Terian showed up right on time that night, bearing a dozen yellow long-stemmed roses. Again, we went to an early breakfast at the diner and then to my place. Being with him was just as good this night as before. But there was one surprise.
“Tell me if you want me to...um...touch you in...um...if you like...if you want me to do anything other than I’m doing, Sun,” he said awkwardly. “I’m not very experienced.”
“It’s not like you’re a virgin,” I teased laughingly.
Terian went crimson.
I knew what that meant, and my mouth fell open. “You’re telling me that you—?”
“Yes,” Terian choked out, turning redder. “Last night, okay?”
I’d never even met a man who was a virgin before, much less been with one. Last night I’d taken his virginity. God, he had to be in his twenties, if not thirties! What had taken him so long?
Terian was clearly uncomfortable, so I didn’t ask what I was dying to know. Instead, I touched his shoulder softly. “Don’t worry about it. You were great so far, and that’s all I need for now, okay?”
“Okay,” he said with relief, and hugged me.
* * * *
A week passed like water, then two. We ate, fucked, and spent time together. And late one night, he just stayed. I can’t remember which of us suggested it. It wasn’t a problem for me; it saved us having to worry about making plans for the next night.
But after a month of living together, Terian told me that he wanted me to quit stripping. I hit the roof. “I was a stripper when you met me.”
“Sun, I know that. I just think that you should quit, because you don't have to—”
“Why don't I have to?”
“I’ll support you,” he said stoically, taking me in his arms. “I’m happy living here, with you. I’d like—”
“I like to strip,” I said in a low, flat tone. “I like the money, and I’m not giving it up.”
“Would you feel the same way if you were my wife?”
Nervous butterflies swarmed suddenly in my stomach and chest. It was loud and clear that Terian was thinking of marriage already. It was also clear that he thought that I was going to be June Cleaver to his Ward Cleaver once he popped the question.
No. Fucking. Way. “I’m not cut out to be anybody’s wife,” I said with a sneer. “I don’t want to quit.”
“Don’t you care about me?” he asked in a small tentative voice.
For some reason, that made me so fucking furious I lost it, the bitter lie forming on my lips to spill out before I could stop it. “What we have is just sex to me, like I’ve had with dozens of men.”
Terian gave me an unbelieving hurt look. Then, without a word, he gathered up his things and left.
I cried that night like I hadn’t in some years. But I told myself it was better this way, as he would have hurt me if we went on much longer. Hurting him first was the best thing to do.
* * * *
I didn’t hear from Terian for some months. I did my job, slept with a few losers I regretted as soon as I’d seen them naked, and soon it was Christmas. As usual, I sent my father the requisite card, and I sent my mother flowers to her burial plot.
My tale of childhood woe I’d told to Terian had been true, from a point of view. My mother had committed suicide when she found my father cheating on her with a sixteen-year-old girl. That the girl was her foster daughter was too much for her. So she took an overdose of Valium, went to sleep, and never woke up.
I was two at the time.
My father raised me, if you counted the endless nights of me watching TV and eating dinners I microwaved myself while he fucked a stream of women in the trailer’s one bedroom.
When he wasn’t balling some babe, he was working: driving trucks, hauling furniture, fixtures, and God knew what to who knew where.
Given that description of his character, it might seem unbelievable that so many women wanted his company, that they gave him money or would consent to watch his brat—me—while he was off driving for days on end. The easy answer was that my father was incredibly handsome. He had dark brown hair with a slight curl that he wore long, and rich blue eyes like cobalt that seemed perpetually knowing. Even though he drank beer, and ate only fast food, through some trick of genes his body was lean, and powerfully built. But the most captivating thing about him was his charm. God, he was charming. I knew that he was shallow as a rock, and just as caring, but he faked emotions so well that it was hard not to believe he meant every word he said. Hell, he was so good at it, women looked for a reason, any reason to believe what he said, and when there was no logic to follow in his given argument, they usually made something up.
I was not immune. Over and over I believed him when he said he’d changed and seen the error of his ways, and repeatedly I was hurt when he went right back to his old habits within the space of a few days. It took me the better part of fourteen years with him to wise up. When I did, I left.
That was when I started dancing. I’d watched enough of my father’s stripper-friends as they practiced their routines to know how to move, and gotten tips from a few of the more friendly ones. Wanting at least a few states between us so he wouldn’t accidentally find me some night, I’d moved out here to New York, trading the desert for forest, and never looked back.
* * * *
One night in March, I looked out in the crowd and saw Terian was there, watching me dance. When my set was over, my boss told me to get my ass over to him, because he’d paid for me for private dances for the next hour solid.
I pasted a smile on my face and nodded, because I knew to refuse was to get fired. Then I went over to Terian, and began to dance. I expected...well, I don’t know what I expected. Maybe for him to have brought me some roses, or for him to offer to take me out for breakfast. Instead, he just watched me dance.
Not to make it seem he was distant or uninterested. All his focus was on me. When I sat down on his lap, his hard erection bulged through his jeans against my bare thighs. Yet he made no move to touch me. When I was done and the hour was up, he leaned in close and whispered, “Want me to meet you outside after you get off work?”
“For what?” I replied, half-interested, half-cautious.
“For breakfast and sex, baby,” he said bluntly, then grinned.
His shyness was gone, his expression and tone direct and calm. “Got some more notches on your belt?” I teased, smiling to soften the cutting edge of my remark.
“A couple,” he said, grinning again in a way I found very sexy and yet boyishly innocent. “But they weren’t like you, Sun.”
I only had to hear him say my name like that, and I knew my answer was going to be yes.
* * * *
I got off early at six thirty by trading shifts on Monday with a friend. Terian and I got a quick breakfast, but the both of us weren’t thinking about food, even as we ate. We raced to my apartment in record time.
Terian and I were all over each other, which made undoing my simple door lock a formidable task. Finally, I got it open, and we fell through the doorway, landing on the floor as we grappled with each other’s clothes. We somehow made it to the bedroom, but not to the bed.
I unzipped his pants, and took out his erection, stroking him with my hand. Terian let out a growl of need, and pushed me back to the floor. He slipped on a condom from the drawer above my head, and with a thrust of his hips, he was inside me. I let out a sigh of pleasure.
Terian chuckled low and kissed my throat. “Did you miss me, Sun?”
“Duh,” I said sarcastically, and kissed him hard, reaching around to caress his firm, bare ass.
Terian’s phone rang suddenly, then repeatedly. He made no move to answer it, his hips pumping on mine, as we groaned together. Just as we came, the phone stopped, our shared cries loud in the sudden silence. As we lay there still joined, trying to catch our breaths, it began ringing again.
Grumbling, Terian pulled out of me and rolled onto his back, reaching into his discarded pants for his phone. “Yes?”
Terian’s mouth suddenly dropped open. “Theo? I only gave one person this number! Why are you calling—?”
Terian cut off abruptly, then rubbed his eyes, his muscles tensing. Fury came off him, mixed with despair. “It was you,” he said quietly. “Damn you, it was you she dreamed with.”
He sat up, and hurriedly pulled on his jeans, using his head and shoulder to hold the phone. “Meet me at Alan’s Creek” he said quickly. “I can make it there in fifteen minutes! Shut up, and meet me there!”
Terian hung up, slid on his shirt, and then hugged me tightly. “I have to go,” he said, his eyes scared. “I’ll be back in two hours or so. Stay here, Sun. I’ll explain when I get back.”
He raced out the door, as I was still trying to figure out what the hell had just happened.
* * * *
I worried about Terian all night, but a few drinks helped me relax, at least to the point I didn’t pace. About one a.m., he returned with blood on his clothes.
“What happened?” I asked warily, pointedly looking at the bloodstains.
“Don’t worry, it’s not mine,” he said tiredly. “Can I use your shower?”
“Sure,” I assented.
Terian was in there a long time, at least an hour. I wondered how he could stand it, as given the tiny hot water heater this apartment had, the water had to be ice cold. Oddly, it didn’t seem to bother him.
When Terian came out toweling his hair, he was clean, his expression resigned. “I have some things to tell you, Sun, and some questions for you. But I want to answer the questions you must have for me first.” He put down the towel. “About what happened, if you want to know, that is.”
Fuck yes. “Whose blood was that?”
“Some bad guys were holding a friend of mine against her will. They were going to kill her. Her boyfriend was the one who called. I helped him get her free.” He paused. “The blood was from some guards we had to kill, Sun.”
That warning light came on again in my brain. “You killed people tonight?”
“They were going to kill me and Theo.”
“Why not call the police? And who is Theo? You sound like you don’t like him. There is resentment in your voice.”
“The police wouldn’t have helped, Sun. These people...they operate outside the law. The police are in their pocket, and they’re utterly ruthless. They have connections to the highest state levels, some federal officers—”
“Enough with the conspiracy theories, Terian. Why did you risk your life?”
“The woman who was being held saved my life a few months ago. She risked herself for me back then and got hurt for it.” He paused. “I owed her.”
There was a lot more emotion in his tone than mere obligation called for. “Who was holding her? How did they get her in the first place?”
“A guy named Devlin Dalcon grabbed her at her home when Theo wasn’t there. Sarelle shot some of his men, but they overpowered her and took her to Devlin’s brother, Danial—”
Sarelle was the woman’s name, the one he’s carrying a torch for. “Why take her there?”
“Danial and she were...married before. Devlin wanted her for himself. He wanted to run it by Danial first, I guess.”
He’s stumbling over words and pausing a lot. I concluded Terian was leaving out much of the truth. “Why would a crazy guy willing to do a home invasion with armed guards care about checking with his brother for “ex” permission?”
“Danial told him to do what he wanted with her, since she’d left him.”
This was beyond illogical; this was crazy. “No man has that kind of power over his wife, much less an ex.”
Terian nodded in agreement. “It didn’t last even a week. Danial’s too much of a possessive bastard. He hit her.”
Anger focused my thoughts, remembering times I’d been hit myself by people who professed to love me. “Bastard. Did you smack him around a little, I hope?”
“Yeah. They won’t be bothering her again.” He flashed me a proud smile.
I didn’t reply. I had too much on my mind and it had nothing to do with what he’d just said. Every time Terian mentioned Sarelle, it was obvious that he still had feelings for her. While it hadn’t mattered when she’d merely been a woman he liked a few months ago, it was bracingly upsetting to know he still felt the same way now. Worse, he’d run off with barely two words to me, to risk his life to rescue her.
“Do you mind if I stay here with you?” he asked awkwardly, coming closer to hug me. “I’d like to be like we were, back before I left,” He took a deep breath. “I won’t pressure you for anything more, Sun.”
Leave off discussing Sarelle for now. Don’t ruin this. “Okay,” I said, squeezing him in my arms.