A Whole New Crowd(82)

Then I murmured, with a slight frown, “You’ve been holding back.”
“What?”
“Why do you hold back? You’ve been treating me like I’m fragile.”
A slight chuckle. “I’m not holding back and you’re not fragile. You were mourning. There’s a difference.”
For two months we’ve held each other at night. He would pull me against his chest, wrap his arm around me, and caress my arm until I fell asleep. He had fed me. He reminded me to shower at times, even told to dress for school a few days. I’d been a mess, then I’d been angry and demanding as he taught me how to fight. And now, I wanted what he’d withheld from me. I wanted him. I wanted all of him.
“I’ve only slept with one other guy.”
“I know.”
“People have always called me a slut. They assumed I was experienced, but I’ve only been with Brian. He’s the first guy I let in.”
“Hey.” His finger went under my chin and he tipped my head up. “You’re feeling a lot of different emotions right now. You were sad for a while. You were angry. You wanted to hurt someone.” He gave me a half-grin. “You might always feel that, but now you’ve moved past some of those emotions. Wanting to have sex is normal. You’re alive. You want to live. I understand, but I’m not making one damn move on you until I know it’s pure. Until I know that afterwards, you’re going to want me again and again and again. That you’re not going to curl in a ball with self-loathing or guilt because you’re alive and he’s not.” As he said those words, his finger tightened under my chin and I was pulled slowly to him. He looked straight down into me. I felt as if he was seeing my soul. I was bare to him. All the lust, pain, fury, everything was stripped clean until he just saw me, whoever I was.
A lump formed in my throat and I swallowed over it, shoving it down. I didn’t want to feel that. It was awkwardness, it was self-consciousness, and it was pain. I was tired of feeling this emptiness.
He lowered his head, his lips just above mine. If he moved a fraction of an inch down or I pressed up, they would touch. I could feel the brush of him.
Another touch. That was what I wanted. I didn’t want just sex with him. Realizing that, feeling the hunger for more, I pulled back. My heart stopped and fear crashed into my chest. I’d felt this before, the last time I saw Brian, a few times before that. Tray was my equal. He was the all. He wouldn’t play games. He wouldn’t hold back. He was real. Brian had… I turned away from Tray as I realized the truth.
It wasn’t the same. I felt more with Tray than I did with Brian.
“Taryn?”
I shook my head and cleared my thoughts. Moving back to the punching bag, I hit it. It barely moved again.
“Taryn?”
I couldn’t talk so I swung again, then again. I didn’t care if the bag didn’t move. I was moving. I was doing what I needed. I wanted all the shit from inside me out of me. As I kept going, punch after punch, I imagined a huge dump truck coming in and scooping out all the crappiness from me. With a guttural cry, I switched my feet, switched my fighting stance, and swung with my left arm. Then I kept going.
Tray came to stand on the other side of the bag. He held it, hugging it, as I kept pounding. I didn’t care if my hands bled or if my knuckles bruised. My head went down and I kept hitting. I went until my arms wouldn’t lift and my body was exhausted. Even then, after an hour, I wanted to keep going. Too many emotions were still swirling inside me. They were slithering around like snakes and I couldn’t get them out. I didn’t know how anymore.



CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

“I thought Mandy dumped her friends.” I paused, then added, “Your friends.”
Tray chuckled. “She did, but I guess the girls went to visit her last night. Plus, Dylan’s in town again. This get-together is at his parent’s vacation house. I think he wants to try his hand with your sister since she dumped Devon.”
I frowned. “Why am I jealous that you know more about my sister and her friends than I do? I’m the girl. Isn’t that what we do? We get the gossip.”
He laughed again, turning onto a different street that headed out of town. “I think the girls would give you the info if they weren’t scared of you, and Mandy’s only been home a day. I only know because Dylan called to explain it all last night when he invited us.”
“She should be resting,” I paused again, “at our house.”
“Our house?” He threw me a grin.
I flushed and leaned back in my seat. I didn’t even know I had sat forward. “Mandy is delicate right now. She just left rehab. She should be around people who support her sobriety and understand it. This get-together is not a good idea. There’s going to be alcohol there. I’m sure there’s going to be triggers for her, whatever her triggers are.” Why didn’t I know? That was what was bothering me the most. I didn’t know.