“Let’s go upstairs,” he urges softly.
“Yes,” I agree. “Yes, please.”
Dash releases me and pops the trunk, removing my bags before we head to the elevator. Once we’re inside the main elevator, on the move, there’s this odd mix of comfort and discomfort between me and Dash that drives me nuts. I want us to be back to normal. I want this night to never have happened. But it did. Tyler ripped open the door to Dash’s torment tonight and welcomed me to step inside. Now, I’m there, living in a space Dash didn’t invite me to visit. And while he’s clearly not pushing me out of that space, we are in uncharted territory. We don’t know how to live together in this new reality.
At Dash’s door, he sets my bags down, unlocks the door, and then pushes it open, motioning me forward. It’s a gentlemanly act, allowing my early entry, but it’s more than that right now. Everything between me and Dash is a question that leads to another question. Do I really want to be here? Am I going to live here? He grabs my bags again and now that his hands are occupied, I step in front of him, hands on his chest, and lean into him. With his hard chest beneath my hands, I push to my toes and kiss him. It’s a fast kiss, but it’s all me. I instigate it, I make it happen, and I do so with a message that is about commitment, me to him. I’m not here because I have to be, it’s a choice and I choose here and him. A message I follow up by walking inside the apartment. And maybe, just maybe, if we can work it out, my apartment as well as his for a few short months.
Until I leave.
Just the idea guts me, it really does, and it hits me that I quit my job here. I made sure that staying isn’t a financial option. But me in the middle of Tyler and Dash seems a problem as well. It’s a problem I’ll have to face and soon. Just not tonight.
Tonight is all about me and Dash crashing into each other.
And about me praying that crash doesn’t come with a burn. At least not an immediate burn.
CHAPTER FIVE
Dash joins me inside the apartment and lifts his chin toward the bedroom.
We head in that direction, but I’m not thinking about seduction. I’m thinking about how much he needs ice on that eye, and how much my gut tells me not to bring attention to it right now.
Once we’re at the bedroom door, Dash flips on the light and then the fireplace. “I need to wash this night off of me,” he says. “I’ll put your bags in the closet.”
He’s already walking away, leaving me to decide what I do next. It doesn’t feel like he’s telling me he needs to be alone. Not at all, but it does feel like another question, though I don’t really understand the context. But he needs me and I came here to be with him. And truly, maybe, I’m reading too much into everything. Maybe, just maybe, he assumed I’d follow him. If so, he’s right.
That’s exactly what I do. I follow him.
I’m in the hallway when the shower turns on. I arrive in the bathroom doorway as Dash tugs his shirt over his head, and does so with a grunt. I cringe at the sight of the dark bruises down his right side. His body is strong but I know now that so is his self-hate. Dash hates himself and that’s a brutal reality that cannot be denied. Not by me and not by him.
I want to know why, but I’m all too aware of the fact that I won’t find that answer in a simple spoken word. That’s exactly why I don’t ask questions, and I don’t cross to him and offer lame comfort that will do nothing but drive him away. I’m all about washing the dirt of this night off and doing so with him, not without him, which is almost where this night had me landing. God, how I wish we could just wash it all away and leave us with nothing but my version of sunshine: lemon drops, dancing with Dash, hot sex, and the waffles his sister and my mother makes for us.
But it’s not that simple. It was never going to be simple at all.
I reach for the zipper of my skirt. He reaches for his jeans. And together, we undress, watching each other as we do so, the absence of words, offering the freedom for us to live in the moment and each other. When the layers of clothing are gone, only our secrets between us, he catches my hand and walks me to him, the thickness of his erection at my hip. The heat of his hard body aligned with mine. The intensity of his stare, sheltered by hooded eyes. He doesn’t break the sanctuary of our silence. He doesn’t kiss me. He simply leads me into the shower where the steam has gathered and offered us a safe haven.
Dash and I stand under the warm water, and just as he said, we let the water wash away the dirt of a dirty night. I grab the soap and drizzle it on his chest, but when I run my hand over the area, he flinches. My breath catches with his reaction, with the certainty that he is more badly beaten than I’d realized, and I’d already known he was not in good condition.
Before I can stop myself, I break the silence. “Dash—”
That’s all it takes. He captures my head and damp hair in his hand, an erotic pull that ensures I won’t ask a question, I won’t demand answers. But he demands, oh how he demands. His mouth crashes down over mine and he doesn’t just kiss me. He consumes me, breathes me in, owns me. I’m panting when he presses me against the wall. I’m gasping as he lifts my leg and presses the hard length of his cock against me. I’m clinging to him as he presses inside me and drives deep. For a few beats, we’re just there, our bodies joined, our breaths heavy, a mix of passion and emotion between us.
One of his hands scoops my backside, arching my hips, and dragging him deeper. The other hand finds my breast, his fingers dragging over my nipple before he’s tugging on it with a pinching pain that clenches my sex. And then he’s thrusting into me, pumping hard and fast, his gaze raking over my bouncing breasts, a wild frenzy erupting between us. I hold onto him anywhere I can manage to touch him, as if I will never touch him again. And he touches me with just as much desperation. As if he feared he’d never touch me again.
Urgency roars between us, hot with demand and need.
Dash scoops my backside with powerful hands and lifts me. My legs instinctively wrap around his waist. He shifts me into the corner, anchors me, and then he’s driving into me. Over and over, sensations explode through me. In between his powerful thrusts, his mouth is on my mouth, his tongue against my tongue. Every emotion, good and bad, that this night has created, I feel in his touch, his kiss, the pump of our bodies. The build of pleasure is sharp and fierce and I try to push it back, to hold back, to make this last, but Dash is so incredibly hard, his face contorted in wicked passion, his muscles flexing with such beauty, and I just can’t. I shatter, my sex clenching around him, and Dash groans with the impact. He pumps against my spams, and throws his head back, quaking with his own release.
When it’s over, we’re back to burying the storm in the silence. We shower together, soaping each other, touching each other, but we don’t speak. When the water runs cold and Dash turns it off, we end up in bed, in the dark, holding each other. I shut my eyes reminding myself that no matter how good this bed that is my bed with Dash feels, there will be a last night. And it won’t be that far away. I cannot lose perspective or I’ll be the one who ends up badly beaten, only my pain will be emotional, not physical.
CHAPTER SIX