Fire In His Eyes (Secrets & Seduction #1)(2)
“No, please,” I whimpered. He slammed himself into me, taking my virginity, as pain seared through me. It hurt so badly. “Help!” I cried softly.
He grunted above me, pushed a few dozen times as I continued to whimper, and cry out softly.
“Hey! What’s going on here?” I heard a startled voice call out.
“Help, please!” I managed to get out.
“Get off her! Burt? Monica?” It was a small town.
Burt hastily got off me, and quickly pulled up his pants. He ran, knocking Marah’s brother, Richard, down on his way out of the alley.
Richard and Bonnie, his girlfriend at the time, helped me up. They took me to Marah’s.
I didn’t call the police. I was too ashamed. I was seventeen, drunk, and I believed it was my fault. I swore everyone to secrecy, and blamed myself for a very, very long time.
“Listen to me! You have to get right back in the saddle. You have kept yourself on the shelf way too long.” Ana’s voice coming through the phone brokered no argument. What Ana had to say was true, an understatement, to say the least. I had not done much SADDLE RIDING in my life and just recently found myself enjoying it.
When I did not respond and merely sighed in response, Ana continued. “Come on, Monica, you had fun with Dan, don’t let the disappointment of it not being long-term make you afraid to try again. You didn’t even love him. You both knew that relationship was going nowhere. You just liked the sex.” That, too, was an understatement and so like Ana. Blunt and honest to the core. The truth was, Dan had been fun. He was safe, funny, and a good friend with benefits. I never had to worry about him hurting me, and he taught me a lot about myself and about sex. I had denied myself for over ten years until Dan came along because I was too afraid of getting hurt and reliving that nightmare. How he had laughed when he met the twenty-eight year old “virgin.”
“I know,” I groaned into the receiver. “It’s just that Dan was not complicated. He was fun and nice.”
“Nice and easy and safe. Too safe. He was a friend, and I am glad I introduced you, but he has been transferred out of state, and you need to have a real relationship.”
“I am not looking for a relationship. I am only thirty and have plenty of time for a relationship.”
“Listen, Mon, you have done wonders in the past three years; you have dropped a ton of weight, finally got the counseling you needed all those years ago, learned to enjoy the pleasures of the flesh, but now you gotta live, too! Dan was safe, but I don’t want to see you dry up like some old hag on a shelf.”
“Ana, I am only thirty,” I repeated. “Plenty of time. Dan’s been gone only a year.”
“But a year without sex is a long time. You need to learn how to trust and have fun. You had that nightmare for a reason, Monica. You have not been out on the town in over a year. You haven’t had a date, a real date, since Dan left. You are getting into those Obsessive Compulsive Disorders again. I noticed your dishes the last time I was there.”
“I just like things neat,” I replied.
“Your patterns all faced in the same direction.”
I winced, even though she couldn’t see it. What she said was true. I had made a lot of progress in three years, but these last few months, I had noticed old patterns creeping back in. Defensive patterns that made me feel in control. Counting my steps, placement of objects, repetitive patterns. “Dan made me feel safe, Ana,” I repeated her earlier words.
“But you did not love Dan. Yeah, he oiled the tubes, but sex is better when it is with someone you love, not a partner to practice with, that is why you gotta put yourself out there. You gotta take a risk. You gotta stick more than your toes in the water, you gotta take the plunge, grab the bull by the horns!”
“You are such a horn dog!” I giggled. My sister was a nympho at eighteen, I swear. Knowing she would just keep hounding me until she got her way, I knew I would have to give in. The determined free spirit that was Ana, always got her way. She had our grandfather, and father wrapped around her little finger, and at thirty-four, had a slew of romantic entanglements on her hands. At thirty, I guess I was about to embark on relationship number two, or three, if you counted the unrequited love I had for my high school crush. “Okay, what do you suggest I do?” I relented.
“Yessssss!!!!,” she hissed. “I knew you would see it my way. Well, I know this club down in Tampa . . .” Ana began.
“A club!?” I panicked, the old fear resurfacing, as I held the phone to my ear with one hand and twisted my long brown hair around my finger with the other. “You never mentioned a club before!”
“What do you want to do? Go to the grocery store and check out guys for rings, or have me drag you into Home Depot and ask every cute guy if he is single? You’re such a virgin! You want a loaf of bread you go to the bakery, if you want a man you go to da club.” I couldn’t help but laugh at the way my sister spoke. We were like night and day, but she was always the one and only who could pull me out of my funk. “Listen, I will be with you,” she added reassuringly.
“All right, give me some details, please.” You couldn’t argue with Ana for long. When she had her mind made up, it was just a matter of time before you gave in.
“All right. The place is called the Blue Martini, and it is ladies’ night tomorrow night so all the single guys will be on the prowl and buying us drinks to get us into bed. Wear something tight and sexy. I am wearing those black slacks and that glittery gold tank top, the one with the sequins. Wear a skirt and show off those long legs of yours, okay?”