Thick Love (Thin Love, #2)(7)
When the girl’s breaths evened out and she rolled to her side, I took her hand, laid next to her. “When you’re alone, when you want to feel this again, touch yourself deep.” I picked up her hand, kissed her knuckles. “Use those beautiful hips to ride your fingers.”
“O…okay.”
I liked that she was shy again, as though she was just realizing that it was her voice that shouted out into the room, her body that had washed over in pleasure. But the blush didn’t return.
“Don’t ever let anybody tell you what your body needs. Only you can know that and don’t you settle until you find someone that will give you what you need.”
“Ransom…”
I shook my head, knowing what she’d say. Knowing what the pull of her frowning lips meant. Sympathy. Pity. I’d seen it a hundred times before. “I’m good, sweetheart, really.”
“You…you were crying.”
It would be so damn easy to talk to this girl. She didn’t know me. She knew nothing about my folks or my baby brother or that my mother was about to have another one. She didn’t know about the years Mom and I spent in Nashville, how I’d know football superstar Kona Hale was my father since I was thirteen. Red didn’t know about all the f*ck ups I’d made. She didn’t know about my anger and my need to excel.
She didn’t know about the biggest shadow clouding my life. It had nothing to do with having successful, famous parents or the Great Love of theirs that the media loved to wax on and on about.
Red only knew what her friends had told her about me. She only knew that I was the first person to make her come. She knew nothing else, and sometimes it was easier telling a total stranger about all the bullshit weighing you down than your own blood.
But I couldn’t take the pity.
Finally, I reached down to drop a quick kiss against her lips. “Nah, sugar. Just a little sweat. You’re sweet to worry, but I’m fine. Really.”
“You look, I dunno. So lost.” Eyes snapping to hers, that defensive anger shot into my blood, but I pulled it back, reminding myself that she had no idea who I was. She was worried about me, a complete stranger worried about me. If she only knew how misplaced that concern was.
“I just thought maybe you would want…”
But I cut her off, standing to pick up her clothes. She dressed in silence with me waiting for her near the door. It was a little harsh, but seemed to work. They’d come for a release. I’d give it to them gladly, easily. There was no need to linger.
“Thank you, really.” Red looked me in the eyes, all the hints of shyness now absent from her features. She reached for my face, likely meaning to comfort me, but I pulled away from her, catching her hand before she did. Another smile and a single nod and the redhead didn’t try again. “You’re a good person, Ransom.”
Behind my closed eyelids, I said a little prayer, wishing that it could be true, and Red took her cue, leaving my room with the smell of her climax and the scent of lilac perfuming the air.
“No, sweetheart. I’m not good at all,” I whispered after her.
You didn’t get choices at this place. You got insistence. The staff meddled, they treated us all like celebrities because we dominated on the gridiron. I’d never get used to it no matter how much time I spent on the field.
In my room there was quiet, or at least there was the promise of it. But with that solace comes the eager demands thrown at me with a look, by the nagging tone of my teammates and that constant reminder in my father’s voice that this time in my life will only come once. Dad had lectured long about bonds to be made with the men who’d battle on the field right next to me. He’d sworn those friendships would last a lifetime. I didn’t want to disappoint anyone. I went back out to join the revelers.
“I’m telling you man, this ain’t some common titty bar.” I hated Trent Marshall’s stupid grin and the loud pitch of his voice over the club music. Earlier tonight, he’d sulked, pissed that Red’s friend hadn’t been interested in him. It was his idea that we all leave the crowd at the campus party.
Trent’s stupid laugh made my eye twitch and I tried to hold back the glare as that laughter kept getting louder. He had sandy brown hair cut scalp short except for a stupid layer of fringe that he’d flip out of his eyes with a toss of his head like he couldn’t bother with a trim or to manage his shaggy bangs with his fingers. No matter how much of an idiot he looked like, Trent wasn’t wrong. Summerland’s Burlesque Review was anything but a strip club. I’d only been there twice before, but each time felt that as soon as we moved behind the mahogany doors, we’d jumped back in time.
Every corner of the club was draped in rich, red textures like it was circus day at the Moulin Rouge. Red velvet draped the walls in fat swags, hardwood floors looked like melted chocolate under the deep, billowy couches. Settees cornered around the round stage in soft, black leather. Even the bite of sweet pipe smoke and very old bourbon added to the character of the place almost as much as the showgirls in their corsets and fishnets, or the aerialists overhead outfitted like glittering elves, swinging from the rafters on trapezes festooned with silks.
Marshall’s obnoxious whistle at the brunette on the stage dancing behind a white fan brought my attention back from the atmosphere and reminded me that I was in the company of a jackass.