“Huh?”
“Georgette Jones. Hadley’s my married name.”
“Oh.”
“No, she wasn’t perfect. I wasn’t perfect.”
“You’re damn near perfect now.”
She snorted. “Right.”
“Can’t imagine you being bad.” He settled back, maybe seeing the walls she’d thrown up between them.
“Yeah, well… Would you change who you were?”
“Me?” he asked. “Hell yes.”
“What about now?”
“What do you mean?”
George asked, “Today. Right now. Are you who you want to be?”
“You want the truth, George?” With a creak of springs, he rolled into her, pulled her body toward his, forced her to meet him head-on. “I’d want to be somebody you’d like.”
“I already like you,” George said in a voice she’d never heard herself use: husky and warm and clearly from the lungs of a far sexier woman.
“Yeah? Not sure I’m worthy of that.” His lips curled down, and he rolled back again, his hands covering his face, his voice coming out hollow. “But then, who the fuck am I to think I’m allowed to be happy? Huh? To be normal when my little sister’s all alone, rotting six feet underground?”
That sentiment was so close to what George felt that she could hardly breathe. Yes, she thought. Who the fuck am I to be happy again with Tom dead and buried? And what about my baby?
Rather than talk again, rather than try to convince him with words that he was worthy of happiness and other good things, she leaned over and grabbed one of the hard, plastic zip ties from her bedside table. Slowly, affectionately, she wrapped it around his wrists, met his devastated eyes, and tightened it so he couldn’t move. In theory, because they both knew how flimsy the ties were in the face of his strength.
After that, it was easy to put her arms around him, to take a little of his weight. It was simple to press him onto his back. Slowly, she crawled down his body, ignoring the way he tightened up, ignoring his protests and soaking up his sighs.
“Let me, let me,” she said, nosing around his compliant hands to kiss his flat, lightly furred belly, nuzzling him there. “Please. Let me.” She shushed him, and he shut his eyes on a sigh.
God, his body. The warmth and the energy of him, pliable flesh and compact bone, then the in-between firmness of muscle. She loved it all—every little bit of him, every scar, every tiny indentation was licked and suckled and made love to. At first, he shut his eyes and bore it, like torture, but eventually, he joined her there, in her room, on her bed, in his body. His protests turned to pleasured moans and begging.
“Untie me,” he finally said in a hoarse voice.
Their eyes met over the landscape of his body, and she shivered at the lust she saw there—and something else. Something like fear.
“You going to behave?” George asked.
“No,” he said with a smirk.
She shivered. “Then I guess not.”
Back to the table for a condom, which she rolled down his erection, watching the way his mouth opened and his eyes burned, his cheeks hot to the touch.
Slowly, so deliberately, George straddled him, taking care to keep her weight on her knees, her eyes never leaving his face.
His penis was hot in her fist, searing at the entrance to her body, but his expression was hotter. It burned a hole in her soul, ate her up, and she wanted that, wanted to help shoulder his pain. She sank onto him, slow enough to enjoy it, to recognize the fit, the way their bodies came together then slid apart, that first friction unbearably sweet.
“So good,” he muttered, his eyes up, on her face. “How d’you do that? Slays me every time.”
All George could do was nod as she worked her thighs, clenched and rose, up and down, watching Clay strain at the zip tie, wondering if he’d decide to bust out of it. It was almost a game now, unlike before. She knew he could get out, but maybe he didn’t want to. Maybe he liked her foisting tenderness on him.
