Page 29 of A Fine Line

“Don’t play dumb with me, Car,” she whisper-shouts and then pokes me in the side with her finger.

My lips curve up in a teasing smile. “Maybe you should be more specific in your interrogation.”

She turns her body on the couch so she’s fully facing me, pulling her feet up under her so she can lean in close to me. When I turn my head to meet her gaze, she asks, “What’s going on with you and Tony? Fucking tell me, already.”

I giggle at her question, shaking my head as I ask, “You ever have a close girlfriend?”

“Fuck no,” she says with a snort, settling more fully into the couch. “Is it that obvious? Am I being super annoying?”

“No, I just wondered. I’ve never had a close anything, so I honestly have no idea what’s normal and what’s annoying.”

She waggles her brows at me. “Good, now tell me the truth.”

“There’s nothing going on. He mostly hates me, but he’s being kind enough to help me out with some stuff.”

“Tony is not helpful,” she sputters, her hand squeezing my forearm as she pulls on me. “And the way he looks at you. There’s no way this is nothing.”

I face forward again and close my eyes. “I don’t know what to tell you. He’s probably only helping me because he gets his dick wet in return, but whatever.”

“What kind of help are you talking about?”

I sit up, saying nothing for a few moments as I attempt to figure out what to tell her. Finally, I opt for the truth. “I have some trauma issues I need to figure out, and he’s basically giving me free use of his body to help me work through it.”

“Free use?” she asks, her voice full of wonder. “And how does that help you?”

“I’ll give you an example,” I say, turning my gaze back to her. “Vincent used to enjoy forcing me to blow him in airplane bathrooms. It didn’t matter if it was private or commercial. It was always the same. And if he didn’t feel like one, and he was feeling particularly cruel, he’d nominate someone else to test me.”

She gasps, her hand once again squeezing my forearm and her eyes wide as she whispers, “And then I dared you to blow him in the bathroom on the plane. I’m so sorry.”

I shake my head and laugh. “No, that’s not at all the same thing. But it did give me the idea that maybe it would be beneficial for me to actively take charge of my sexual experiences. That’s why I went in there and made thechoiceto blow him.”

“And you feel like it’ll work? That it’ll help you?”

I think over the question for a few moments, my lip curling up as I rub my tongue over my teeth. Then I reply, “I do. It was frightening at first, but for some reason, I trusted him to follow my cues. If I’d given him a pinch as he instructed me to, I know he would’ve stopped, and I know he wouldn’t have been mad and wouldn’t have tried to punish me for it. I mean, Tony’s a huge fucking asshole, but I trust him not to further damage me in that way if that makes sense.”

“That makes perfect sense. Tony can be kind of shitty, but when push comes to shove, he’s a standup guy.”

“Exactly,” I say with a sigh of relief. “So, we came up with this deal that if something crosses my mind, and I want to try to flip the script on the experience, all I have to do is tell him, and we’ll do it.”

Antoinette smiles at me and then lurches forward suddenly, but I flinch back, and she freezes. “I’m sorry, Car. Are you okay? I had an urge to hug you, but I shouldn’t have come at you so suddenly.”

I inhale sharply through my nose, then swallow the painful lump in my throat so I can reply. “It’s fine. I’m feeling a bit raw while discussing it, and you caught me off-guard. I don’t have anything against hugs or even spontaneous touching, but in some circumstances, it may take me some time to get used to the fact that I no longer need to have a knee-jerk reaction to everything.”

“Did women hurt you, too?”

“Vincent would use anyone and everyone to hurt me if he could. Men, women—it didn’t matter.” I pause, sighing deeply before I continue, “I haven’t the first fucking clue what I truly like or dislike.”

She frowns, her hand now tentative on my arm as she strokes me gently. “It’s fucking awful that happened to you. Female intimacy is so different—softer, sexier, even. I hate that it was ruined for you.”

“Yeah, well, on the other side of that, there isn’t anything more vicious than a woman. Which in some circumstances is good, I guess.”

She gives me a slight smile and then glances across the room where Dare and Tony are sitting. She turns back to me with a determined expression as she asks, “Carolina, may I kiss you?”

I laugh, shaking my head at her abrupt question. “What? Why?”

“Because I want to help,” she whispers, the expression on her face earnest as she adds, “You’ll know straightaway if you don’t like it, and you can give me a pinch, and I’ll back off.”

I eye her for a moment, taken aback by her request. She moves closer to me, the hopeful expression on her face almost comical as she waits for me to reply. I look her over, noting every outward reason why Dare would be obsessed with her while also recognizing the countless non-physical reasons anyone would be attracted to her. Even with her being borderline psychotic, she’s an incredibly attractive woman.

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