Текст книги "Thick Love"

Автор книги: Eden Butler

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Текущая страница: 14 (всего у книги 24 страниц)

I turned, shuffling to stand in front of the sofa and extended my hand to him. “Dance with me,” I said. He only stared up at me blankly.

“I don’t feel like practicing.”

“I’m not asking you to practice. I’m asking you to dance.”

Ransom’s body stiffened when I picked up his hand, but he didn’t fight me. “Just be here with me. Me and you and the music.”

We came together in the center of my living room with that slow, soothing music wrapping around us. There was no Kizomba, no prequel to a seduction we both wanted to avoid. There was just Ransom bending low, arms around me, hand taking mine to hold against his chest. After a few seconds, the tension lessened, and his body did not feel as rigid. It felt peaceful, and safe, and simple—just two people, holding each other, swaying to the music.

His mouth hovered near my forehead and as we moved together with no form or practiced steps, Ransom’s grip on my waist got tighter. “I wish I could breathe again. I want that so bad.” The words were whispered, low.

I closed my eyes, reminding myself that I couldn’t touch him.

“Ransom. You can.”

He looked down at me and right then I saw just how lost he was. This realization didn’t come from flippant comments he made to me or desperate excuses I overheard him make. It was all there right in his eyes—the loneliness, the pain, as though each mistake he’d made was etched into the rise of his cheekbones and the worried, faint lines on his forehead. He was still drifting; he had been drifting for so damn long.

The pain in his eyes drew me in. There was nothing I could say that would make his hurt lessen. There was nothing that would take him from the lingering sorrow he’d created for himself. So I didn’t speak, didn’t give him advice I knew he’d never take. I just watched Ransom’s eyes, and felt the slow way he moved. And then with my hand on the back of his neck, I pulled his face towards me, I took his lips, kissing him, pouring into that kiss everything I’d held back from him since we first met.

This is who I am. This is what I want. That voice came from someplace hidden and secret inside me.

It was minutes, minutes of nothing but my mouth on his, nothing but two people finding solace in each other, before I realized I’d messed up.

He didn’t seem to want me to pull away, but didn’t stop me when I did. Shaking my head, I smoothed the collar on his shirt, unable to look at him. “I’m…modi, Ransom, I’m sorry.”

Ransom pulled my chin up and smoothed his thumb over my cheek, down the slope of my chin before he returned his attention to my eyes. “I don’t think I am.”

It was a moment I thought I’d always wanted. Him looking at me like I was real, like he saw me, finally saw me. I’d seen that look once before, just as Ransom whispered my name and kissed me over and over the first time. It wasn’t the look of someone hopeless. It was open and raw and I realized right then that I’d give anything for Ransom to never stop looking at me.

But this was against our rules. This wasn’t how we were supposed to be. I took his hand, thought of pulling it away from my face but didn’t have the strength, liked how it felt on my face too much. “Friends don’t kiss, Ransom.”

A small nod, and his eyes narrowed. His grip around me tightened. The music around us swelled. “No, they don’t,” he said, still touching my face, inching closer and I knew, right then, he was definitely not my friend.

15

Everything felt wrong. I knew that the moment I stepped inside Summerland’s and Ironside ushered me into the dressing room. He didn’t threaten me, but there was a hint of warning in his voice. He wanted me to make Ransom happy.

“Give him a good show,” he’d said.

But that orto had no idea what it would take to make Ransom happy. Ironside didn’t know that Ransom was stuck in perpetual numbness and not even me dancing for him, hidden again behind that tight blonde wig and the large fanned mask, would pull him from it. What I didn’t say to the bata as he watched his girls disguising me with thick makeup and long fake lashes, was that I wanted Ransom happy. It’s all I wanted. I wanted him to smile, to laugh and mean it. I wanted to take that shade from his eyes. I wanted him to kiss me and not feel guilty for doing it.

Ransom wanted the dancer. Ironside had said as much to me as I stood behind a thick bamboo screen and slid into the corset. “He badgered me for weeks about you.” But it wasn’t me, was it? It was the dancer rubbing against him, the one Ransom probably thought couldn’t get inside his head. The one he didn’t have to look at in the daylight. The one he could sex up and then walk away from.

I had been told my entire life to sacrifice what I wanted for everyone else. It was expected. It was something that I thought was normal, that I believed was just the way of things—that women submitted, and were glad to for the men that took care of them. But my father hadn’t taken care of me because I reminded him of what he’d lost. So I stopped believing that submission was what all good women did. If that’s what they did, then I never wanted to be a good woman.

But I would be. For Ransom. As stupid as it sounded in my head, he was the only person who’d deserved my sacrifice. That was a one-sided, unbelievable decision that I hoped he never discovered. I would dance for him if it meant he’d find a release. If it meant he could step away from the punishment he subjected himself to, and smile a real, honest smile, just once.

“You set?” Ironside asked, leaning against the door.

I managed a final glance in the mirror, shaking my head at the long, fake curls on the wig and the deep red lipstick. It was all smoke and mirrors, meant to hide me from Ransom. Meant to give him the illusion of seduction that he could feel blindly, without any thought. It was an art form expertly executed, but I still hated it, hated why it was necessary.

The auditorium was packed as I walked through it, avoiding the crowd brimming with happy football fans still reeling from CPU’s win. The smoke was thick, the laughter like a buzz in my head that echoed. My heart raced, pounded hard as I moved around the crowd, catching no one’s gaze but the woman overhead, swinging from the rafters like a half-drunk green fairy.

No one stopped me as I walked backstage toward the private room and only the faint, quiet buzz of that crowd greeted me behind that curtain. This was the moment Ransom had craved, the same moment I dreaded. He would touch the dancer, not me. That anonymous face would greet him because it’s what he wanted. And as I twisted the silks around my arms, it was Ransom’s desire I thought about. That and the small hope that this hidden dance would heal him, if only for a little while.

The deep, electric vibration of a bass guitar, those slow, seductive moans of a sultry alto voice and I closed my eyes, tried to push away the thought of Ransom as I’d known him for over a month. I didn’t want to think about how wide his smile became when his little brother jumped on his back and weaved his arms around Ransom’s neck, refusing to let go, or how he’d stare after his parents like they amazed him. They had real love. And I guessed, as I took a breath, waited for the curtain to rise, that this small thing I did for Ransom was something like love too.

Maybe it was the thing I’d told him I never wanted starting to brim and grow inside me. Maybe I did love him. Just a little.

Ransom sat in that plush wingback, slouching like he had no energy left. He let his legs splay open, was relaxed and held his loose fist against his mouth. But his eyes were eager, hungry as I spun around on the silks. I caught the bright, anxious light in them and how steadily they followed me as I flew over that small stage.

Tonight, Ironside wouldn’t watch, I was going to make sure of that: as the beat continued, more of The Weeknd’s “Same Old Song,” I glided to the front of the stage and let the silks fall behind me. That fabric whispered over my skin and I moved, offering Ransom one glance, to the bar console and pulled off the tablecloth spread out there, walked to the small window next to the door and fitted the cloth around the molding, never once glancing at Ironside standing on the other side.

Ransom had turned to watch me as I ensured our privacy, and now that eager light in his eyes shone brighter as I moved back to the stage, to stand in front of him. That gaze didn’t dull. He expected me to take control, likely wanted me to and so I took up my position again in front of him, swaying, letting that music move me, hoping that he enjoyed the small show.

“Thank you,” he said, nodding toward the window.

That voice was low, deep and as he spoke, Ransom’s gaze caught on my subtle dance, moved with each slow grind of my hips. He was distracted, lifted his eyebrows toward me as his eyes focused on my body and with one deep dip that brought me closer toward him. Ransom’s eyes slipped up and over my body, then finally came back up to my face.

My heart raced when he licked his lips, when he rested one hand on my hip and slumped back like he needed something he couldn’t voice. “Come closer.” His voice was off, deeper than normal. “Please,” he said when I didn’t move. “I need you closer.”

I blinked, inhaled, trying hard to remember the deflection I desperately needed to keep my mind from flashing to the memory of his kiss or how Ransom was when I was Aly and he didn’t expect me to perform for him. This wasn’t how I wanted things to be with him. This wasn’t how anything should be for me at all.

But Ransom had a way of making even a request sound sweet and he pulled me toward him with the stretch of his hand and the downward cast of his dark eyes. That look had me moving, drawn to him because I cared. Drawn to him because he was all I wanted.

He took my hand and I straddled his wide legs, fitting against him as I had the first time. But the music did not lull me now, it didn’t move me like it had before and this time Ransom’s voice wasn’t calming me, telling me how it would be okay, to pretend that we wanted each other because Ironside watched. This time, he wanted me. Or rather, he wanted the anonymous dancer.

“You’re beautiful,” he said, sliding his hands over my hips to rest on my lower back. “So fucking beautiful.”

In the back of my mind he wasn’t speaking to the dancer. There was no war paint hiding my skin, no wig protecting who I was from this man. I heard Ransom whispering to me, Aly, like he meant it, like he knew who I was and still thought I was beautiful. But it was a dream, a lie I chose to believe because I wanted him. This wasn’t real, and even though I desperately wanted it to be otherwise, the way he touched me, his deep focus on me, didn’t give me nearly the same pleasure it had before.

So I pretended again because he needed me to. I willfully forgot everything else and inhaled, steeling myself to simply perform, letting the music take me away from that small, private room and the man who believed I was someone else.

The song lowered, slipped into another track and I steadied myself on the back of the chair, keeping my eyes shut tight as I came to my knees and worked a smaller, more intimate dance over his body. My hips rolled and popped, rubbing against him, and I got a little lost then, slowing my movements when the melody crawled, when that breathy background music slipped across my skin.

Ransom’s fingers stayed steady on my hips, but he didn’t guide me, didn’t seem able to do anything but follow my body, maybe needing that touch to keep him centered. I turned my head, still lost in that music, but glanced at his knuckles, and the small scratches across his skin reminded me of the day before when he’d been tortured by the roses and the reminder of Emily’s birthday. In the guise of the dancer, I reached out and pulled his hand to my lips, kissing each mark, hoping that somehow it might help to heal him, might let him know this was more than just a performance.

But it was foolish to think that this simple, gentle gesture would be able to break the spell of the powerful eroticism of the dance; Ransom’s breath came out not in a sigh of relief or pleasure, but in a lustful grunt, and he moved his fingers away from my mouth, to grip my hips again, tight.

“I love when you touch me,” he said, voice a little loud with the hint of restlessness in his tone. “Don’t stop.”

It was like taunting a starving lion with the freshest cut of bloody meat. A little groan moved in the back of my throat and I slid my fingers in his hair, closing my eyes and he pulled me close, his mouth came to my chest, hands gripping on my waist. And the faster I moved my hips, trying to keep up the pretense that I did this all the time, the harder he touched me, like he was needy, like only my skin would cool his burning fingers.

“God, I need this. I fucking need this so much,” he said, running his tongue beneath my collarbone, dipping his nose in my cleavage. “This is, okay. This is…this is fine.”

He sounded like he was trying to convince himself that touching me, having my body under his hands wasn’t wrong. Like he needed to convince himself that he was not broken. “Just…just you…only you touch me,” he said, fingernails smoothing down my back. “She…she won’t be mad.”

I stopped moving. The sensation of his large hands on me, his breath dampening against my skin felt cold. Ransom looked up at me, likely wondering why I’d pulled away and I saw the same desperation in his eyes that had been there when he’d left his car and all those red roses behind him. He wasn’t with me. He wasn’t with the dancer. I was a body to hold on to while his mind warred and debated with the memory of Emily and the guilt her loss had created.

He blinked twice and kept his hands on my waist as though he wanted me to speak, like it had to be me who gave him permission to keep touching me. But I couldn’t. Not another second. This broke me, completely—Ransom being so lost, so blind to what was right in front of him, to the happiness I could give him because he’d never let go of his guilt. It would always be there. So would Emily, and the realization toppled me hard, so that I felt the foreign burn in my eyes, tears that never came from me, stinging behind my lashes.

I stood, awkwardly scooted away from him, but he didn’t let go of my waist. “I can’t do this.” He let me pull his hand free, but still sat up, coming closer as I stepped back. “Not with you.”

“Why?” Ransom, said, reaching for me. “What’s wrong with me? Didn’t you like the way I touched you the first time?”

It had been all I’d thought of for days afterward. Ransom touching me deep, making me feel something besides worry and exhaustion; modi, why not just say it? Making me come, and come hard. God, I’d loved it. But this? Right now? No, I couldn’t do it. I wouldn’t. Not when I knew, to him, I wouldn’t ever be anything but a replacement.

His expression was worried, eyes squinted as though he didn’t understand why I stood away from him, why I wouldn’t let him touch me. I knew the second I explained myself that this would be over. The same kind of moment I had when I decided to leave my father’s home and never looked back. Hard, but necessary. I was good at taking care of myself. I had to be and though it would kill me, it would break me in so many ways, I could not be around him if he could never fully be with me. I could not be constantly reminded what I could have given him, if he’d only have let me.

I’d tell him the truth and break my own heart in the process.

“Ransom,” I started, leaning toward him so he had to rest back. I took a second to look over his face, wanting to remember how dark his eyes were, how those faint freckles on his cheek were shaped in a triangle. He let me touch him then, and the pain throbbed deep, knowing he’d wouldn’t resist the dancer’s fingers against his bottom lip, but would have never let me do the same thing. “I’ve always liked everything you do to me.”

His confusion was evident in the way he frowned, how those black eyes widened when I reached for my mask and peeled it away from my face, then reached back and pulled the wig from off my head, loosening my bound up hair and letting it fall around my shoulders and down my back. With nothing to hide me from him, Ransom’s confusion slipped to slow realization.

“I don’t…what… Aly…it’s…. Aly?”

I didn’t bother with an explanation. He wouldn’t hear it anyway.

I shrank two steps back, moving out of his way as he stood, clutching the mask and waiting for his temper to explode.

“Aly? I…I don’t understand…”

I could have said a hundred things just then. I could have told him how often I’d watched him when he wasn’t looking. I could have explained that I’d spent so many nights thinking about him, devising ways to slip past him in the hall just to catch a whiff of his cologne or hear his laughter when Tristian made a joke. I could have reminded him that it was me he kissed that night in the studio, that it was me he couldn’t stop kissing that day in his car. But none of that would matter. It wouldn’t take away this betrayal. And that’s what it was to him. I saw that in his expression and the shadow of disappointment that covered his face.

He stared at me, his top lip quivering as though he couldn’t control the anger. I expected him to shout at me, to insult me with more than just this hard glare. I didn’t expect his voice to be quiet or his question to be so simple.

“Why?” he said, his hands dropping to his sides.

What could I say? This time, it wasn’t about the money. But that wouldn’t matter anyway. The why was pointless. Instead, I settled on the truth.

“I wanted to help you forget.” I looked at him then, not caring that there were tears in my eyes. “Just for a moment, I wanted you to forget.”

Ransom was imposing all the time, but just then, with his frown hardening and his jaw tight, he was damn scary. I knew he’d never hurt me. Not physically. Ransom wasn’t the abusive, simple kind of guy. I just didn’t think he could wound with a look or tear me to pieces with a head shake.

I didn’t expect that he’d destroy me just by walking through the door.

But, he did.

16

I should have busted Irosnside’s lip. No one fucks with my head like that and expects me not to react. I may have learned how to calm my temper over the years, but that didn’t mean that I was always in control of myself, not when someone gets in my face. Not when that same someone manipulates me.

And Aly.

Shit.

I’d left that damn room and her lying ass only to run right into that bastard grinning at me like he had leverage.

“You wanna talk favors now?” he’d asked and I didn’t bother to answer him. At least, not until he started in with the threats. “Ransom, I’m sure the media would be interested in you getting a lap dance, especially if I have video.”

The hallway was quieter than the main club and I stopped my retreat out of that God-forsaken place the second that motherfucker finished his threat. He wanted a reaction and I gave it to him.

I’m big so most people expect me to be slow. I’m not, and when I turned and got right in Ironside’s face, it wasn’t the grip I had around his neck that had that jackass’s eyes round and scared. It was how quickly I’d managed to get his feet off the floor and his back up against the wall.

“You fuck with me about this girl and now you threaten me?” I shook him once and that asshole’s head smacked against the wall. “You think I give a fuck about some tape of me getting a lap dance? Motherfucker, I’ve had people talking about me since I was a kid. You think this shit bothers me?” I’d dropped him down when two of his overgrown bouncers started toward us. “Relax, I’m leaving,” I’d told them but not before I tilted my head, getting right into Ironside’s face. “You fuck with me, I will make shit messy for you.” My anger was sharp, pumping adrenaline so thick I had to breathe through my mouth to keep myself in check. I don’t know why I stopped, why I turned and made that douchebag another promise. “You fuck with her and shit will get messier.”

I shouldn’t have cared what Irosnide did to Aly. It wasn’t my business, but something still had me watching her back, even now.

The next few days, the damn voice in my head was so loud I missed two tackles at practice and my father had definitely noticed. He kept after me during practice, then followed me around the locker room like I’d grown three heads.

“What the hell is going on with you?”

I hadn’t answered him and turned my phone off when he kept bombarding me with texts.My head was so full of stupid noise I couldn’t concentrate on my classes or even keep my thoughts organized enough to remember to eat or shower or answer people when they spoke to me. So, I stayed in my room with the voice screaming at me, laughing, making me feel like a general nut job. Still, that was better than memory. It was better than having to admit to myself that I hadn’t been really disappointed that it was Aly dancing for me. I was pissed, sure, surprised, absolutely, but when I thought about it days later, I wasn’t really mad.

Hurt like a son of a bitch, though and that did piss me off.

People lie to me all the time. Always have. Mark and Johnny lied for years about being roommates, which, even as a kid, I thought was stupid. Them together, as a couple, had always seemed natural and normal. No idea why they’d thought they needed to lie to me about it.

Girls always manipulated to get what they wanted from me. Teammates always told me what they thought I wanted to hear because I was bigger than them. Because they thought that my dad being our coach made a difference when they wanted to play. I was used to being lied to. But Aly never telling me that she was the dancer at Summerland’s stung a hell of a lot more than assholes wanting to impress my father.

Days away from her felt like months and that, too, pissed me off. I didn’t want to miss her. I didn’t want to be bothered that she’d lied to me. I didn’t want to hear that grating voice laughing at me about her. But I didn’t have a choice. It was what it was.

And I honestly hadn’t expected her to check out completely. I found out about it when I heard the dorm phone ring, and then Ronnie thundered up to my room to bang on my door.

“Man, your mom is on the phone and she sounds pissed.”

My phone had been off for two days, but Mom still had a way to get to me. I should have known Dad would go tattling on me. Another bang against my door and Ronnie sounded irritated, himself. “You hear me in there? Come talk to your mom before she decides to show up here and we all get bitched at.”

“I’m coming,” I told Ronnie, crawling out of my bed, not caring that I probably smelled and looked like I’d been on a bender.

I fucking wished.

The house was pretty empty for a Monday, with no one other than Ronnie and Mike in the front room blasting through what I suspected was a Halo marathon. They didn’t bother to look at me as I walked into the kitchen and picked up the phone.

Man, she was gonna yell at me so loud.

“Hello?” I asked, waiting for my mother’s angry, clipped tone.

“Baby, what happened?” she said and I relaxed, knowing that if she was calling me baby she was more worried than mad.

“Mom, I have a cold, that’s all. If Dad told you about the practice…”

“Ransom, I don’t care about practice or you missing sacks.” In the background of her call, I heard Koa crying, a loud, angry tantrum and someone’s voice who I didn’t recognize trying to sooth him. Mom closed a door and the crying was silenced. “What the hell is going on with Aly?”

The weird thing about anger is that it can shift so quickly, straight to fear, then it doesn’t really exist at all. You trump up the rage because you are hurt. I told myself that Aly wasn’t someone I cared about, but with my mother’s frantic tone, all the lies I’d convinced myself were true completely disintegrated.

“What do you mean? What happened?”

Mom’s breath was loud in the speaker and that sigh worried me more, had me fearing the worst. “Neither one of you show up for lunch yesterday and she was supposed to be here today at nine like normal, but then called me and said she couldn’t work here anymore. She quit, Ransom. No warning or anything, she just up and quit on us.”

That was impossible. She loved my family. She wouldn’t have just…but then how could I be sure? She’d lied to me, kept things from me, maybe that little admission of loving my family had been just something she said because she thought it would make me happy. Still, to just leave with no regard to what that would do to my little brother?

“That doesn’t…wait. She left you hanging?”

“Of course not. She had one of her friends from the diner come over. Nice girl, but I don’t know her.” Mom’s voice was hoarse and I could tell she was stopped up, as though the worry, possibly her upset had her weepy. “She had references, but that’s not the point. Koa is having a fit because Aly isn’t here.”

“Did you ask Leann if something was going on?”

“She doesn’t know either. She said Aly was running off this morning for an extra shift at the diner and wouldn’t answer Leann when she asked why she quit.” Mom paused and the slide of a deck chair against the patio stone echoed into the speaker. “You’re her friend. Did she say anything to you?”

Man, I didn’t want to get into this with my mother. Ever. She’d tell me I was being irresponsible. She’d tell me that I should have kept away from Aly. She was right, I should have stayed away, but then it wasn’t like I had a choice in who danced for me.

You shouldn’t have gone to that club.

For once, the voice was right. I shouldn’t have let Ironside get me alone in that room. Maybe if I’d just walked away then none of this would have happened.

“We aren’t friends, Mom, not that close, anyway.” I had to clear my throat, knowing my mother wouldn’t buy that lie. Aly was my friend. At least, that’s what I’d wanted at the beginning. Alone in my room, moping like a little punk, I’d realized that pretty quickly. She’d been my friend, just one that I couldn’t keep from touching. Still, my mom didn’t need to know that shit. “We don’t keep up with each other outside of the studio and the lake house.”

“But her audition is tomorrow.” She sounded worried, and that tone killed me. I hated when something stupid I did had her speaking to me with that upset bite in her voice. “You aren’t helping her?”

“Mom…”

“Ransom, what the hell is going on?”

“It’s not...” I couldn’t tell her about the dance at Summerland’s. It would get back to Leann and if it did, well, shit, I didn’t know what my cousin would do but I didn’t think she’d be happy that Aly was doing private dances for extra money. Then, I felt like an idiot, just realizing I might not have been the only person who saw her dance. Fuck, if anyone else…It shouldn’t matter to me. She was a liar. And no, she sure as hell wasn’t my friend. “Mom, it’s nothing. We just…there was a thing but it’s not…”

“Luka Ransom Riley-Hale I am nine months pregnant and your little brother is freaking out because Aly has disappeared.” She sounded winded, but so damn fierce I was glad not to be standing right in the path of her fury. “I don’t care what happened, but you need to fix it.”

“It’s not that simple.”

“No, it’s very simple,” she said, her voice level again, but that calm only meant she’d moved beyond rage and right into livid. There would be no argument from me. I knew better. “If you did something, tell her you’re sorry. If she did something, tell her you forgive her. See? Simple.”

“Mom, what she did…”

“I don’t care what she did, son.” She’d opened the door and once again I heard my little brother crying. He had calmed, but hadn’t completely given up the fight. When she spoke again, Mom’s voice wasn’t angry, but still came out clipped. “Aly is a sweet girl and she loves Koa. She wouldn’t just leave for no damn reason at all. Whatever it is, please, just fix it and fix it soon.”

The line went dead and I held that phone in my hand, not knowing what I could do or why the hell it’d been left up to me to mend the fences broken by my stupidity. I did know one thing, for the first time in a long while, I didn’t blame myself.