Las Vegas Sidewinders: Drake (Book 2) (13 page)

“Why are you thinking
about Shay?” he asked intuitively. “I know that look.”

“It’s not that I’m
thinking about him, exactly, but you treat me so much like he did and I get
these waves of déjà vu. Like you just told me that I didn’t have to do anything
to be sexy, and Shay told me something almost exactly the same the one night we
shared together.” She lowered her eyes. “I feel like he’s the elephant in the
room between us, you remind me so much of him that I’m not able to separate the
two of you.”

He frowned slightly but
decided not to say what was on his mind. Instead, he focused on a question that
he’d been wanting to ask for a while. “So you only slept together once?”

“Well, we had sex
multiple times over the course of one night, but yes, we were only together the
night before my wedding. Nothing ever happened before that or in Afghanistan.”

“And that night was the
only time you’ve had an orgasm during sex?”

“Until you.”

He was quiet for a
while and then cocked his head in disbelief. “
Really?!
I mean, you were
sleeping with Clay all through college and then you were married and you
thought not being able to have an orgasm with him was normal?”

“Well, before the night
with Shay, I didn’t know any better—lots of my girlfriends can’t have orgasms
unless they’re doing it themselves or having oral sex. Then the wedding
disaster happened and after that, I just didn’t care. I assumed Shay didn’t
love me and used me the night before the wedding, so I decided to make the best
of it. Sex wasn’t on my radar—I had a great job and everything else was good in
the beginning. I figured I’d just masturbate when I felt the need.”

Drake rolled his eyes.
“Jesus Christ, what kind of guy lets his wife go without an orgasm?!”

“Are we talking about
Dickhead again?” Kate came bounding down the stairs in jeans, a sweatshirt and
sneakers. “I tried to tell her, but the girl is nothing if not loyal.”

“That’s a damn shame.”

 “Tell me about
it!” Kate rolled her eyes. “Okay, I’m off. You two have about three hours. Then
I’d appreciate some normalcy until bedtime!” She was laughing as she shut the
door behind her.

“She’s a trip,” Drake
chuckled. “But we’re alone now, so I think it’s time to go upstairs.”

“Are you mad at me?”

“No.” He sighed. “I’d
like to think that when I’m making love to you, you’re thinking about me and
not someone else but—”

“I haven’t!” she
protested. “Really…”

“At some point, honey,
you’re going to have to let go of him.” Drake pulled her up against him and
stared down into her eyes. “I’m crazy about you, and every minute that we spend
together makes me want you more. But I can’t compete with him, and you can’t
continue to let his memory eat at you. I can see it in your face—the pain, the
loss, the sadness. I get it, and I feel some of it with you—he sounds like
someone I would have liked. But he’s gone, and we’re here. Eventually, I need
to know that you like me for me, not because I’m so much like
him
.”

“I don’t—” she started
to protest but he put two fingers over her lips.

“Today, it’s all about
you and me. I want to make your knees shake and your body hum with pleasure. I
want to taste every part of you and make sure that you know just how much
pleasure a man and woman can share.

“In the morning I’m
going home. We won’t see each other again for about a month, and after that it
will probably be April. By April, you have to know whether or not you’re ready
to move forward with this—whatever it is.”

“Okay.” She swallowed.
“That’s fair.”

“Come here.” He wrapped
his arms around her and kissed the top of her head. “Do you want to talk about
him?”

She gaped at him.
“What? No! I mean, yes, sometimes, but not now! Why would we do that?”

“Because I’m willing to
do whatever it takes to help you get through this. If that means letting you
talk it out, I’m okay with it.”

“No.” She shook her
head slowly. “I’ve talked about him until I’ve been blue in the face. My issues
aren’t so much that he’s gone; it’s that I didn’t have closure. I didn’t get to
say good-bye—not really. I mean, technically we talked right before we died
together on that road, but they were able to revive me. Shay was…” Her voice
trailed off and she took a breath. “He was almost cut in half. I didn’t see it
at the time, but I know now that a metal piece of the car had cut him in the side,
sliced him almost halfway through. All that blood I see in my nightmares is him
bleeding out. His right leg was blown off at the knee. The doctors were amazed
that he was still able to talk after the hit, based on his injuries. So I’ve
come to terms with his death—it’s all the other stuff that gets me: the
horrible divorce and the fact that Clay blames me, the life insurance policy,
the fight over his dog tags. And the big one is the uncertainty of my future in
the Marines.

“I can’t go forward
until I clear all that up. So in the meantime, I spend a lot more time thinking
about him than ever, wishing he was here so that all of
that
would go
away. It has nothing to do with you. When I’m with you, I’m so happy I’m really
not thinking about anything else.”

“I can help you if
you’ll let me.”

“How?” She looked
confused.

“I have money,” he said
slowly. “I know that bothers you because you already had a rich husband who
used his money against you, but the only thing I need from you is trust. We
talked about this the night we met. You have to trust that no matter what
happens between us romantically, I can and will help you fight that
sonofabitch. You owe me nothing—not now, not if we break up in April, not ever.
I don’t like what he’s doing, and I want to help you. If we can’t make this,
us
,
work, I still want to do it. Can you trust me on that, Erin?”

For a long time she
looked at him, deep into his gorgeous eyes, and for the first time in a long
time, she knew instinctively that she could. “Yes, I can.”

“As soon as I get home,
I’m going to call a private investigator and have Clay thoroughly checked out.
We’re going to know everything about him, everything he’s done for the last
five years. Then I’m going to have an alarm system installed here,
top-of-the-line, so that if he does decide to come after you, you’ll have some
protection. And that’s just the beginning. There are many things money can’t
buy, but I promise you, there are plenty of things that it can.”

“Thank you.”

They walked up the
stairs arm in arm. When they got to her room, she went and lay on her side,
looking at him. “I feel like I’m always apologizing,” she said. “You deserve
better.”

“I’m here because I
want to be. As you’ve pointed out, there is no shortage of women available to
me. Why do you still doubt my interest in you? I don’t have to do anything I
don’t want to do, Erin. Can’t you believe that?”

“Maybe.” She looked
away. “I’ve never felt sexy or loved. It was like I was Clay’s property, and I
guess I felt betrayed by Shay, so those things combined make me second-guess
myself when it comes to men.”

“It’s time to stop.” He
stretched out beside her. “You are beautiful, smart and desirable. I haven’t
been able to think about anyone else since I met you. Let’s go with that,
okay?”

“Okay.”

“So take off your
clothes.”

“What?”

“Take off your clothes.
It’s time for you to take control of your body. And mine.” He saw the panic in
her eyes and gently kissed her. “Didn’t you just say you trusted me?”

“Yes.”

“Then trust me. I’m
going to lie here and let you do whatever you want to me. If you don’t want to
take the lead, then tell me exactly what you want.”

“I’m not sure I know.”

“You know.” He pulled
his T-shirt off and tossed it on the floor. “Come on. You can do it. You did it
the night we met.”

“I was brave ‘cause I
thought that would be a one-night stand,” she admitted.

“Nope.” He ran a finger
along her chin. “It’s going to take more than self-esteem issues, scars and
dead boyfriends to get rid of me.”

For a moment she looked
startled, and then she threw her head back and laughed. “You’re wonderful!”

“Prove it.” He put his
hands behind his head and lay back.

She pulled off her
T-shirt and sweatpants and then crawled across the bed to where he was lying
prone.

“How good are you at
unhooking a bra?” she asked, cocking her hip to the side with a smirk.

“You want me to do it
with one hand behind my back?”

“I’d like to see that!”
she taunted.

Without missing a beat,
one hand still behind his head, he reached behind her with his other hand and
unhooked the bra using his thumb and forefinger. With a grin, he pulled it off
and presented it to her hanging off his finger.

“That was impressive.”
She snatched the bra from him and tossed it off the bed. “How much did you have
to practice to learn how to do that?”

“A lot.” He chuckled.
“You want me to tell you about it?”

“We talk too much,” she
chuckled too.

“Yeah, that’s how
people get to know each other.” His eyes twinkled as she made a face at him.

“Okay, look, I can’t do
this whole seduction thing. I keep saying dorky things and I feel like an idiot
and I keep talking… I don’t want to be in charge. Is that okay? Can you just do
what you do? Please?” She sat back, her arms folded across her lap and her hair
draped across her shoulder.

“I can do whatever you
want.” He pulled her close so that her head was resting on his chest and her
hair fanned out behind her. Her legs seemed to find their way between his
naturally, and despite his growing erection, he was perfectly content to feel
her relaxing against him. “Is that what’s been making you crazy? The idea that
you might have to take charge in the bedroom?”

“I don’t know.”

“We’re going to slow
down then. I thought since we’d already done all this you were good, but I’m
getting the sense that the
more
intimate we get, the less comfortable
you are with sex.”

“Everything was great
in the beginning with Clay. I mean, I wasn’t having multiple orgasms but it was
nice and felt good and I enjoyed the intimacy. Later, after I’d been with Shay,
I realized how different it was, and since I’m 99% sure Clay didn’t know I
slept with Shay, something must have changed with me. Now I don’t know if I
just suck in bed or I’m boring or—”

“Oh, just stop.” He
took a breath. The last thing he wanted to do was talk about Shay but it seemed
pertinent right now. “Did Shay seem unhappy when you were in bed?”

“Well, no. But he did
sneak out while I was sleeping and didn’t see me again for almost a year.”

“But you said you had
sex multiple times that night, right?”

“Yeah.”

“A guy who’s not
satisfied is not going to hang out and continue getting an erection after a
disaster of a lay. Even if he’s a complete ass, he’s going to cut his losses
and leave. So that’s dumb. Didn’t you two
ever
talk about what
happened?”

“Not about the sex.
After we’d been in Afghanistan about six weeks, we wound up on patrol together.
It was just the two of us, kind of hanging out talking. He said something, I
forget what, and I responded with, ‘Oh, yeah, this from the guy who sneaks out
in the middle of the night.’ He got really quiet after that and said, ‘That
hurt you, didn’t it? I should have stayed.’ And I was like, ‘Duh!’ So we just
kept on walking the perimeter, in total silence. Then he said, ‘I thought you’d
call it off.’ I just stopped, mid-stride, looked at him and slapped him across
the face.

“He said, ‘I deserved
that.’ And we kept walking. Finally, he said, ‘We can’t have this conversation
here. You know that.’ I did, so he said, ‘Let’s make a date to set things right
and talk about all these feelings we’ve been hiding.’ He pulled out his phone
and we looked at the calendar to the date in September when we were supposed to
go home… September 24
^th
. He said, ‘The Tiki Bar in Venice at 5:30 on
September 26
^th
.’ I told him I’d be there. After that, we went back
to being best friends, just like in college. We hung out every day, during and
after work, we worked out, played sports with the others in the unit. In my
heart, I knew that on September 26
^th
we were going to admit that we
loved each other and be together forever. I had already decided to divorce
Clay, but on August 17
^th
Shay died. We never talked like that again,
and we never said good-bye. All I’m left with is this ugly body and memories.”

“Your body isn’t ugly,
and I’m going to fix some of the fallout you’re dealing with. What you have to
fix is you—your heart, your emotions and your inability to move on. You have to
come out on the other side of this, Erin. Since we met, I’ve felt you poke out
a foot, but you never really step over the line. I know some of it has to do
with Dickhead, and you have my word that I’m going to find a way to get him out
of your life. The other stuff, well, all I can do is be there for you. I keep
saying it, but you don’t seem to believe it.”