Blow(72)

Up until that night, the very idea of having sex made me physically ill.

But that night, his grunts and groans turned me into someone else. He was calling this woman Susan. He was begging her to take her clothes off. It was his and my mother’s wedding anniversary and I thought he’d really lost it. What kind of game was he playing with this woman? Her name couldn’t possibly be Susan.

When he said, “But baby, I need to be inside you,” I lost it. I couldn’t take it anymore. Although I knew better than to leave my room, I did it anyway. I was seventeen now. What was he going to do? Whip me with his belt? I doubted it. Kick me out of the house? I could only be so lucky.

With my heart pounding in my chest, I stormed right out my door and right into the living room. I didn’t think about what I’d be walking into. Or maybe I didn’t care. Who knows?

My father was strewn on the sofa with his uniform pants at his ankles and those black tied shoes that echoed throughout the house whenever he walked were still on. A naked woman sat on top of him, facing those damn shiny shoes. He had a nearly empty whiskey bottle in one hand and the woman’s ponytail in the other.

The sight sickened me.

She was riding him but stopped when she saw me in the entryway. “You want to join us?” she purred.

My father jerked her ponytail. “Did I tell you stop?”

“No, sir,” she answered. She was young, not much older than me.

“Did I tell you to talk?” he said, even harsher.

Had he been like that with my mother?

God, I hoped not.

The thought sickened me and I swallowed the lump in my throat. I dropped my gaze and looked away. Wanting to escape, I moved toward the front door on shaky legs. I had to get out of there.

I was almost free when he snapped, “Gabrielle.”

I froze. Even as a near graduate, he still frightened me.

“Don’t be so weak,” he muttered.

“I’m not weak,” I shot back.

He looked at me like he had when I was younger and disobeyed him, like when he’d whipped me with his belt—the same belt that was now at his ankles—and in that moment I was weak. However, his words were nothing like the “you will be obedient” speech I’d received with each lashing. No, his slurred words cut deeper than that belt ever had. “You might want to stay and watch to learn a few things from a pro. Being good at sex is the only thing you’re going to have to offer a man.”

Sex. His whole being seemed to be about sex. I hated him. I hated my sister for being weak and leaving me with him. And in that moment, I hated my mother for letting it go on so long. Why wasn’t she stronger?

And what was it about sex that turned him into the monster he was?

With nowhere to go, I ran to one of the gyms on base where I’d been training with a number of new recruits. In the years since my mother’s death, I was determined to be strong. Stronger than my sister or my mother ever were.

Strength wasn’t only physical—I knew that. But I also knew it would protect me. And I needed something to protect me.

The place was open twenty-four/seven and I knew someone would be there who’d want me. That night I picked a man and gave myself to him. It hurt, physically and emotionally, but it was quick. When it was done, I felt more lost than I had before—it meant nothing. I felt nothing. Sex really was meaningless.



Logan’s breath blew warm across my shoulder, and I made myself push that dark and tainted memory from my mind. With him everything felt different. Maybe I had been wrong. Maybe, just maybe, sex could be meaningful. Maybe I had been going at it the wrong way this whole time. I had been looking for what it was that turned my father into the man he was instead of allowing myself to figure out what I needed from the act itself.

And with Logan I knew what it was. I wanted to give myself to him and in turn to feel what it was like for someone to give himself to me. We might have just met, we might only be f*cking, but we were both pouring ourselves into what we were doing.

Together, we moved with wild abandon; we gave freely to each other. It was the give and take that mattered the most and I loved every minute of it.

Beating hearts with pulling and pushing bodies and ragged breathing was what we were, and I relished in it.

His desire-laced voice whispered, “Let go.”

By the time those two words traveled and his breath blew hot against my skin as his mouth sought out my ear, I was already tipping, ready to free-fall into the pleasure that was building within me. My pulse pounded. My heart beat rapidly. His words pushed me over the edge rather than forcing me to retreat. I even had to bite my lip to stop the passionate cry I felt in my throat.

In an unexpected move, his bare chest met my bare back and he reached for my hands, intertwining our fingers and pulling our connected hands toward our connected bodies. The tenderness of the moment was too much and I couldn’t stop the strangled cry I’d been holding back.

With my eyes squeezed tightly shut, my body took over and I could do nothing but feel. With all thoughts destroyed, I absorbed the delicious fullness of having him inside me. Without warning, an unexpected sensation overtook me. And it didn’t pass. Each joyous beat of my climax drove that glorious feeling of having him inside me higher and higher until I was soaring in ecstasy.

Logan’s thrusts slowed as soon as my * began to tighten around his cock. His fingers squeezed mine when his body stilled. His grunting sigh echoed beautifully in my ear as he, too, experienced what we both obviously needed—a release.