Broken Play, page 12
He wastes no time taking up the position between my legs.
“I’ve missed you so fucking much, Junie.”
I watch everything he does, the careful attention he pays me as he sucks on my clit while his fingers thrust in and out of me. After a short time, he stalls to pull my lower lips apart and blows soft air on me. It makes me shiver with need. I try to close my thighs, push him out, the sensation too much.
He swats my inner thigh. Not hard or sharp, a mild warning. It’s the combination of that followed by the quick suck to my clit and the two fingers pumping in and out that makes me explode in an intense orgasm. Without warning, it burns through me, decimating everything but the toe-curling sensation that draws my whole body tight. A scream finds its way around the lace clogging my throat as I clumsily fall back on my tied hands.
Through blurred vision and rough breaths, I watch Drew pull the panties out, then he flips me over to untie my hands and pull my dress off me completely. He’s everywhere all at once. Lying next to me on the bed, pulling me onto him. His arms surround me, hands rubbing down my arms and massaging my wrists.
Neither of us speaks. I’m unsure what to say at first. Thank you? Why couldn’t you have done that five years ago? Do it again? It all makes me angry at him. And myself.
Without looking at him, I push for more answers.
“Tell me about the rest.”
“June.” He sighs. “Can we just be still?”
“No.”
“Fine. The second time was also at the club. I didn’t go with the intention of anything more than watching. Or getting myself off while watching others. I was still feeling the acute sting of guilt. I numbed it with whiskey. So much so that when a woman approached me, I agreed. She didn’t quite do it for me and I convinced myself I’d never go back.”
“But you did. You sought out another woman, again.”
“Yes. Months later, after my convictions faded. I went back and there was a different woman. One who reminded me nothing of you, thinking that would be better, that I wouldn’t be able to pretend and therefore wouldn’t be able to perform,” he whispers. He’s pulling the pins from my hair, massaging my scalp as he does. “I wish I could tell you that was the truth.”
“You came for her? Like the two before.”
He doesn’t answer with anything more than a choked sound of affirmation. I’m glad he’s feeling some shame now. Glad that I’m not the only one gagging on it. Why this information hurts is beyond me because of course he came for them. Shared that part of him with strangers and with Lorelai. I knew this already, in the deep, dark places of my mind I prefer to never visit.
“Were those two just blowjobs or more?”
“One of each.”
Crawling off him, I move to the other side of the bed, clawing to get the covers pulled down. I’m so cold, my whole body shudders with the chill that works down, down, down into every cell.
“I hate you,” I whisper.
“I know.”
“Go away.”
“Junie,” he begins.
“Stop calling me that! It’s too much. It’s intimate and familiar and we aren’t those things. Not anymore,” I cry out. “I don’t think we ever were.”
Drew moves to kneel next to the bed, face to face with me. He cups my cheek, and it’s all I can do not to snuggle into the warmth of it that seeps through the tears trailing out of my eyes. I hate that my stupid body hasn’t caught up with my heart and my head.
“You’re killing me, you know that? You’re the love of my life, June. I can’t see you as anything but mine. My Junie. Please don’t ask me to tell you things that will hurt you. I hate it,” he pleads.
“This isn’t love.”
“Bullshit. It is love. It’s fucked up, it’s damaged, and that’s my fault. But it is love. The undying kind. The type that makes you stupid and makes you hurt, but it lasts forever.”
“I don’t want your kind of love.”
“Whether or not you want it, it will always be yours.”
“Leave.”
“I’ll go after you’re asleep. At least give me that.”
“I don’t owe you that, Drew. I don’t owe you anything.”
“No, you don’t owe me anything. I’m the one in debt so deep that it will take me a lifetime and more to repay. But I can’t leave until I know you’re peacefully sleeping, okay?”
I don’t answer. He doesn’t leave. He stays, a sentry to the nightmares that plagued me for so long. I never considered the effect they had on him. That’s my fault, and I’ll own that part of our sad saga. But I’m not to blame for his chosen coping mechanism.
When it becomes clear he has no intention of leaving my side, I close my eyes, shutting him and his deranged view of love out.
12
JUNE
Crawling out of bed the following morning, I’m spent, stripped down, and pissed off that I keep getting woken up by others either calling me or showing up at my door. The room smells like Drew. That pisses me off, too.
I pray it’s not Drew with the incessant knocking this morning. Last night was intense. I’ll be struggling with reconciling the pleasure mixed in with all the horrific pain. All the images my mind wants to create of Drew and strange women. Of Drew visiting a sex club, of him even knowing about a sex club.
My life feels split in two. One world that I live in and another that I never even knew existed.
I know kink exists, of course. That a large group of people live it, openly, every day. I’m not naïve to it. I just didn’t realize it was living with me, hidden away in the shadows.
Wrapped up in the hotel-supplied bathrobe, I go to open the door. It’s not Drew knocking, thankfully. Noah stands there looking bright-eyed and fresh-faced.
I hate him, too.
“I was downstairs getting coffee and ran into Sally. She’d like to get breakfast with us, but you weren’t answering your phone,” he says, eyeing me suspiciously.
“Sorry, I’m moving slowly this morning.”
“I see that,” he says slowly, as if he’s working something out in his head. “I think we need some rules, June. Rule number one, don’t apologize to me unless you have caused me actual offense. Which, as of yet, you have not.”
I balk. Noah isn’t saying anything wrong, per se. But his tone feels like a reprimand, and I had enough of that last night to last me through the day.
“Yeah, okay. Whatever.” I move to the closet, needing to decide what to wear today.
“Tell me what happened.”
“Drew happened. He was waiting for me when you dropped me off on my floor yesterday.”
“And?”
“Noah, I like you and I’m trying to trust you, but you’re not my BFF who I spill all my tea to,” I say, turning to him.
“I get that.” He laughs lightly. “You don’t need to give me any more details than you want to. However, you will undoubtedly see your husband today, and if you want help bringing him to his knees, I’m your best bet.”
“Oh, you are, are you?”
His playfulness leaks through my waning armor, nearly forcing a smile out of me.
“Yes, June. Only another controlling man with a jealous asshole side can tell you exactly what will hurt a controlling man with a jealous asshole side.”
I study him for a hot second. Noah is a conundrum. Nice, caring friend on one hand, something maybe a lot darker on the other. It’s impossible not to wonder how much he and Drew have in common.
“I don’t want to hurt him, Noah. Just make him crawl. Far.”
“On it, my sweet June. Go shower. I’ll pick your outfit.”
While all of this is beyond weird, I decide to just go with it. Every decision I’ve made for my own life hasn’t panned out the way I expected. Why not temporarily hand the reins to someone else? Self-deprecating is not an attractive attribute, and if I’m honest with myself, not every life move has ended up ashes in the fire. This job, for one. So far, it’s been great. The team has been amazing. And maybe I found a new friend in the enigmatic Noah Anders.
“You have impeccable taste in underwear,” Noah calls out when I shut the shower off.
Oh my God.
“That’s such a violation of my privacy, Noah.”
“Is it, though?” he asks.
“Yes!”
“I think not. It’s not on you. It’s just fabric.”
“I assure you it is.”
“Agree to disagree. Hurry up, buttercup, I’m starving.”
In the ten minutes I was in the shower, Noah rearranged my entire closet, separating it all into outfits, complete with underthings, shoes, and sticky notes for when I’m to wear each outfit.
Today
Tonight
Pre-game Show
Game
Post-game
Airplane home
“Are you a fashion fairy?”
“I’d prefer revenge demon.”
“You’re enjoying this,” I respond.
“Greatly.” He grins. “I don’t know what happened between you and Drew last night, but I imagine he’ll have certain expectations for your reaction today. Be unexpected, June.” He holds up today’s outfit. He’s picked out a men’s suit jacket style dress, oversized, dark blue with lighter pinstripes. The front sports a double-breasted buttoning. However, those sit low, below a deep plunging neckline trimmed by wide lapels. I meant it to be paired with a bodysuit, making it far less revealing. Noah has not handed me that bodysuit, or any other item to wear underneath. Except for a bright orange eyelet lace bra, also plunging. A simple pair of flats is set out. The ensemble leaves all attention on my breasts.
The outfits he’s arranged are nothing at all like anything I’ve ever worn before. They’re my clothes but styled in ways I’d never do for myself. He’s put together looks with an edge; with a feminine strength I’ve never let show.
“How are you so good at this?” I ask.
“I was a psychology major before I entered the NFL draft.”
“Figures. I wondered why it’s been so easy to open up to you.”
“Right? Now go get dressed. I can practically smell bacon from here.”
Twenty minutes and a haphazard braid-crown later, we meet Sally in the lobby restaurant. Sally’s great. Capable, practical, but also witty. She has a shock of bright red curls that complement her personality, if hair can do such a thing.
Noah and Sally have known each other for years and worked together off and on for different football related projects. He shows her the same familiarity he shows me and I wonder if he makes simple friends with everyone he meets, or maybe just women.
The difference between me and Sally is that she has that same comfortability with him, whereas I still have moments of questioning his motives.
Sally must pick up on my mood because her attention turns from slapping Noah’s hand away from her bacon to me.
“June, can I ask something personal? With the promise that I will not use it in production, of course.”
“Sure,” I tell her, with just a dash of skepticism.
“If it’s too sensitive a subject, I completely understand,” she says, and I expect her to ask about Drew and the tabloid press coverage of his very public infidelity. She surprises me, though. “Can I ask about the scars?”
“Sally,” Noah says sternly.
“Noah, no. It’s okay,” I start. I had told myself I was over hiding it. Now it’s time to prove it. “It’s not something I talk about, but I am no longer hiding it either.”
It’s now or never.
“I had a stalker when I was in college,” I begin, my hands going to my thighs under the table. “It started as something like harmless attraction. But the more I rebuked him, the more determined he became in getting my attention. One night, in my final year, he found me walking alone back to my dorm and, um, he attacked me.”
“Oh my God, June. That’s horrible. I’m so sorry,” Sally exclaims while Noah’s hand finds mine under the table, silently unclenching my fist and winding his fingers with mine.
“Thank you,” I say. “It was a rough time in my life, but family and therapy and a lot of work later, I’m okay.”
“Did they catch the guy? You knew who he was, right?”
“They didn’t have the opportunity. He committed suicide after the attack, before the police found him. I was in the hospital unconscious while all that was happening.”
“I can’t imagine how hard that must have been for you,” Sally says. “Did you have a long recovery?”
“I did. I was in the hospital for a long time, therapy for much longer.”
Noah still has hold of my hand, his thumb rubbing back and forth in a soothing motion. I’m doing well speaking about it and not showing my normal anxiety ticks. All of which surprises me.
“Is this something you’re willing to discuss, or would you like me to make sure the subject never gets broached? I doubt it will, but you never know, and I’d like to be prepared.”
“You know, I think I’m okay either way. Let’s not worry about it for now,” I say with confidence. With a new sense of self.
“Well done, my sweet June,” Noah says as he presses a kiss on my cheek.
Which, of course, is when Drew walks into the restaurant. His eyes lock with mine, then quickly flash to Noah.
“Be unexpected, June,” Noah whispers to me. As Drew approaches, Noah brings our clasped hands above the table, still holding mine for a beat. Long enough to be noticed, then he releases it, only to move his arm around the back of my chair. It’s a possessive move and Noah completes it all without ever sparing Drew a single glance.
“Mind if I join, or is this a confidential work thing?” Drew asks. The only chair available is across from Noah, next to Sally.
Noah’s words echo in my skull. Be unexpected. Drew would expect the prim and proper June. The ladylike June who would never speak out in public about personal issues. Not this new snarky, speaks-her-mind June. Okay, so she’s still emerging, but now is as good a time as any to let her out to play.
“Are you here alone?” I ask him.
“Of course,” he answers, eyes narrowing on me. I only give a shrug in response, as if I couldn’t possibly know if he had company in his hotel room when he woke up this morning.
He takes his seat and introduces himself to Sally, who looks equally uncomfortable and awed by my husband’s presence. I understand. He has always had that effect on people.
“You remember Noah, I’m sure,” I say. “I think you fucked the same woman in college.”
Sally releases a little gasp, but there is a commiserating twinkle in her eye.
“Yes,” Noah says, “though I don’t keep in touch with her these days. Nice to see you, Drew.”
“Right,” Drew mumbles.
“I was just explaining to these two how I got my scars.”
“You were?” Surprise shows all over his face. He knows I don’t talk about this with strangers as much as he knows I don’t easily make friends. Me telling two people I don’t know well is a tremendous deal.
I hum around a sip of coffee.
“Were you two together during that time?” Sally asks.
“No,” I say.
“We got engaged while she was in the hospital,” Drew says at the same time.
“So, you were dating when the attack occurred?”
“Nope,” I say, popping the word. “We went straight from something sort of like friends to married without all the usual in between.”
“Huh,” is all Sally says. “I guess you move fast, Drew.”
Noah chokes on a laugh, or a piece of bacon, I don’t know. But now it’s Drew who looks uncomfortable. Something that happens often these days, but I’m still not used to his fractured confidence. He used to walk around with the same air that surrounds Noah. That big dick energy all NFL quarterbacks have. Even the ugly ones have it, that extreme swagger. Drew’s is fading fast.
I love to see it. I hate it, too. There is an awful lot of hate in my world right now. This desire to hurt him, to let others hurt him in my presence; it makes me small. He makes me feel small. My life is an emotional minefield.
I finish my coffee and push my plate aside, knowing all eyes at the table are on me.
“Thank you for breakfast, Sally,” I say to her. “I’m going to excuse myself. I have some work to get done.” I stand slowly, leaning over the table to give a bit of a show before I leave. Thankfully, I make it to an elevator just before the doors shut.
It’s been only weeks since Los Angeles, not enough time to not be sad over it all. But long enough to learn that I don’t have to keep ranking myself lower than others. I don’t need to sit at that table for Drew’s sake. He can weather whatever Noah and Sally throw at him without me.
The next several hours of my day are free time. I use them to catch up on blog posts and emails that I’ve been ignoring for the past several days. I also check in with my mom, who expresses her concern for me, for Drew, for our shit show of a marriage.
“Honey, have you talked to him since you moved?”
“Yes, he flew into Dallas early. I saw him last night,” I tell her.
“How did it go?”
“Not well, Mom. It’s hard to look at him the same, knowing he’s been with them.”
“Them? There were multiple?”
Well, shit, guess that cat is out of the bag now.
“Um, yeah. I… I think the others were like one-time things,” I stammer out. There is rustling on her end, and she mumbles something that sounds an awful lot like she’s going to kill that little shit, but I can’t be sure. “Listen, Mom, I’m glad you called, but I’ve got to get to a meeting. I’ll call you tomorrow, okay?”
