Page 32 of After Dark
A typical end-of-night voice around here, Arlo thought. If they were doing it right.
“I can see that.”
Her chest moved. “Arlo, once I tell you this, you’re going to understand. And I don’t think you’re going to want to do this with me anymore. I really don’t.”
“You left me after three years. Without a word. You stayed away for more than a year, Josette, and for all I knew, you never looked back and had no intention of returning. But then you did. You showed up out of nowhere, and what did I do?” He smoothed his hand over her damp hair. “I took you back. Immediately. Surely by now you must realize there’s very little I won’t forgive. Surely I’ve made that clear.”
She shook her head, and he saw a kind of anguish in her eyes that he didn’t understand. “This is different. It’s not about forgiveness. It’s about… clarity. Perception.”
Josette looked at him as if that made sense. He gazed back at her, but he kept his expression neutral. Or maybe a little more on the stern side of neutral, because she swallowed, then let out a shaky breath.
But he saw the surrender in her pale blue eyes. He could practically taste it. Not for the first time, he wondered if she could too.
“We met in such a rush,” she said softly, looking down at where she was curled into him. “I was at that big business dinner and I’d spent weeks figuring out how to dress the part so no one would know I didn’t belong. Everyone there was flashing their fancy degrees, or their miles and miles of experience, or all their money.” She shook her head. “I don’t have any of that. I’d expected it to be overwhelming, but it was worse. I was a fish out of water, and I was afraid to talk to anyone because I was certain they’d see it immediately. I have no pedigree. Back then I had no money. I was just a piece of trailer trash who made it out of North Carolina and rolled out west. I had no business being there.”
He didn’t like a single thing she was saying, but he didn’t interrupt her. Whatever this was, he could feel—with a kind of electric charge inside him—that she needed to get it out. Because whatever it was, it was critical to what had happened between them.
It was the thing she’d been hiding from him all this time.
“And then you were there,” she continued, and he liked the way her eyes got dreamy. “And everything was like magic.”
“It was,” he agreed.
That made her frown and shake her head. “But don’t you see? You met me when I was in disguise.” She took a ragged sort of breath. “And I knew that we could fuck. I’ve always been good at fucking. I also knew that when wewoke up the next morning, even if there was some kind of tail on the end of our one night, you would eventually see who I really was.” She was shaking her head as she said this, and he doubted she even knew she was doing it. “Girls like me don’t end up with men like you, Arlo. But instead of you wising up a few days later, it turned out that we matched completely. Not just that we could have sex, but thewaywe had sex. You knew all the dark desires I’ve been carrying around because they were your desires too. And that was such a rush. Such a high that it took me way too long to realize that I’d traded one disguise for another.”
Arlo wanted to jump on that, but he didn’t. Because he could see she was telling him no lies, no matter how it landed on him that she thought there was something fake or make-believe about their connection.
He came close to having to actually bite his own tongue.
“I could submit to you perfectly,” she was telling him softly. “Beautifully. It’s like we were made for each other. Like every sexual step we took made it better and better. At first, I thought that was enough. That I could do that forever, because it didn’t matter where I came from when I was on my knees in front of you. It didn’t matter that you are this West Point-educated, sophisticated man, and I’m a girl who barely made it through high school when I’m taking your cock up my ass with a ball gag in my mouth. The things we did transcended all of that. But it didn’t stay just sex.” She looked away for a moment, and he thought he saw moisture in her gaze. “Maybe I was kidding myself that it was ever just sex. But you weren’t satisfied.”
Again, it caused him physical pain to keep himself from arguing. So maybe he was learning some shit here too.
“You were so determined to make it emotional,” Josette pushed on. “You insisted on it. But I knew that what youpraised me for was perfection. And the more you learned about me, the less possible it would be for me to fool you. That last night, it was too much. I watched myself disappoint you.” She turned to look at him straight in the face then. “It broke my heart, Arlo. And I knew that it was just the beginning. I knew that the deeper we went, the more clearly you would understand that you’d made a terrible mistake.”
“You’re going to have to explain this to me.” He kept his gaze steady. “Because nothing you’re saying makes sense.”
“You thought I was perfect,” she whispered, shaking her head. “You always used that word.Perfect.I can’t live up to it. And it was killing me, because if you really knew what I was like, you’d want nothing to do with me. I knew from the first night that the only way I could have you — the only way you would ever even give me the time of day — is because we play these games together. Because the way we fuck matches so well. Because these roles work for us. But it’s the role that you love, Arlo. I know it’s not me. Because I am…”
She was shaking her head again, her breath ragged and wild. “I cheated on every boyfriend I ever had. I wasn’t even subtle about it. That business dinner was my attempt to make something of myself, and yet what did I end up doing? Fucking a complete stranger in a hotel room without even knowing your name until later. If it weren’t for the BDSM of it all, I’m sure it would have followed the same trajectory these things always do. I’m restless. Untrustworthy. Faithless.”
Her eyes were glittering now, and he didn’t have to ask to know that she was quoting things that had been said to her. Likely more than once.
Josette was trembling, but she didn’t stop. “There’sprobably some deep, dark, empty hole inside of me. More than one man has told me so. And a whole lot of women, for that matter, because they tend to think you’re a shitty person if their boyfriends want to fuck you. Whether you do or not.” She blew out a breath. “But who can blame them? I can’t sit still. I can’t keep a promise. I wasn’t very good at keeping jobs, either. Meanwhile, look at you. You built your own empire after serving this country. You’re a living, breathing hero, Arlo. You’re the kind of man that everybody looks up to.”
Then she took a deep breath and looked him square in the face, and he felt his own chest tighten at the bruised look he saw in all that pale blue. “And I’m just a trashy little whore who let her cunt lead her around for pretty much the entirety of my twenty-eight years.”
Arlo realized was waiting for some kind of punchline. Some kind of explanation for how she could think these things about herself. Or him, for that matter, because he was no damned hero.
But the longer he held her gaze, and more, could see the way her body reacted to this confession — splotches of red on her cheeks, her skin behind it even more pale than usual, a kind of dark resignation in her eyes — he understood that she meant it.
She was stiff where she sat, clearly thinking that he was about to tip her off his lap and toss her to the floor.
“How old were you when you lost your virginity?” he asked her.
Josette looked bewildered by that, but it was better than the darkness. “Thirteen,” she told him. “And here’s the thing. I’ve had many a counselor tell me that my entire life is a trauma response. Hell, maybe it is. But he was sixteen and I thought he was so handsome. And everyone told methat it would hurt, be embarrassing, but it didn’t. It was fun. A whole lot more fun than anything else I was doing as a teenager, so I did a whole lot more of it. And the more sex I had, the more opinions there were. And yes, in case you’re wondering, there were a lot of those same opinions when I went back home.” She laughed, and it wasn’t exactly a sound of joy, but it wasn’t despairing either. It sounded more like resignation to him. “Point of fact, that boy who took my virginity turned into one of the men I dated while I was there. These days he likes it rough. Or he liked it rough with me. I can’t say I didn’t enjoy the release of it all, but it was pretty clear to me that he didn’t likememuch. And it turned out I didn’t like that much.”
“I can see that,” Arlo said, and it was work to sound steady. Calm. To not demand a list of the names of anyone who’d ever made her feel bad about the glorious gift that was her sexual appetite. “But at some point, Josette, it must have dawned on you that debasing yourself and all of the self-loathing didn’t work for you either. Because here you are.”
