Page 118 of Replay
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“Spook.Spook.It’s okay.”
Alle chuckled with relief when he looked at her with something akin to comprehension in his eyes.“There you are,” she sighed.She kept her hand on his shoulder as he slowly peeled himself away from the glass door that led onto the veranda.His head turned, as if he were trying to get his bearings and tally them up with his last recollection.
“Do you not remember getting out of bed?”
“Did I hurt you?Was I dreaming?”
Yeah, spectacular avoidance tactics there.Distract her with a question, so she didn’t notice he hadn’t answered hers.
“You haven’t.”Leastways physically, he hadn’t.That didn’t mean there wasn’t a mental knife currently twisting in her guts.
He didn’t trust her.
As far as she could tell that was what this all boiled down to.He couldn’t go all the way with her because deep down, he feared she’d cry wolf and accuse him in the same way Siv had done.
That in itself was bad enough, but then there was the issue of Xane and the whole zero issues sleeping withhimthing.A woman with a less robust sense of self-esteem might develop a complex over that.Honestly, she was trying to maintain an open mind, but it wasn’t easy when all she’d done was put a nick into a condom wrapper and he’d started thrashing about like a genie trying to escape a thousand year captivity in a lamp.
His palm was still sweaty as she clasped his hand and guided him to the sofa.He collapsed into its cushions, while Alle gathered a throw to cover them both.
“Was that real or not?”
“Which part?”
Did he really not know?
“The sex, yes.Whatever threat you envisaged, absolutely not.”
“Fuck!”he cursed emphatically, and drew a hand down his face.“Fuck, Alle.I’m so sorry.I don’t know—”
“You panicked, that’s what.You had a full blown panic attack over the prospect of putting your cock in me.”
“Shit.”He hid his face, but she tugged his hands away so that she could see him.“Talk to me, Spook.What am I going to do with you, eh?”
He nervously ground his knuckles against the centre of his other palm.“I guess nerves got the better of me.”
Like it was that.“Don’t lie to me, Spook.You know you don’t have to worry about that.I don’t care if you come the second you enter me.In fact, I think I might like it.It’d be a compliment—you’re so sexy I can’t hold it together even for a single bloody stroke.But that’s not it, and we both know that’s not it.So talk.”
His mouth dropped open, but that was it.Nothing.Just his blue eyes swimming with doubts and sorrows.“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t.I don’t want an apology.Tell me how we go forward, Spook.How do I earn your trust?”
“Oh, no.No.Alle, it’s not about you.It’s not that.It’s me.I don’t… I don’t trust myself.”
“You made out with Xane.”
He took a breath, held it a beat.“That was different.It started out as a fight.Also, he’s perfectly capable of knocking me out if he wanted me to stop and I didn’t.”
“You think I’m not capable of knocking you out?”She formed a fist and smashed it into the back of the sofa just shy of his head.It made an impressive thud and left a dent in the leather.
“Christ, Alle!”
She drew her body up straight.
“Yeah, okay.Point taken.”
“Also, would now be a good time to remind you about the hairbrush?”
