Page 68 of Give You Up

“He has to be. He wanted the reason, and without my prompting, Rhett gave it.”

After we made love last night, I filled Taron in on what I discussed with Rhett and Hunter. I didn’t hold anything back except for my history with the two guys. Taron’s number of sex partners is high, and his sexual encounters, raunchy, from what the girls he’s slept with have posted online, but that doesn’t mean I am ready to kiss and tell my sordid past.

If I do, I’ll want to tell him of my miscarriage and pregnancy. That’s just how I am. One truth spills from me, and then another, and soon, I will be giving him my mom’s deathbed confession, that she slept with Taron’s dad.

That Taron’s dad was one of her regular clients. How can I destroy his pristine view of his loving and kind father? I can’t. The other kids said mean things behind his back. Accused his dad of cheating. But again, what if my mom is spinning more lies? What if she’s doing so out of spite, to get back at Taron’s mom for somehow coming between her and Gary?

A love triangle? My mom’s secret life as an escort? Gary in love with Taron’s mom and Taron’s mom hiding her feelings for him, staying instead in a loveless marriage? It’s enough to give me a headache, a real one, and not the small lie I told Taron and Dom.

“Hey, you okay, Pixie Dust?”

“Yes, why?”

“Your fingers are digging into my thigh, babe.”

I glance down. Sure enough, I have a death grip on Taron’s leg. I relax my hold on him.

“Sorry about that. I was thinking over how we can bring Rhett in proximity to Natalie without a full-blown disaster happening. If it were me in her shoes, I would bawl, then go for his balls with my hands, followed by a swift kick to the balls.”

Taron’s gaze drops to my hand on his thigh. Goes high until he is looking at my mouth. He licks his lips.

“You’re turning me on with the tough talk.”

“Yeah?”

“Hell yeah.”

“Show me.” I caress up and down his thigh.

Not one to back down from a challenge or pass up the chance of touching me, Taron picks up my chair and sets it down so that we are knee to knee. He leans in, and keeping his eyes on mine, he coasts his fingers over my skin, from the sensitive spot behind my ear to the crook of my neck. I tremble from his soft caress. Sigh when his mouth follows the same path.

Ache with fiery need when he slides the strap of my tank top and bra down my arm. What he is doing with his mouth, leaving behind wet kisses, is what I would like him to do to my sex.

I clamp my legs together. Close my eyes. Feel everything. His soft warm lips on my heated flesh. His fingers interlacing with mine. His mouth on the points of my knuckles. The tip of his tongue whispering over each ring on my right hand.

“Taron.”

“Babe, I want you.”

“I want you too.”

“Where should I take you this time?”

Dare cancelled on me, instructing me to spend the day with Taron. That we can regroup in the evening for a barbeque and a pool party. I was fine with that. So was Taron. We were so fine with the change of plan and the free time that we made love on my bed, the couch, in the shower, and me with my ass hanging off the kitchen table.

Afterward, we wiped down every surface we made love on. Except we missed something. I open my eyes. Taron’s white T-shirt is a crumpled stained mess on my bedroom floor. I should have kicked his shirt under my bed.

He has so many shirts, he wouldn’t miss one, anyway. I stare at the shirt for too long. Taron picks up on my anxiety and looks where I’m looking. The bloodstain on his shirt is glaringly obvious with the sun shining in through the windows above my bed.

“Did I hurt you?” He caresses down the side of my face.

“You didn’t. You inside me feels so good. But there are times I bleed after sex. If you don’t want to do it anymore, I understand. It’s my fault my body is sensitive.”

I stare at my hands balled in my lap. Here comes the judgement. That I’m strange. Or not woman enough to take a man’s erection without bleeding.

“Sensitive? Babe, if your pussy cocooning and milking my cock until I can’t think worth a damn is ‘sensitive,’ then we’ll be doing it until the moon stops circling the earth.”

“That’s never.” I lift my head. “Or at least, not in our lifetime.”

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