Page 48 of Stacked
It was everything I wanted.Intimacy.Everything I needed.Connection.And everything I’d been running from for so long.Contact.It was bliss, surprisingly wonderful bliss.
The following morning, I woke around six, earlier than usual. Robert was still in my bed, sleeping on his back, his left arm stretched over his head, the sheets tangled around his body. I regarded him for a few minutes, letting the laziness of the morning soak in. I didn’t have to be at the store until ten, and even then, I didn’t expect this to be a busy day. It wasn’t unusual for the already sporadic traffic at the store to dry up during the summer, and plenty of people in New Burlington took summer vacations immediately following Independence Day.
Which made this the perfect morning to wake up next to Robert.
Unable to resist any longer, I leaned over and gave him a gentle nudge. He stirred at my touch, and I smiled as he angled his body toward mine. “Hey there, sexy.”
“Good morning to you too.”
“It’s a little after six. Did you sleep okay?”
“Yeah, I think I got a few hours.” He rubbed his eyes, and the skin around them crinkled. “And that’s probably enough time to recover from last night.”
I shifted closer to him, wrapping my still-naked body around his as I yanked the sheet higher. “Recovery is important, especially after a night like that.”
“I agree.”
And man, did I agree.
I lost count of how many orgasms Robert gave me. I’dneverbeen with such a selfless lover before. And it wasn’t that I had many to compare to, really, but he was so attentive, so fixated onmypleasure. I didn’t know men like him existed. I felt incredible lucky.And sore in places I haven’t felt sore before.We stared at each other for a beat, and I tried to memorize every part of how he looked that morning, so peaceful and comfortable in my bed, warmth radiating from him. I probably didn’t deserve a morning like this, and I certainly hadn’t expected it, but now that it had arrived, I was so grateful.
It was comforting and even empowering to open to someone like him, to allow Robert access to what lay underneath the calcified shell I built after the mugging in Chicago when I decided once and for all the world wasn’t made for someone like me. There was only so much trauma and pain a person could take. The lingering fear was enough and something I hadn’t been able to escape, even with the move to New Burlington. I’d never stopped looking over my shoulder, never stopped expecting the next jump scare to arrive.
Maybe that could stop now.Finally.
“I have something I want to tell you,” I said.
“After the night we just had, you can tell me anything.”
I shifted underneath the sheets, giving myself one more chance to back out.No, I’m not going to. I don’t want to.“That mugging in Chicago... it wasn’t a regular mugging.”
“I don’t thinkanymugging is regular.”
I nodded. “You’re right, but this one was worse than I said it was.”
Robert cupped my face. “How so? You can tell me.”
I gulped. The last thing I wanted to do with a sexy man in my bed was tell him how gruesome the event really was. I’d rather enjoy him. But I felt I needed to talk about this, and only with him. So... “The guy who robbed me... he pulled a gun on me.”
Robert’s eyes widened, and his jaw went slack. “In the subway car?”
I shook my head. “No, it didn’t happen exactly how I told you. He robbed me on the platform.”
“What?”
“It was during rush hour one afternoon, so there were tons of people there, all of them waiting for the same train as I was.”
I frowned as the memories unfurled in my mind, taking me back to that moment, back to those feelings, back to the second my life went from normal to unsteady. It wasn’t the physical pain that came from being held up or even the initial shock that did me in, though—it was the betrayal of it all. I wasn’t just robbed of my stuff. That man stole my sense of security too, and the people who did nothing only reinforced the reality.
I was alone. Utterly and completely alone.
“So, nobody stepped in? Even in that kind of a crowd? Nobody intervened?”
“Nope.” My answer hung in the air for a beat.
“I didn’t tell you all the details before because it’s so hard to talk about,” I added. “And for some reason, whenever I think about what happened, the fact that I was in the middle of that many people makes it all seem more painful. Like it says something about me, about who I am.”
“It doesn’t,” Robert replied. “You’re not the problem. You’re the victim.”
