“I want to look at you. When we do it. I want to see your eyes. I want to know it’syou.”
“Okay.”
“But I don’t think you’ll…want to keep going. If you seeme.”
“Oh, baby, I—”
“No. You don’t understand. It’s bad.It’s so bad.” Her voice got away from her as she did her best to hold back a sob.
“Tell me about it. Tell me what happened to you.”
21
He’d asked her for the story, but suddenly, Ive didn’t want to know. He was almost afraid to—afraid of the rage it’d stoke inside him. He’d take back the words if he could.
But he wouldn’t, really. Of course not. Because the last thing he wanted to do was make her feel bad about herself.
“If I show you what he did to me, Ivan, you’ll never be able to look at me again.”
“That ain’t true.” He took a deep breath and pulled off the condom, grimacing at the pinch of rubber against his hard-on. “Don’t have to show me. Start by tellin’ me the story.”
“I don’t…I don’t want you to feel sorry for me.”
“I know, baby,” he said. What did she need? What could he do for her? Maybe getting out into the dark, starry night would help. “Come on, let’s go for that walk.”
They managed, somehow, to get dressed, then pulled off the scarves and spent a few silly moments blinking at each other like squinty-eyed moles. That brought the smile back to her face.
He got an idea. “Grab the quilt, and I’ll get this stuff, and we can have a picnic.”
“In the dark?”
“Hell yeah. That’s the way we roll in the country.” He emptied a basket filled with iron odds and ends and repacked the food in its fancy wrappers, then stuffed everything inside. “Red or white?” he asked, arms suspended above the bottles.
“I…” She hesitated, eyes darting between the two bottles. “I don’t—I have no idea.”
“That’s okay. We’ll take ’em both.”
“I should know that, though, shouldn’t I?”
“What do you mean?”
“I should know what I like.”
He shrugged. “Not if you don’t drink wine. I don’t.”
“It’s not that, it’s… I hate this about myself. I hate it so much.”
“What?”
“I let everybody else decide. Joey always ordered white wine for me. He never asked me what I wanted. Not once. And the thing was, I was used to that. I didn’t want to decide.”
“That’s okay. I can pi—”
“No,” she interrupted harshly, hand up and dominatrix expression in place. God, even that tiny little taste made his cock throb. He was one sick puppy. “I want red wine.”
“Red it is. You ready?”
“Let’s go.”
