Smoke Signals (36 page)

I WAS STILL
riding an emotional high from my talk with Mrs. Jernigan when Razor and I got home that night. She’d set my teeth on edge, but there was no chance I was going to allow her to make a mockery of us in front of her entire congregation. There would be thousands people in the church that day, not to mention all the ones watching on their televisions at home. Hundreds of thousands more? Maybe millions? More than enough of my life had already been broadcast for the whole world to see. I wasn’t going to do anything like that again unless it was something that I wanted, like the video we’d filmed for The End of All Things, and not something I’d been pushed into.

I was worth more than that.

While I might not always feel that way every moment of every day, I was starting to believe it. Like my counselor told me, I hadn’t started feeling worthless overnight, so there wasn’t any point thinking I could change how I felt about myself with a snap of the fingers. It was a process. And I was working the process.

In fact, I was even starting to like myself. Maybe someday I would love myself. That was the plan, at least. So far, so good.

Tonight, I wanted to harness the energy flowing through me from that confrontation and use it to seduce my husband. Because, after months of physical therapy and counseling, I was ready. Or at least I thought I was. We wouldn’t know for certain until he was inside me, but I wanted to take that step.

We hadn’t been speaking much on the way home, but it was a comfortable silence. Razor reached for my hand and threaded his fingers through mine. When I glanced down, his reddened, swollen knuckles filled my gaze.

“Why did you fight him?” I asked, sliding my thumb over the injured flesh and remembering how my stomach had jumped into my throat while it happened. I’d been to enough hockey games by now to know that fighting sometimes took place on the ice, but Razor had never been involved in them when I’d watched before. Knowing that the guys who fought almost always stayed in the game afterward wasn’t much consolation in the heat of the moment. I’d wanted to close my eyes, but I couldn’t out of fear that I’d miss seeing him get seriously injured, and I wouldn’t know it had happened.

The corner of Razor’s lips twitched up. “Because he’s more of an asshole than I am.”

“You’re not asshole. You’re good man.”

“Still think so after I picked a fight?” He chuckled. “I guess I’ll never convince you I’m not as good as you think I am. But you make me want to be that man.”

Maybe none of us ever saw ourselves the way we truly were. If Razor couldn’t recognize what a kind heart he had, I supposed it only made sense that I had a hard time seeing myself the way he saw me.

I lifted his hand so I could kiss his knuckles. We didn’t talk the rest of the way home. I was nervous, thinking about how to go about initiating sex once we got there. He’d rejected so many of my previous efforts—for good reason, of course, but that was beside the point—that I’d lost much of my confidence in that area.

My cell phone chimed with a text message when we got inside. I was half tempted to ignore it so I could get started seducing Razor, but he raised his eyebrows in question.

“Aren’t you going to see what Tallie wants now?”

“Might not be Tallie,” I said, laughing. But I dug my phone out of my purse and slid my finger across the screen to unlock it.

And it wasn’t from Tallie. The message was from Devin.

Here’s a quick and dirty draft of the video. They still haven’t finished editing it, but I thought you’d want to see what they’ve done so far.

He’d included a link to download the video.

“So? Is she still trying to spring the kid on us tonight?”

“Devin sent video so I can watch.”

“Yeah? Let’s send it to the iPad and watch it on the TV.”

I didn’t have a clue how to do that, so I handed Razor my phone and let him take over. He stripped off his jacket and tie, undoing the top couple of buttons of his shirt before starting on the electronics. Only a few minutes passed before we were side by side on the couch, his arm draped casually around my shoulders. We propped our feet up on the coffee table next to the Russian music box Dmitri had given me for my birthday. Then we were ready to watch the video I’d spent weeks working on.

It started with the bass and drums. The corps of other dancers in their dark costumes creeped along the floor, their movements halting and jerky. Images of the band playing on a roof at night popped up, interspersed with the dancers.

Then other images came in, which I hadn’t been expecting. A man and woman. She looked an awful lot like me.

The shots of the couple were dark, and so brief it was hard to get a good sense of what was going on with them at first. But then it became clear.

He was abusing her.

Physically.

Sexually.

My stomach churned, and I wanted to turn it off. As soon as I reached that point, the music changed and I was on screen in my phoenix costume. I was in bright reds and oranges, and the fabric draped off my arms and fluttered behind me, creating wings that changed shape as I moved through the choreography Devin had created. I’d known during rehearsals that his vision would be beautiful once we saw it realized, but I’d never expected this. I truly
was
the phoenix rising from the ashes.

The other dancers lifted me into the air and raced toward the camera.

And I flew.

Shivers raced up my spine as the shots of me mixed with images of the band as the sun rose behind them. Dawn. A new day. A fresh start. It was all the things Razor had given me, wrapped up in a three-minute music video.

“Are you seeing what I’m seeing?” Razor asked. He sounded awed, the same as I felt.

“I don’t know. What do you see?”

“You. Exactly as you are. Exactly as you should be. Thriving and powerful and ten times more beautiful than anything I’ve ever seen before.”

I couldn’t take my eyes off the screen, completely mesmerized by the vision they’d made of me. “It is beautiful,” I said once it ended.

“
You
are.”

He’d called me beautiful countless times in the last several months. He’d even used it as my name sometimes, as if
beautiful
was
me
and
I
was
beautiful
, like the two were intricately linked, and maybe even inseparable. I’d always shrugged it off before, much as he tried to convince me he wasn’t the good man I knew him to be. But this time, for the first time, I wasn’t itching to tell him how wrong he was.

All I wanted was to believe he was right.

Breathing hard, like I’d just danced instead of watching myself dance, I set my hand on his thigh. His muscles tensed under my touch. When I looked down, his arousal made itself known. His hard length strained against his pants. It might not be so difficult to seduce him, after all.

“Razor?” My voice cracked on the word.

“Hmm?”

“I want you to fuck me. For real. I want you, not dilators. Your cock. Inside me.”

He went completely still and silent, and he stayed that way for so long I was sure he was about to reject me again. To tell me no. To say he couldn’t do that, he couldn’t do anything that might hurt me even if it was something I desperately wanted. No, at this point I didn’t just want it, I
needed
it. I needed the sort of connection we hadn’t been able to have the entire time we’d been married.

I needed
him
.

But, for whatever reason, he wasn’t going to give it to me.

I tried to shift myself out from under his arm, but he slipped it down to my waist and tugged me closer.

“Are you sure you’re ready?” His voice was deeper than normal. Rough.

“Can’t know for sure until we try.”

“True enough.” With his other hand, he tipped my chin up until I met his gaze. “But I’m not going to fuck you.”

I blinked back tears and tried to leave again.

“I will make love to you, though.”

“Oh.” The word came out soft and airy, like the fabric wings that had floated behind me when I’d portrayed the phoenix.

He kissed the end of my nose. “Is that all right?”

It was better than all right. It was everything.

I got up so I could straddle him, putting my arms over his shoulders and resting them on the back of the sofa. He let his hands roam up my sides and down my thighs, teasing me by not touching where I wanted him to.

“Don’t let me hurt you,” he said, low and reverent. A plea. Maybe even a prayer.

“I won’t.” Then I kissed him, taking his lower lip between mine and suckling.

He groaned loud enough that I backed off.

“Sorry,” he said. “It’s a little tender. Koz must have hit me there.”

I couldn’t stop my smile. “You didn’t know it before now?”

“Adrenaline. It masks a lot of things.”

I bent and kissed his jaw instead, letting my tongue trace the strong, square line of it. “Better?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“Don’t let me hurt you,” I teased.

He shifted his hands to grasp my ass and squeezed, laughing. “You already are. But I promise, it’s the best kind of hurt. Don’t stop.”

I lifted my shirt up and over my head. Before I’d even gotten my arms free, he’d already buried his face in the cleft of my breasts. He breathed in deeply and licked my skin.

“Have you always worn this vanilla scent?”

“I started when I danced in strip clubs.” I tossed the shirt behind me and cupped the back of his head, drawing him closer. “Girls who made money all wore it.”

“Hmm. It makes you smell good enough to eat.”

I laughed. “You’ve already done that.”

“And I can do it again.” To underscore his words, he pushed the cup of my bra aside and nibbled on the sensitive flesh close to my nipple. My tit puckered immediately, and he flicked it with his tongue while he reached behind me to unhook the bra.

“I want you naked,” I said when he moved his attention to the other newly bared breast.

“I want you so slick I’ll be able to slide right in. I swear, Tori, I’ve wanted this for so long. And once I’m inside you there’s not a fucking chance I’ll last long, so I need you ready to come with me.”

“I am. Wet. Ready.”

“Is that so?” He moved his attention to the fly of my pants and undid them enough that he could slip a hand inside. One finger slipped between my outer lips. “You are,” he murmured.

I rocked my hips forward, seeking more of his touch, and moaned when one of his fingers brushed over my clit. “More, Razor.”

He threaded the fingers of his other hand through my hair, bringing me down for a kiss. His tongue tangled with mine, mimicking the way he was teasing my pussy.

I didn’t want to mess around anymore. I’d been in love with this man for weeks, maybe months, now, and I wanted to feel him inside me. I undid the remaining buttons on his shirt and pushed it back over his shoulders. His chest muscles flexed under my fingers as I dug his undershirt out of his waistband, driving my hands up under the soft material until I had them on his bare flesh.

“You’re not going to slow down, are you?” he asked, amusement mixing with desire.

“Naked. Now.” I went to work on his belt buckle, but he lifted me off his lap, set me on my feet before him, and got up.

“Come on, beautiful. I want to do this right.” He took my hand and headed for the bedroom, and I had to hurry to keep up with his determined strides.

As soon as we were there, he whipped off the rest of his clothes. I bit down on my lower lip and shimmied out of my pants. By the time I was free of every stitch of clothing, he’d taken a condom out of the nightstand drawer and was ripping the packaging open.

I lay down on my back, reaching for him.

Razor shook his head. “I want you on top, baby. So you can be in control. At least to start, until we know if you can handle it.”

He climbed into the bed next to me and stretched out on his back, stroking his cock a couple of times now that the condom was in place.

With nerves making my heart pound as much as desire, I climbed over him. Braced myself with my hands on his chest. Our eyes locked together. He rubbed the head of his cock up and down my slit, stopping to circle my clit a few times before guiding himself inside me.

An inch at a time, I lowered myself onto him. Until I’d taken all of him. Every inch. I felt stretched. Full.

But no pain.

I rolled my hips and clenched my internal muscles around him.

“Fuck, baby.” His eyes were almost black with lust.

Rising up off him, I picked up a rhythm.

His hips rose when mine fell, matching my movements. And his hands were everywhere. My ass. My breasts. My belly.

He took a handful of my hair and brought me down to him. I thought for a kiss, but no. He held my face a hairsbreadth above his, staring into my eyes as he moved within me. “No pain?”

“No pain.”

“Thank fuck for that, because this is the closest I’ll ever get to heaven.”

His strong arms came around me, wrapping me up in his love as we moved together. Slow. Deep. The friction was intense. The heat was explosive. With each thrust, I came closer to melting into him. He slid my body up and down over his, grinding my clit against his pelvic bone.