And then he began tofuckme.
My bed frame squeaked in protest.It hadn’t seen action for a long time, and the headboard began to bang against the wall with every powerful thrust of his hips, as if he could inject every piece of himself into me.Wrapping my arms around his shoulders, I held on for the ride.
The vulnerability etched across his face, lining the edges of his eyes, mesmerized me, and I traced them with careful fingers.He leaned into my touch but never looked away, not even when my hands snaked beneath his arms and my fingernails dug into his ribs because I was so close to coming again.
I wanted to hold out for him, but he noticed the pull of my body on his, and he hissed and fucked me harder.Faster.Wilder.
My breasts bounced and rubbed against his heaving chest, and my mouth popped open, but no sound came out because bliss had overtaken my ability to speak.Pleasure rushed through me in waves, like a steady, rhythmic pulse of some far-off sea in my dreams crashing against a distant shore.
My eyes rolled closed, my thighs clutching Dixon’s hips between them to hold him where I needed him to ride out my waves.But that just made him fuck faster, and my orgasm rose higher and higher until I was coming all over again.
“AJ,” he breathed into my mouth.“Look at me.”When I did and the blue fire of his eyes burned right through me, he whispered, “I’m afraid.”
“There’s no safer place for you than inside me,” I promised breathlessly, tucking wild strands of his hair behind his ears.“We can be afraid together.Let go.You deserve to feel good.To be loved.Come inside me.”
He washed our fear clean as he captured my mouth again with his eager lips and tongue and his breath rushed in.I inhaled as he came, smoothing my hands over the wide plane of his back and the slightly raised edges of forgotten scars there, listening to his cry into the night, hoping he would never let me go.
ChapterTwenty-One
Dixon
Before anyone else showed up,I clocked an hour on the rowing machine at the community center, the repetitive, full-body push and pull easing the adrenaline rushing through me every time I thought about last night.
Those thirty or sixty minutes every morning were the only time I could guarantee solitude so that I could center myself and gauge the strength of my mind.
I was grateful my boss had offered me the use of the small gym.Some guys I knew from rehab became militant about working out, like they replaced addiction to drugs and alcohol with an addiction to running or lifting weights, but I understood because the difference in how I felt all day after a workout compared to a day without was night and day.
After that and ten minutes under a perfectly functioning showerhead raining the hottest water my skin could stand, my morning meeting went well.
Theo was there, but he didn’t lead the group.An older cowboy, Charlie, ran things.He was cool.He told me he was an artist, and for some reason, I found myself actually talking to him.I blurted that I was thinking about writing a book, and he thought it was the best idea since sliced bread, so he pulled up some kids’ books online, and we sat and studied their cover designs for a while after everyone else had left.
It was AJ’s magic at work.She had me feeling happy and light, which was a welcome change.Being weighed down with misery and self-loathing was exhausting.
To be connected to her the way we were last night… I had no words for the feeling.It amazed me how easily she fit into my fucked-up existence, and there were only tiny moments of doubt when I worried I would let her down or hurt her.
It wasn’t my intention.I wanted to be a light to her like she’d always been to me.
Hours later, she was still on my mind, and I relived our red-hot night together the entire drive to Lee Valley—the curved swell of AJ’s hips under my hands, the way she’d laughed when my fingers traced her ribs, and the delicate feel of the petal-soft skin between her legs, like the most fragile flower in one of her bouquets, wet with dew and sweet, but if I wasn’t careful, my fumbling fingers could crush and ruin it.
Before fear and whispers of old memories could set in, I was at the ranch, pulling up in front of my brother’s house.
The clock on my dash flashed 5:30.I was too early for dinner.I wasn’t sure how I’d gotten the time wrong, but I figured I could use the next hour to prepare myself for the onslaught of questions my family would soon start lobbing at me and for the stab to my heart I knew I’d feel when I saw my son, so I started counting my way through some breathing exercises and tried to center positivity in the forefront of my mind.
It only took a few minutes for me to realize it wasn’t working and that my hands had started to sweat and my heart was racing again.It only got more intense when Stu slammed open the door, jumped onto the porch, and then rushed at my car.
Bax wasn’t with him, but when I climbed out of the El Camino and shut the door, I saw my brother watching us through the kitchen window over the sink.
“Hi, Uncle Dixon!”Stu flung himself at me and hugged me, his little Wranglers and U-Dub T-shirt with the telltale bucking bronco on the front making him look like a miniature cowboy.He was even wearing little cowboy boots, but his were newer and a lot nicer than mine.“Are you here for supper?”
“Yeah,” I said, trying not to smile too much, but it was the first time I’d touched him since I left him.“I’m a little early.Is that cool?”
“Totally cool, dude,” he said and he released me, but he grabbed hold of my hand and dragged me inside.“My mama made a puppatizer.It’s this cream-cheesy thing.Do you like cheese?I love it.”
His hand, so little and warm, fit inside mine perfectly.I marveled at the fit, at the way I’d fucked up everything else in my life, but this, Stu’s hand in mine, still worked.It was still pure.
“Oh, you mean an appetizer?Yeah, I could chow down on some cheese.”
My son smiled blindly up at me, and I tried not to let them in, but thoughts of all the drugs and the wasted time swirled around in my head.Despite all the shit I’d put him through, he was innocent and perfect, and I was the exact opposite.
