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“Everything.” She lifted her shirt over her head, snapping the hook on her bra.
Perhaps it was the build up, the anticipation running too high. Perhaps it was just not meant to be. After the steamy promise of their play, their lovemaking was tight, anxious and unsettled. They had no rhythm together or sense of each other’s need.
Once they lay together, in the light-starved luxury of the suite, there was a distant, fretful quality to Rielle’s movements that Jake could not break through. She closed her eyes to him, turned her head and went somewhere else and he couldn’t find a way to bring her back. Not stroking her beautiful body, not speaking softly, not calling her name. She checked out on him, and it was devastating.
It confused him, made him angry. He changed his approach, got a little firmer with her, a little less gentle. He worked a little harder, and felt her body respond, moving with him, rising to him, opening and folding around him. But her mind stayed closed. All her earlier vocalisation fell silent, smothered somewhere, kept from him. It made him worried about hurting her, not loving her right, not pleasing her. It made him conscious and deliberate when he’d wanted to be lost.
“Where are you?” he said, bearing down on her, feeling her glorious heat, but not the light of her mind. While her body thrashed under him, her soul was locked tightly away. He might have been anyone. She might have been anywhere. She wasn’t here with him. All that remained, writhing in his hands, was a facsimile of her prese
nce.
He tried not to care, to take his pleasure selfishly. And he was so worked up, so primed and she was so incredibly sexy, it was easy to do. But it wasn’t what he wanted. It was fraught and cheap, and as meaningless as any encounter he could have any night on tour, with one of a dozen girls backstage.
And that would’ve been more fun.
Gone was the provocative rock diva, the sultry songstress, the celluloid siren and the sex kitten who’d had him acting like an impatient teenage boy in the back of a car. In her place was an ice queen, beautiful, tempting, remote and chillingly cold. He was sorely tempted to grab his clothes and quit the room, leaving her to whatever she was thinking. But when she opened her eyes, he saw pain, confusion and sadness, so he rolled over beside her and reached for her hand.
“Tell me I didn’t hurt you, Rie?” Watching her face he was no longer sure he hadn’t pumped his frustration as well as his desire into her.
She spoke whisper soft. “No, you didn’t hurt me. I’m sorry. This is my fault. It was just too intense.”
He propped up on his elbow. She was across the bed from him, staring at the ceiling, the sheet pulled up under her arms, her hair a wild tangle.
“I don’t understand. You didn’t like what we did?” He knew her body had liked it, the evidence was in her response, rocking, twisting, rolling beneath him. But that wasn’t enough.
She sighed and turned her head to look at him. “It was too much. I can’t feel like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like I’m going to be blasted apart. Shatter into a million pieces and never find my way back.”
He wanted to smile, relieved. He’d have thought she was kidding, but her eyes were hooded under a frown and her mouth turned down. “Rie, that’s the best part.”
She shook her head, closed her eyes to him. “You don’t understand. No one has ever made me feel like that. It’s out of control. I can’t feel like that ever again.”
He sucked in a breath. “No, I don’t understand.” It was as thorough a rejection as he’d ever experienced. More cutting because he thought he might really feel something for this incredible, complex girl.
Jake got up and dressed quickly. She watched him from the bed, tumbled amidst the sheets, her eyes red-rimmed, her expression unfathomable.
“Please don’t hate me, Jake.”
He leaned across the bed and kissed her gently, feeling her lips tremble under his. “I couldn’t hate you, Rie. I sure as hell don’t get you, but I think you’re the sexiest and most talented thing I’ve ever seen.”
If only.
When Jake closed the door, Rielle let the tears rack through her. This thing with Jake was a sickness, come on so fast, striking so hard. She’d needed to sweat it out quickly before it sent her mad, and the only way to do that was to get skin to skin with him as fast as possible.
But he asked too much. He wanted all of her and that wasn’t something she could give. Because if she let him see her real self, he’d know her for the insecure, superficial person she was. Too scared to ever drop her guard, take her armour off and be herself, because that self died years ago on a strip of road three hours out of Sydney, and it wasn’t worth knowing anymore.
22. Bases Loaded
The insanely catchy beat of Foster the People’s Pumped up Kicks was rolling through Rand’s head. Why was it that pop songs and advertising jingles were the hardest to get free of? But it seemed an appropriate tune for watching kites flying over the beach and pretending not to watch Harry. Or at least not to freak her out by getting caught watching her.
It was hard to take his eyes off her. It’d been an inspired idea to play hooky. He remembered trying to talk her into jigging school, but she never would. She would wave to him through the school gate. But she’d never skive off and join him at the beach when she should’ve been in class. Today was a rest day for Harry, but Rand was definitely absent without leave. He figured Rielle would give him what for about it, but whatever hell she stirred up was worth it, to win this time to be with his girl.
He couldn’t help but think of Harry as his girl. Even though that had a very school yard ring to it—it fit. She wasn’t yet his lover and she was more than a passing infatuation, so that made her girlfriend material as far as he was concerned. And didn’t that feel grown up. Not very rock and roll, but he liked it.
Harry wore a big brimmed, straw sun hat that shaded her face and shoulders. She was eating an ice cream, trying to lick the drips off the cone before they trickled down her hand.
