Free Afterlife by Joey W. Hill Page B

bed. She felt so
    worthless, used up. A
    whole cauldron of emotions she
    couldn’t handle was
    bubbling up. Why the hel was she
    saying these things?
    Because she’d dreamed of having
    someone understand.
    No, she’d wanted someone she loved
    to understand. But
    no one loved her. And she was
    having to explain it to this
    handsome, charismatic man, a Master
    who could have
    anyone. Multiple anyones, such that a
    cop had thought she
    was “one of his”.
    The bed shifted as he rol ed off the
    other side and came
    around the end of the mattress. Any
    other time, she would
    have watched him, because she loved
    to watch him move.
    But today, seeing such a thing could
    lacerate her heart
    even more deeply. She wondered if a
    cardiac surgeon had
    ever been asked to do a heart
    transplant merely because
    the heart had been slashed to ribbons
    from too many
    serrated emotions.
    When he stood in front of her, she
    kept staring at the
    floor, her bare feet beneath the floppy
    cuffs of the pajamas
    braced on the bed railing. “Jon, I
    know this sounds so
    ungrateful, but can you please go?
    Just leave?”
    “Do you want me to leave?”
    “Yes.” She forced it past the hard
    lump in her throat. No,
    no, no.
    Reaching out, he stroked his hand
    through her limp,
    unwashed hair. She closed her eyes,
    not wanting to revel in
    the male strength in that touch, but
    unable to keep herself
    from turning her head into the stroke,
    pressing hard into the
    heel of his palm, holding there while
    his fingers made short
    caresses of the area around that
    pressure point. It was a
    long moment before he spoke.
    “For a year, you’ve kept me at arm’s
    length with that
    wedding ring, making me believe
    something that’s untrue. I
    should have fol owed my intuition
    sooner, because I knew it
    didn’t fit. I don’t pursue married
    women, and yet I kept
    coming back to your studio, unable to
    stop seeing you. I
    asked you a question just now, and
    you lied to me as wel .
    Rachel, look at me.”
    His fingers dropped to her chin.
    When she couldn’t
    manage the motion herself, thinking
    of how swol en and
    blotched her face must look, no
    makeup, he forced her face
    up to meet his intent gaze.
    “You won’t lie to me again. Do you
    understand?”
    With that trace of steel in his voice,
    her reality shifted.
    She was standing in an open
    doorway, and he was
    ordering her across the threshold.
    Her trembling soul
    recognized it, even as the rest of her
    wasn’t yet brave
    enough to wrap her mind around it.
    “Do you understand how to answer
    me, Rachel?”
    She swal owed. She couldn’t. He
    didn’t know how often
    she’d stood here. Her dangerous
    decision to visit Club
    More had been evidence of what
    taking that step could do
    to her. There’d never been anything
    across that threshold
    except a sickening drop into
    disappointment, humiliation
    and a complete loss of self-worth.
    She was at the bottom of
    that wel now, with nowhere left to go
    unless someone gave
    her a shovel to start digging. And she
    was terrified that was
    what this was.
    He dropped his touch from her chin,
    but only to turn his
    hand over, offer it to her. When she
    placed her hand in it,
    his fingers closed over hers.
    “Rachel.”
    “I can’t, Jon. I’m afraid.”
    “Good. An honest answer.” Tugging
    her off the bed, onto
    her feet, he walked backward toward
    her bathroom,
    bringing her with him. As he studied
    her features, his
    serious mouth curved unexpectedly.
    “You have such thick
    lashes,” he said. “A dol ’s lashes.
    And a mouth so soft and
    pink, it makes me think of your pussy,
    how soft and pink it
    must be.”
    Words so sensual and graphic at
    once. Though she
    knew men stil saw her as a sexual
    being, there was a
    significant difference between
    recognizing it and letting it
    in. Responding rather than blocking it
    off or neutralizing it.
    Her reservations, al the reasons she
    shouldn’t be doing
    this, were going down the drain as