Page 18 of Only For Your Touch
Chapter Six
“Thank you.”
Corrine’s murmur brushed over Sasha’s chest, the puff of her breath cooling his overheated, damp skin. A deep, heavy lethargy weighed down his limbs, infiltrated his bones. Another of the new things he’d never experienced before Corrine. Usually, after sex, a restless energy filled him, as if the orgasm left him wired. He’d never been drained…or complete. And he’d never lain beside a woman, content to have her draped over him like a blanket.
This—she—was an aberration, and the knowledge that it couldn’t last, thattheycouldn’t last, was the only thing prohibiting panic from sinking its claws into him.
“For what?” he asked. Unable to stop himself, he picked up a thick strand of her fiery hair and twisted it around his finger, thankful she’d removed the wig so he could touch the hair that had fascinated him from the very first. He waited for her reply, and when it didn’t come, he cupped her chin and nudged her head back. “For what?” he repeated.
Her long, thick lashes lowered, hiding her eyes from him. “I bet no one tells you what to do,” she said instead of answering his question.
He frowned, not grasping the meaning of her reply. He’d been speaking English for nearly twenty-two years, but sometimes this woman’s conversation made him wonder if some phrases still eluded him.
“Of course people have told me what to do,” he said. “Not lately, though.” Excluding the past few nights with her. His cock stirred at just the thought of her kneeling before him, controlling him even as he had his dick buried in her throat. Or of her straddling him, fucking him with slow, torturous slides.
She was right; not many people dared order him around. Since his father had issued his ultimatum, then disowned him, Sasha had maintained control over his own life.
Power was important, especially when involved in the mob. People would use and abuse if a person allowed it. In a world where trust was scarce and guarding your back was a necessity, he’d ensured no one would ever have him at their mercy. But being in constant control, always regarding others with suspicion, never letting go, was exhausting. And when Corrine had taken some of that power, demanding he submit some of that strength into her keeping, letting him justbefor only a little while, he’d trusted her.
And it’d felt so goddamn good.
For once in longer than he could remember, he’d handed over that control, relieved that he could release it and in return receive an ecstasy that had shattered every concept of sex and pleasure he’d experienced and possessed.
She had no idea of the gift she’d given him. Of the power she wielded.
Of the fear she instilled.
“There has never been a time in my life where someone wasn’t handing out rules, making demands, issuing orders, and expecting me to follow them,” she said. “And for the most part, I did obey them. Maybe because it was easier to, maybe because I believed in the course they wanted me to travel. I don’t know. But in twenty-four years, I haven’t been in control of my own life, had no significant say-so. Until tonight.” Her lashes lifted, and her green eyes twisted something in his chest. “You gave me a glimpse of what it feels like to be strong, to take charge and own it.”
“You are strong, Corrine,” he murmured, brushing her tangled hair back from her face. “Brave. Sometimes it takes more strength to be still and quiet than to move. Maybe you just weren’t ready before. But someone once told me, it isn’t what you’ve done that defines you, but who you choose to be from this moment on.” His mother had uttered those words to him when he’d been lying in a hospital bed after having been shot.
“I’m so scared,” she rasped, jerking her head free of his grip on her chin and curling into him. As if she couldn’t face him for the confession. “Of everything. Of the life I’m walking back into as soon as I leave here. Of the brothers, cousins, and friends who are now strangers, as more and more things come out about the world I’ve blindly grown up in. Of…of my father,” she whispered. “Do you know C. Dunn?”
The switch in topics threw him, and for a second, he struggled to keep up. What did a sports columnist for an online newspaper have to do with her father? Or her, for that matter. “Yes. The sports journalist forThe Beantown Globe. But I don’t see—”
“I’m C. Dunn,” she stated, tone flat.
Shock nailed him in the chest like a wildly thrown haymaker. He sat up, carrying her with him, his hands on her shoulders. His mind rifled through what he knew of the columnist: obviously knew his—no,her—sports, was witty, interesting, and hilarious, and a fanatic when it came to Boston’s home teams. Sasha couldn’t remember seeing a picture of the journalist, and then recollections of Corrine’s sports references and staunch defense of the Sox and Patriots ran through his head.Damn.
She crossed her arms over her chest, and the defensive gesture warred with the vulnerable tremble of her mouth. What? Did she expect him to ridicule her? Laugh?
“That’s fucking amazing,” he said, awe filling him. “God, Corrine,” he said, chuckling.
Some of the defiance leaked from her expression, uncertainty replacing it. “You believe me?”
“Why wouldn’t I? Does the site know who you are?”
She nodded. “But I asked them to keep it a secret. Not only is it something that’s all mine, but…” Her expression darkened, and her arms tightened around her chest. “Do you know what my father would’ve done if he’d found out his daughter, who was supposed to be finding a husband and having babies, wrote asports column? My parents, especially my father, have clearly defined ideas of who they want their daughter to be, and writing about baseball and football is not included in them. It didn’t—doesn’t—fit in with who he demands I should be. He would’ve forced me to quit, threatened my editor, and ruined the newspaper. And I knew what he was capable ofbeforeI found out who he really was.” She loosed a harsh bark of laughter. “How stupid does that make me?”
“Corrine…” He drew her closer, but she scooted away from him, taking the sheet to wrap under her arms and over her breasts like a shield.
“No.” She scooped a handful of her hair out of her face and shook her head, holding out a hand, halting his words. “The man who tucked me in at night…the man who walked me into school my first day of kindergarten…the man who stood and applauded the loudest at my high school and college graduations…he’s the same man who has pimped women, peddled drugs, and ordered murders. Maybe he didn’t personally stand on those corners dealing or shoot the guns, I don’t know. But he headed the organization that did. What would he have done to the people who had helped his daughter defy him? What would he have done to me? I hate myself for asking myself that question. Hate myself more because I don’t know the answer.”
Christ. Were these the same thoughts that had run through his mother’s head about him? Had she seen the son she’d raised and sacrificed for as a monster? He closed his eyes, exhaled, but the suffocating pressure in his lungs didn’t ease. Because he knew—heknew—the confusion and hurt that darkened Corrine’s eyes were a perfect reflection of what his mother had felt during the years she’d lived with the knowledge that her son was a criminal.
“Sasha?” Corrine’s hand cupped his jaw, and on instinct, he turned his mouth into her palm, seeking the heat his newfound revelation had leeched from his body. “Sasha, what’s wrong?”
“I’m just like your father.” He let the bald statement hang in the air between them.
