, but with a deep sigh he gripped the bar again. He was letting me do anything I wanted to do to him.

‘Then I want you to pull that toy out of my ass. I want you to put your own cock there,’ I said, and I felt him jerk inside me at the same time as he groaned deep in his chest. ‘I want you to fuck me so hard that it feels like my body will never be the same again. I want you to make me cry and make me beg and make me hurt for days and days and days.’

I ground down hard, and then suddenly sat straight up. Tom’s eyes flew open. He stared up at me with baited breath.

‘Then I want you to lay me down in your bed,’ I murmured. ‘And I want you to make love to me, so gently that it makes me cry.’

I began to rock slowly on him. Tom’s face was etched with pure pleasure. His hands came down off the bar and he touched me reverently, his hands working across every inch of my skin. He touched every mark, every scar, every freckle. He ran his fingertips around my nipples.

By the time his hands reached my jaw, my own eyes were closed. His hands closed gently around my throat. He held me lightly while I rode him with slow tempered passion. My whole body was nothing but tingling sensation. That tingle ran up from my toes to my fingertips to every other inch of me, and I opened my lips in a silent cry.

The possessiveness in his hands was the perfect counterpoint to the delicious melting of my body. I was making love to him in a way that I hadn’t made love to a man in years. There were no thoughts of anyone or anything else; the slate was wiped clean.

Tom’s hands tightened around my throat. There was no fear, no hesitation. After a moment he dropped his hands to my hips and sat up under me, pulling me tight against his chest, rocking his hips in rhythm with mine.

‘Come for me, come on me,’ he chanted in a mantra of pleasure.

I came with a low moan and a shudder. My whole body went limp in his arms. His teeth settled on my neck and he bit down hard, the flash of pain sliding down my back and right to the core between my legs. His groan was muffled in that bite as he came. His cock throbbed deep inside me. I was flooded with the wetness of it.

His bite became gentle, small licks that eased the tender skin. His hands tangled in my hair as he brought me up for a kiss. His tongue lingered in my mouth, sampling every corner of it.

‘Your mouth tastes different after you come,’ he whispered. ‘Isn’t that odd?’

I nodded, too tired to speak. His broad hands were spread across my back. I cuddled into him, burying my face in the hollow between his chin and his shoulder.

Tom held me until I started to doze against him. I woke up, startled, as he rose from the weight bench, carrying my weight like it was nothing.

‘What are you doing?’ I asked.

He didn’t answer. He gently placed me on my feet at the bottom of the basement stairs. With one hand on the small of my back, he pushed me ahead of him, turning lights off along the way.

‘But –’

‘Hush, little one.’

Tom led me up the two short staircases, and we wound up in the second-floor loft. Bookcases lined every wall. Photographs in sturdy frames mingled with the books. A battered football helmet sat in a glass case. The bedside lamp was on and the quilt was turned down to reveal soft cotton sheets. He gently nudged me towards it. As I crawled into the warm cave, I felt a drop of his wetness slide down my thigh.

‘Tom –’ I started to say, but he didn’t allow me to speak. His lips stole the words as he kissed me.

‘We’re both too tired,’ he said. ‘We’ve had a long day. And there’s no rush, Kelley. I’m not going anywhere and neither are you. Tomorrow I will give you all that you want. Tonight I want to sleep with you.’

Tom curled up beside me. He pulled me back against his chest and immediately my body was heavy with the need for sleep. With one hand firmly against my belly and the other wrapped around my shoulders, Tom kissed the back of my neck and settled in with a long sigh.

Long after his breathing was even and steady, he held onto me with surprising strength. The lights from the nearby dock cast an eerie glow over the windows. When the rain started I could hear it on the tin roof over the porch, a reassuring sound that seemed exactly like something that would appeal to Tom. The rain poured down and I watched the drops chase each other down the glass. Tom shifted once, pushing his knee between mine, and I let my leg drape over his. His breathing never changed.

I thought about Michael.

It had been six months since Michael and I had last made love. I remembered the confusion when I suddenly realized we hadn’t had sex in a week, then the growing apprehension when a week turned into a month. The teasing and the innuendo, always so ripe and heavy between us, had simply stopped. No matter what I tried, nothing seemed to spark his interest in me. During those long months I wondered what I had done wrong. What had I done to deserve the loss of his affections?

The uncertainty of that time had scarred me in ways that I was just beginning to understand. I didn’t know until months later that the real reason for his withdrawal was the love he felt for someone else. The pain of knowing that he was intimate with me while he wanted someone else was something I still didn’t know how to deal with.

‘Why didn’t you just tell me in the beginning?’ I whispered to the raindrops that rolled down the windowpane. ‘Why did you make me wonder for so long?’

There would be no answer from the rain, just as there was never an answer from Michael. He dodged all of my questions and never once gave me a straight answer. It was a maddening thing, especially after all the months of stony silence whenever I brought up the subject of sex. Why was it impossible for a man to simply tell me the truth?

I wondered where he was right then, if he had called my number, and if he had been worried when I didn’t answer the phone. Would he ever imagine I was lying in another man’s bed, feeling the ache left by another man’s body?

Tom cuddled into me, pulling me closer. I thought about the difference between want and need, and the undeniable momentum when they became one and the same. I wasn’t in love with Tom, but I was definitely in lust with the man. And if I could want someone other than Michael, then maybe one day I could love someone other than Michael, too.

Tom’s breath was warm against my neck. I found the hand that was wrapped around my belly. I linked my fingers with his. Even while sound asleep, he squeezed back. It was the last thought on my mind as I drifted off to sleep.