Page 44 of Crash
This time, I allowed my lips to meet his, parting them with a sigh. His tongue grazed my own, and I shuddered at the unfamiliar contact, but it felt so good that I allowed him to deepen his hold on me. His lips became firmer, his touch more desperate and forgetting himself, he raised his hands and cupped my face, holding me in place.
Images flashed into my mind, bad things…the feeling of not being able to escape overwhelmed me, driving away the pleasure I felt at the taste of Lincoln’s mouth on my own, and my eyes flew open.
Tearing my lips from his, I pressed my hands against his chest and shoved hard. Instantly, he broke away, giving me my space. That was the thing about Lincoln that I’d known all along. He wasn’t Hammer. Not by a long shot.
“Did I do something?” he asked, his voice heavy with desire.
I bit my bottom lip because, if I opened my mouth, I’d cry, and once I started, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to stop. If I opened my mouth, I’d ruin it all.
I wanted to touch him, and I wanted him to touch me…but I couldn’t… It was so long ago, but I could still seehim.
Lincoln stared down at me, his expression full of questions…and concerns.
“I’m sorry,” I finally choked out.
“You don’t have to be,” he said through a heavy breath, his gaze dropping to my lips. “I get it.”
“Do you?”
“I mightn’t understand what it’s like, Violet, but I get it enough to understand your reaction.”
My eyes widened. I wished he didn’t have to. I wished I could kiss him hard and touch him in all the places I’d fantasied about without the fear coming back. The fear that still wouldn’t leave me no matter what I seemed to do.
“Violet—”
“Can we talk about this later?” I asked hastily, my cheeks heating.
He nodded once before biting on his bottom lip. He raised his hand and lightly brushed my hair behind my ear. His fingertips grazed the shell of my ear, but it was the only part of him that he allowed to touch me. I knew why he was doing it, but it still hurt.
“Later,” he murmured and edged backward, opening up the space between us.
As the door closed behind him, I sagged against the desk, my breathing shallow.Fuck, thathad to be the most intense moment of my entire life. Lincoln had kissed me… It could’ve gotten out of hand pretty fucking quickly, but he’d respected my boundaries. He wanted more and I wanted more, but… There was the magic word.But.
I couldn’t help but feel that I’d already disappointed him.
**
I didn’t have time to see Lincoln again before I went home.
He was teaching an MMA class, and as I[CS1]left, he watched me from across the mats like a hungry lion. Ironically, that only served to make my confidence dip lower. He[CS1]looked like he wanted to devour me, and I guess there was nothing bad about it, but I wasn’t like that. Not yet anyway.
More importantly, I didn’t know how to handle it.
As I drove home, I thought about all the romance novels sitting on my bookshelves at home. Were they instruction manuals? Could I rely on the fantasies of those authors to get me through this? I wasn’t sure I could. I ran the tip of my tongue across my bottom lip, the memory of Lincoln’s kiss still fresh in my mind, and wondered if I could use at least some of it. I was so inexperienced it hurt. How could he want someone who didn’t know what they were doing? I was utterly clueless.
By the time I got home, I’d worked myself up into a tight ball of anxiety, so I microwaved a huge bag of popcorn and went upstairs. I changed out of my work clothes into my pajamas and buried into my bed, covering myself with the blankets, and sat the bowl of popcorn in my lap. Picking up the remote, I queued up my latest addiction on Netflix,Supernatural. When I didn’t want to acknowledge this world, I escaped into another. Classic avoidance tactic, but the real kicker was I knew exactly what I was doing and had no desire to do anything about it. Dr. Ormond would be proud of me.Not.
Lincoln had sent me into a complete tailspin, and I was free falling from where I’d been sitting in the clouds since I’d started work at Pulse. I was currently plummeting down to earth, and reality was pretty fucking scary. I’d thought that once I’d gotten what I wanted, everything would be magically fixed. Life would instantly get better, and my demons would go away. I was fast learning that it wasn’t the case. Lincoln wasn’t the cure all I so desperately wanted him to be.
In reality, the hard work hadn’t even begun. A simple kiss wasn’t so simple in my world.
Just as I was heading into episode two of season three ofSupernatural, the very male sound of someone clearing their throat broke through my daydream, and I sat up straight, almost knocking over the bowl of popcorn. I caught it at the last second and found my brother standing in the doorway.My big, beefy, over-protective brother who wasn’t due home from Thailand until at least tomorrow.
“Ash?”
“Hey, Vee.” He leaned against the doorframe, frowning at my current arrangement.
I swallowed hard. “I thought you weren’t coming back until tomorrow?”
