Her legs squeezed closed, protectively, but Van caught her thigh and gave her a warning pinch on the tender skin inside her knee.
When his hand returned to her belly, she let her legs fall open and swallowed around the surging emotion. “He nitpicked and scrutinized everything, convinced me to...uh...well, to get this awful boob job, bleach my hair, and bake in a tanning bed. I wanted to please him, to absorb his sadness, so I guess I let him slowly transform me. But his insults grew crueler, more public.”
It was when Brent stopped looking her in the eye, when he stopped looking at her at all, that hurt the most. To think she'd kept the light on back then, hoping he would see her, so driven to please him. She was so goddamned tragic.
Van's thumb shifted upward, along her sternum, and traced circles in the hollow of her throat. “He's fucking weak.”
“Says the man who hits women.” She braced herself for a strangling squeeze of his fist.
The thumb stilled, and his teeth lowered to her nape, scratching gently, his breath shooting sparks of heat down her spine. “I'm far worse than your sissy bitch of an ex. Don't ever forget that.”
Her spine tingled anew, itching to put space between them. At the same time, it'd been years since she felt this at ease with her body. Not that she was relaxed. Far from it. Hell, she was sitting on a mirror with her legs open. With the lights on. Her muscles ached and trembled, and her hips burned. But the pain was a startling distraction. Her vision wasn't consumed by black snow. Her heart wasn't flat-lining. The absence of a looming breakdown made her head spin.
He kissed her neck and placed his palms on her inner thighs, widening her legs. “Continue.”
Cool air drifted over her labium, bringing with it the chill of memory. “Right.” She cleared her throat. “Well, I approached the table, and dozens of eyes flew in my direction, leering, crinkling with laughter. Lowering to my groin.” Which had suddenly felt obscenely pronounced in the tight satin of her gown.
Truth was, she'd grown insecure about the way her lips had stretched over the years, enough to stupidly mention it to Brent while he was fucking her the night before. A desperate attempt to seek his approval. His only response had been a series of grunts.
Tears rose up, then and now. She exhaled through it. “Brent was too busy flopping his bent arms like a chicken and squawking hysterically to notice my return. 'Flapping wings,' he said. God, it was...so loud. So fucking mean.” When he’d finally made eye contact with her, he leaned over to Tawny. I feel bad for her. You should see how the skin hangs. It's grotesque.
Sharp pain seared through her sinuses, stabbing needles behind her eyes. “Then he played the role of concerned husband, asking if anyone could recommend a...a g-good labial plastic surgeon to help me with my...problem.” She whispered the last word as if that would make it less real.
It had been a defining moment. The accumulation of all his hurtful words, the years of insecurities that came with posing before judges, and her lifelong battle with OCD had mounted inside her, pressurizing, as she stood amidst the laughter, moments from losing her polished demeanor.
Van tilted his head. “You looked up images on the Internet, right? You would’ve seen how completely normal your cunt is.”
She wobbled on the counter, nodding. “Those pictures made me feel worse. Outside of the few deformities posted on medical sites, the Internet is full of porn and beauty and perfection. Normal thirty-year-old women don’t post those kinds of images.” She tried to close her legs, and his grip on her thighs stopped her.
“Then you recognize the difference between a deformity and an eighteen-year-old porn twat.” His hands found her fingers and moved them to her inner thighs, holding them there. “What did you say to Brent after the surgery comment?”
Van’s nonjudgmental interest bolstered her, and she sat taller, less shakier. “It was clear he had described my vagina to a room packed with my colleagues, people who could make or break my career. In that single lonely heartbeat, I woke up. I realized he didn't love me. How could he? You don't treat someone you love with such vicious cruelty.”
Van shifted against her, and a swallow sounded in his throat. “Love and hate are closely related expressions of the same intensity. Both require passion, and neither follows logic. If he didn't love you, he would've treated you with shrugging detachment.”
His response resonated with what she knew of his own volatile behavior. She didn't know him, but she imagined he could love someone as fiercely as he hurt them. It would take a strong, willing person to survive his brand of passion.
With his hands caressing her fingers and thighs and his face nuzzling her shoulder, his affection momentarily eclipsed his earlier abuse. But he would hurt her again. She needed to pin that to the forefront of her mind and never confuse possessiveness and control with love. The way she had with Brent.
A glance at her pussy transported her back to the ballroom, and the remembered shock of what happened dragged her tongue over numb words. “The beer I held out dropped to the floor as I repeated out loud, 'Flapping wings.' It was the first time I'd heard that particular insult, and I wish I would've yelled it, owned it, with fucking venom. Brent didn't bother to turn around, simply glanced over his shoulder and told me to fetch him another beer.”
Van's fingers wove through hers, digging into her thighs, and his breaths grew sharper, faster. “Amber—”
“Let me finish.” She wanted to relive her anger, feel it thrash through her body and feed on its strength. “Tawny leaned back in her chair beside him and asked with drunken liveliness, 'Your lips are so stretched you can fly with them? Really, Amber? You gonna fly across the stage tomorrow and collect the crown with a sweeping vaginal thrust?'“
Van's eyes flashed to hers in the mirror. “I hope you smacked the mouth off that whore.”
She flinched. “She was drunk.” Tawny had a sick mother just like her and would always be her sister, the girl she raised and loved unconditionally. Even when Tawny stood by Brent during the divorce. And after. The heavy, achy weight of responsibility pressed down on her chest. “You promised not to hurt her.”
“I won't.” His gaze didn't waver from hers. “Unless you ask me to.”
“Never.” She unloaded the gravity of her heart in that single impassioned word.
His arms fell away, his body heat gone. She watched his reflection pace the large bathroom, hands in his hair, red splotches creeping from the neck of his t-shirt. Even when irritated, he moved with a swagger in his step. The lift of his arms raised the hem of his shirt, exposing the cut V of his abs and the bounce and flex of cotton-stretching muscle. His jeans rode so low on his trim hips a dark line of hair surfaced above his belt.
On the next pass, he slipped a toothpick in his mouth and stopped behind her, his expression turbulent. He gripped her thighs, holding her legs open, and gave her the full potency of his silver eyes and growly voice. “You should've yanked up your dress and showed those fuckers your beautiful pussy.”
Oh God, he was fuming. On her behalf. It should've scared her, but in that fleeting moment, she trusted he wouldn't turn his anger on her. “I did. I removed my panties and ripped my designer gown from ankles to waist, right up the middle.”
His eyes widened, and his mouth hung open, the toothpick protruding from the corner. She liked that. When his lips tilted in a lopsided grin, she loved it, so much so she wanted to smile with him. But she could still feel her fury from that night, her blood simmering at the surface, scorching her skin.
“I gathered the satin fabric behind me, turned in a circle, and let the room have their fill of my flapping wings.” Brent's face had turned ashen, but she'd been too
heartbroken to care. Somehow, she'd managed to grab her panties from the floor and walk out of there with the confidence of a beauty queen, head high, long strides, one heel before the other, hands relaxed at her sides. The nervous laughter of two hundred people had followed her out the door. “I left Brent that night. I was disqualified. Tried to enter other pageants for the next year. I never stepped on stage again.”
“Your disqualification remains a mystery on the Internet. No one talked to the press? No camera phone shots of you in your ripped gown?”
Every nerve in her body bristled on high alert. Of course, he'd researched her. He was a stalker. “The event was an invite-only affair for the semi-finalists. Since the pageant hadn't aired yet, the attendees were confidential. No cameras allowed. After, the pageant officials were tenacious about keeping the details hushed.” They hadn't wanted to tarnish their reputation with the disgrace of a contestant.
Van's palms slid down her thighs and paused an inch from her outer lips. “No one has seen this since that night?”
She shook her head. “Not even a doctor,” she said absently, distracted by the view of her pussy framed with the thumbs and fingers of his huge hands. It looked the same but strangely...protected. What if Van had been there that night, standing beside her with his broad shoulders, alluring scar, and intimidating eyes? Would they have laughed then? Would she have cared what they thought? Such an absurd, disturbing notion, yet imagining it sparked a burst of warmth in her chest.
“When I look at your tiny pink lips,” he said softly, “I want to slide my tongue between them and suck the sweetness from your tight hole. I crave your taste, the velvety feel of you in my mouth and around my cock.” His eyes found hers in the mirror, a smoldering collision. His pupils dilated into bottomless pools of danger, pulling her in. “Your pussy is exquisite, Amber. A perfect mold of flesh and fantasy, of throbbing blood and healthy life. Nothing compares to the grip of your wet heat. Nothing.”
He ground his erection against her back, but she didn't think he was trying to be lewd. Nor did she believe he'd force her to have sex on the heels of revealing her humiliating story. He was merely proving his words the one way he knew how, and she wanted to believe them.