Thick Love (Thin Love, #2)(66)

But Ransom had a way of making even a request sound sweet and he pulled me toward him with the stretch of his hand and the downward cast of his dark eyes. That look had me moving, drawn to him because I cared. Drawn to him because he was all I wanted.

He took my hand and I straddled his wide legs, fitting against him as I had the first time. But the music did not lull me now, it didn’t move me like it had before and this time Ransom’s voice wasn’t calming me, telling me how it would be okay, to pretend that we wanted each other because Ironside watched. This time, he wanted me. Or rather, he wanted the anonymous dancer.

“You’re beautiful,” he said, sliding his hands over my hips to rest on my lower back. “So f*cking beautiful.”

In the back of my mind he wasn’t speaking to the dancer. There was no war paint hiding my skin, no wig protecting who I was from this man. I heard Ransom whispering to me, Aly, like he meant it, like he knew who I was and still thought I was beautiful. But it was a dream, a lie I chose to believe because I wanted him. This wasn’t real, and even though I desperately wanted it to be otherwise, the way he touched me, his deep focus on me, didn’t give me nearly the same pleasure it had before.

So I pretended again because he needed me to. I willfully forgot everything else and inhaled, steeling myself to simply perform, letting the music take me away from that small, private room and the man who believed I was someone else.

The song lowered, slipped into another track and I steadied myself on the back of the chair, keeping my eyes shut tight as I came to my knees and worked a smaller, more intimate dance over his body. My hips rolled and popped, rubbing against him, and I got a little lost then, slowing my movements when the melody crawled, when that breathy background music slipped across my skin.

Ransom’s fingers stayed steady on my hips, but he didn’t guide me, didn’t seem able to do anything but follow my body, maybe needing that touch to keep him centered. I turned my head, still lost in that music, but glanced at his knuckles, and the small scratches across his skin reminded me of the day before when he’d been tortured by the roses and the reminder of Emily’s birthday. In the guise of the dancer, I reached out and pulled his hand to my lips, kissing each mark, hoping that somehow it might help to heal him, might let him know this was more than just a performance.

But it was foolish to think that this simple, gentle gesture would be able to break the spell of the powerful eroticism of the dance; Ransom’s breath came out not in a sigh of relief or pleasure, but in a lustful grunt, and he moved his fingers away from my mouth, to grip my hips again, tight.

“I love when you touch me,” he said, voice a little loud with the hint of restlessness in his tone. “Don’t stop.”

It was like taunting a starving lion with the freshest cut of bloody meat. A little groan moved in the back of my throat and I slid my fingers in his hair, closing my eyes and he pulled me close, his mouth came to my chest, hands gripping on my waist. And the faster I moved my hips, trying to keep up the pretense that I did this all the time, the harder he touched me, like he was needy, like only my skin would cool his burning fingers.

“God, I need this. I f*cking need this so much,” he said, running his tongue beneath my collarbone, dipping his nose in my cleavage. “This is, okay. This is…this is fine.”

He sounded like he was trying to convince himself that touching me, having my body under his hands wasn’t wrong. Like he needed to convince himself that he was not broken. “Just…just you…only you touch me,” he said, fingernails smoothing down my back. “She…she won’t be mad.”

I stopped moving. The sensation of his large hands on me, his breath dampening against my skin felt cold. Ransom looked up at me, likely wondering why I’d pulled away and I saw the same desperation in his eyes that had been there when he’d left his car and all those red roses behind him. He wasn’t with me. He wasn’t with the dancer. I was a body to hold on to while his mind warred and debated with the memory of Emily and the guilt her loss had created.

He blinked twice and kept his hands on my waist as though he wanted me to speak, like it had to be me who gave him permission to keep touching me. But I couldn’t. Not another second. This broke me, completely—Ransom being so lost, so blind to what was right in front of him, to the happiness I could give him because he’d never let go of his guilt. It would always be there. So would Emily, and the realization toppled me hard, so that I felt the foreign burn in my eyes, tears that never came from me, stinging behind my lashes.

I stood, awkwardly scooted away from him, but he didn’t let go of my waist. “I can’t do this.” He let me pull his hand free, but still sat up, coming closer as I stepped back. “Not with you.”

“Why?” Ransom, said, reaching for me. “What’s wrong with me? Didn’t you like the way I touched you the first time?”

It had been all I’d thought of for days afterward. Ransom touching me deep, making me feel something besides worry and exhaustion; modi, why not just say it? Making me come, and come hard. God, I’d loved it. But this? Right now? No, I couldn’t do it. I wouldn’t. Not when I knew, to him, I wouldn’t ever be anything but a replacement.

His expression was worried, eyes squinted as though he didn’t understand why I stood away from him, why I wouldn’t let him touch me. I knew the second I explained myself that this would be over. The same kind of moment I had when I decided to leave my father’s home and never looked back. Hard, but necessary. I was good at taking care of myself. I had to be and though it would kill me, it would break me in so many ways, I could not be around him if he could never fully be with me. I could not be constantly reminded what I could have given him, if he’d only have let me.