Page 7 of Hard Ride
Then Tate appeared, the new guy at high school with the bad reputation. How his father was a meth head, beat him routinely, and how he stole cars, drank beer, smoked cigarettes, and vandalized property. The whole bad boy nine yards. He was a wild, thrilling presence, and all the girls used to follow him around like puppy dogs. But he only had eyes for me.
He’s looking at me that way now, as if there’s nothing more interesting in his world than me, only this time his gaze is even more intense than it used to be. Like a laser, boring into me.
“I….” My voice catches embarrassingly, and I have to clear my throat. “I’m not here for you, Tate,” I manage firmly.
“Yes, you are.” His mouth curves, intense gaze seeing right through me. “I’m exactly why you’re here.”
The part of me that I loathe trembles, but I shove that part back down into the box it came from. “Oh yeah,” I say sarcastically. “You know me, can’t get enough of sex clubs.”
He ignores this. “Aren’t you curious? Don’t you want to know what it’s all about?”
“Don’t tell me. You’re going to offer to show me the ropes, aren’t you?”
Again, he flashes me that smile, white and predatory. “If you like ropes, sure. But I think you’d prefer handcuffs.”
Oh, I love handcuffs. Not. I had a boyfriend bring round a pink fluffy pair once, but that was a firm no from me. I don’t want to be tied up, thank you very much.
“So let me get this straight,” I say, not doing a very good job of hiding my irritation. “We haven’t seen each other for years, and the first thing you do is pressure me for sex.”
“I’m not pressuring you for anything you don’t want to give, Katherine,” he says mildly.
“Hard disagree,” I say. “Why do you even want this? Why can’t we have a conversation first?”
“A conversation?” he echoes. “You didn’t want one ten years ago, so why bother now?”
My cheeks burn. “There were good reasons I didn’t talk to you.” Firstly, Lucas reasons. And secondly…. other reasons.
“There always are with you.” He keeps staring at me, and finally, I see it, the flicker of anger in his eyes. “But let’s not go back over old ground. You’re here in my club on newbie night, and things are still…unresolved between us. So why not have a chance to resolve them?”
My mouth is dry. I need a drink orsomethingto take the edge off the sharp, bright panic inside me. I don’t want to talk about those ‘unresolved things’. I didn’t back then, and I don’t want to now.
Yet even so, the memories of our time together in bed are still fresh. The times when he held my wrists down on the mattress on either side of my head as he fucked me. How I would come so fast and so hard, I swear I almost lost consciousness, and how afterwards I just felt…dirty.
When I was sixteen, I wandered into the kitchen at home one morning, and there was a strange guy there making himself breakfast. I hadn’t been surprised, Mom’s hookups often ended up being around in the morning. But then he started chatting to me and flirting with me. He was hot, and no one had ever paidme attention before, so I flirted back. Then, before I knew what was happening, he pushed me up against the wall and tried to put his hand up my nightie while kissing me.
Mom had walked in at that moment and saw us, and while he got nothing more than a finger wag, I got called a little slut and was grounded for a month. For ‘leading him on’ apparently.
It was sexual assault, and even at the time, I knew what he’d done was wrong, but the worst part of it was that…I’d liked it. I’d liked how he’d pushed me against the wall, holding my wrists above my head so I couldn’t do anything to stop him, how I was completely at his mercy.
It was wrong to like it, though, and for years I tried to pretend it had never happened. Until Tate came into my life with his intense, sexual energy. His hands around my wrists, holding them down onto the mattress so I couldn’t move, had been the single most erotic moment of my life, and yet it was the most deeply fucked up moment, too. Because I didn’t want that experience in the kitchen with that guy to define my whole sexuality, yet with Tate, it kept being reinforced.
I should have said something to him at the time, but I was nineteen and didn’t know how to have that conversation. I could barely articulate my own confused feelings about sex, even to myself, and then with Lucas and how he made me feel added to the mix, it only got even more complicated.
I swallow, painfully aware of Tate sitting opposite. He’s lounging there, in his three-piece suit, and it must be handmade because it fits his proportions exactly. He’s broader than he used to be, his shoulders wide, and his blue tie gleaming against his white shirt. He takes up space not only with his hard, muscular body but also with his presence, a kind of fierce, sexual charisma that feels impossible to resist.
Fuck. I shouldn’t still feel this way about him, this kind of helpless, breathless, out of control excitement that grips me and refuses to let go. I
hated it back then and I hate it now, because Idon’tget off on being a helpless victim, not anymore.
4
Tate
My Katherine is very determined not to let me see her fear, but I see it in her pretty blue eyes all the same. That’s a change. She used to wear her heart on hersleeve, and I always loved that about her. Her openness and honesty were her greatest strengths.
But there was one thing she wasn’t open or honest about and that was sex. She never told me why she got scared sometimes, especially when I held her down or restrained her in any way. It frustrated the shit out of me, because I didn’t want to hurt her or scare her, and yet I fucking knew something was wrong. I tried to talk to her about it, but she’d clam up or change the subject, and then I’d get angry, which didn’t help.
Things are different now, however. I know how to manage myself, and I know how I can make her open up to me the way she couldn’t back then. It’ll be challenging for her, but then she’s never shied away from a challenge because the other thing she used to be was brave.
