Slave to the Rhythm (The Rhythm #1)

  I tried to shake my head because she had nothing to be sorry for. It was all me—I was the fucked up one. Not her. Never her.

  I lay back on the bed, exhausted and depressed. I’d just wanted to please her, to feel normal, and now everything was a thousand times worse.

  But she didn’t leave in silent disgust as I expected. Instead, she pulled the quilt over both of us, resting her head on my arm and gently stroking my chest.

  “No, it’s my fault,” she said quietly. “I should have known better than to take you by surprise. I do know better—it won’t happen again, Ash.”

  I sunk further into the black cloud that always hovered nearby. A man should be able to have a beautiful woman give him head without freaking out. I threw my arm over my face, humiliated again.

  The torture in my mind was far worse than the physical pain had been. My armor was gone, my nerve endings exposed, skin raw.

  I felt Laney’s soft fingers tugging at my wrist.

  “I know what you’re doing,” she said. “You’re beating yourself up about this. Don’t. We just have to work on our communication.” She paused. “Now that we’re married.”

  I let her tug my arm to my side and saw her smiling at me carefully.

  I couldn’t summon up the energy to smile back. Instead, I closed my eyes, letting the frustration wash over me.

  “Why are you doing this, Laney? Since you met me, everything has gone wrong for you.”

  She paused, perhaps thinking, turning it over like a stone as she looked for the truth.

  “No, it’s just life,” she said simply. “And having you in my life—it makes it better. I know that’s not part of the plan, but I can’t help it.”

  The plan. The great plan. Married for a piece of paper, living together for convenience. God, I was a fool.

  I sighed, caught by the great lie.

  “My body knew I wanted you before my brain did. I was numb for so long—you’ve brought me back to life. You’ve saved me over and over.”

  She smiled.

  “We’ve done everything backward: we met, we married, we had sex. That’s our story, Ash. I’ve given up trying to understand it.”

  She kissed my chest, her lips soft and warm, and my shameful body reacted again. And this time I had to have her. That’s when any semblance of gentleness, of finesse, fled.

  Our eyes locked and then she launched herself at me, kissing me hard.

  For a half a second I was too stunned to react. And then I did.

  I’d thought about kissing her every hour of every day since our wedding nearly three weeks ago. That was a fucking hot kiss, I’d felt the passion inside her, but I didn’t think she really wanted me. I’d seen her looking, but that’s all she’d ever done. And after rehearsals the other day, with the excuse that Sarah and the girls were watching, I’d done what I’d been wanting to ever since; taken what I’d needed.

  Even as her nails dug into my scalp and my dick hardened, I kept thinking, This is my wife! I’m kissing my wife!

  It was hard, but not fast. It was intense, but not fevered. It was my balls slapping against her ass as she clung to my body, her legs clamped to my waist. It was me inside her, and her all around me.

  And when we came, it felt like it meant something.

  We lay on our backs breathing hard, her chest pink from arousal, her neck and chin red from my stubble.

  Then she turned on her side to look at me.

  “Ash,” she said softly, stroking her fingers down my chest.

  I knew she could feel my heart pounding, and not from the sex we’d just shared. She’d caught me off guard, and she knew it.

  “It’s okay. You’re safe.” She paused. “Can you tell me what you were dreaming about last night . . . and earlier?”

  I threw her a dark look, refusing to give in.

  “Why do you want to know?”

  “Because I want to know you—everything about you—good and bad.”

  I shook my head. “No.”

  “Why not?”

  I sighed and stared at the ceiling, hoping that the right words would magically appear. I glanced across, meeting her eyes.

  “You’ll look at me differently.”

  “I won’t,” she said softly.

  “You will. Of course you will. You should. I don’t like to think about it—ever. I don’t want you to have that shit inside your head.”

  I sprang to my feet and started pacing up and down in the tiny space, feeling caged.

  That was how I coped when I was upset or angry—my body needed movement. But showing her how twisted up inside I really was . . . she looked like I was breaking her heart.

  “Hey,” she called quietly, holding out her hand to me.

  I halted my pacing and turned to stare at her, hoping she wouldn’t see the dark despair, the grief, the disgust.

  I took her hand, holding it gently within my own. Her finger joints were a little inflamed today and her skin felt hot to the touch. Despite the sex we’d had earlier, I felt the need to handle her as if she was delicate, precious . . . and when I looked at her, I wanted her to see that she was beautiful and desirable.

  Her face flushed.

  “You are the strongest person I’ve ever met,” she said, staring into my eyes. “You are,” she continued as I shook my head. “You’ve survived so much and you never stopped fighting.” She sat up straighter. “Whatever you did, it was because you had to.”

  I couldn’t look at her.

  And I turned away, ashamed.

  Slowly, she brought her hand to my cheek, bringing my face toward hers, willing me to see in her eyes the trust she felt.

  It was a moment suspended in time.

  I was surprised when she ducked down and scrabbled under the bed, looking for something. Then she placed a small jewelry box on the quilt next to me.

  “Happy Thanksgiving,” she said softly.

  “Oh, shit. You swap presents at Thanksgiving? I’m sorry, I didn’t know.”

  “Not usually, but . . . well, you bought me my ring so I thought, well, I hope you like it.”

  I opened the box and stared down at the silver St. Christopher, similar to the one I’d lost.

  “Patron saint of travelers,” she said, lifting it from the box and fastening it around my neck. “And you’ve traveled so far, Ash.”

  I didn’t have the words, so I kissed her, showing her with my hands and with my body how much that meant to me.

  My hands cupped her cheeks then slid to her neck, her pulse trembling under my fingers. I let my hands move down to her shoulders, arms, waist, hips, tugging her against my new erection.

  She laughed softly against my skin, her lips warm on my chest, gently pushing me away, pink, breathless.

  Reluctantly, I lay back and she began tracing her fingers around my tattoos.

  “You never did tell me what all these meant. What does this say?”

  I didn’t need to look at the one she was talking about.

  “It’s Serbo-Croat, written in Cyrillic. My grandfather was Serbian. It says ‘born to dance’.”

  She laughed softly.

  “Of course it does. When did you get it?”

  “I was 16. It was my first—and illegal if you’re under 18. But Mom had died a few months before and I’d been bugging the guy at the tattoo shop to do it for me. When he saw I wasn’t going away, he gave in.”

  She nodded her understanding and let her fingers drift over my shoulder and the rest of the ink.

  “And your dad hated it.”

  “Yes.”

  She hesitated over the next question.

  “Have you spoken to him since . . . since everything?”

  I shook my head.

  “No, and I’m not going to.”

  She frowned. “But family is important.”

  “My mama was important. I don’t give a shit about him.”

  “Why? What did he do?”

  I sighed. “I hate talking about him.”


  “Ash, after everything we’ve been through, you can’t tell me?”

  She sounded hurt.

  “It’s not that.”

  “Then what?”

  “He’s just an asshole. He never wanted me around. My parents married six months before I was born.”

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah. He made it obvious that I was a mistake. I have no memories of him smiling or laughing with us. When he was out with his friends, yes, but not with us. I don’t think he wanted to be a father.”

  “And your dancing?”

  “It was Mama’s idea. She loved to dance, so she sent me to classes when I was small. My father was angry when he learned what she’d done. He thought I’d grow out of it.” I gave Laney a small smile. “He’s still waiting.”

  “Surely he was proud when you did so well in competitions?”

  “No, it was embarrassing to him when my name was in the newspaper. His friends told him I was gay. It was just another reason for him to hate me. It wasn’t too bad when Mama was alive, but after . . .”

  I stretched back on the bed and closed my eyes, smiling as I felt Laney’s soft kiss on my bare chest.

  “He thought he could make me stop and he sent me to work for his construction business. ‘You live in this house and eat my food’, that’s what he said. When I couldn’t stand it anymore, I moved out.”

  Laney’s fingers stroked across my stomach.

  “It’s his loss,” she said softly.

  But by now, I could hear the sounds of voices and knew that everyone was awake. That meant our moment in this cocoon of feeling was over.

  Laney knew it too and sat up.

  “You can tell me about the rest another time,” she smiled. “Right now, I’ll check if the shower is empty. I’d say come with me, but Aunt Lydia’s guest bathroom is too small, unfortunately.”

  She grinned at me and padded out of the room.

  My head swam with new thoughts.

  The urgent, necessary drive of the night before and just now. This, with Laney, had left me a different man since I walked into our borrowed bedroom.

  I was 23 and I’d lived three lifetimes: the time before, Las Vegas, and then my life beginning again with Laney. Each one had sculpted me, and each one had changed me.

  I just wasn’t sure it was for the better.

  Laney

  Each new piece of the jigsaw was building a clearer picture.

  Whatever had happened to Ash in Las Vegas was more than I knew. But with what I saw, I’d have to guess at sexual assault alongside the beating, although he’d denied being raped. Thank the Lord. It would explain why both Angie and my father had alluded to Ash being ‘damaged’. His reaction, the epic fail when I’d tried to give him a blow job was evidence of that. But thinking back, the way he’d decimated those men outside the theater, the catalyst was one of them yelling at Ash, “Suck my dick.”

  It scared me seeing him so, so inhuman, for want of a better word.

  Part of me needed to know the truth because forewarned is forearmed, but another part of me didn’t want to live with the horror inside me. Maybe that made me a coward, I don’t know. But Ash didn’t want to tell me either, or rather, he didn’t want me to know. It would also explain why he was so off-hand with Angie, why he was reluctant to be friendly with her. She knew.

  I’d have to say that the last 24 hours had been an eye-opener.

  And Collin, who’d never shown anything approaching passion in the ten years we’d been together, had driven an hour out of the city to confront me with the truth. The guilt from that was strong. We should have ended things years ago.

  And now there was Ash. Confusing as it was, I knew there was no way to predict the future, and I still hadn’t dealt with my past—I had to speak to Collin.

  I kept my shower short, aware that there was a line of people waiting to use it, and trotted back to the bedroom, wishing this old farmhouse had better heating. Although Ash was doing a good job of keeping me warm.

  He’d pulled the quilt up so high, all I could see was a tuft of his dark hair poking out the top.

  I decided to let him sleep. With rehearsals six days a week for Broadway Revisited, he only got the chance of a sleeping late on Sundays, and that wasn’t easy when his bed was in my living room. Not that he slept well anyway. And he’d been looking tired before yesterday’s debacle and this morning’s revelations.

  I slipped into a pair of jeans and a tank top, glad I’d brought the novelty sweater that Mom made for me three years ago, smiling at the knitted turkey’s startled expression.

  Thick socks and a pair of Aunt Lydia’s slippers completed my stylish ensemble. My family didn’t dress up for Thanksgiving—that was saved for Midnight Mass at Christmas.

  I clomped down the stairs, meeting my sister Bernice, her toddler clinging to her like a baby bear.

  “Happy Thanksgiving, sis. Marie, say hello to Aunt Laney!”

  The little girl squirmed, then squealed like a siren going off when she saw Mittens the cat. Bernice put her down with a grimace, then smiled as she watched my niece’s chubby legs chase after the poor beast.

  “Sorry about that,” she said. “We’re working on her ‘inside voice’ but it’s a work in progress—obviously.”

  “Obviously,” I laughed.

  “You look happy,” she said, raising one eyebrow. “Nothing to do with that incredibly hot mystery husband you’ve been humping all morning.”

  My mouth opened automatically to deny it as blood rushed to my cheeks.

  Bernice laughed out loud. “You should see your face. I’m jealous, of course. A toddler in the room definitely cramps our style. But here’s a tip, sister to sister: for the sake of my sanity and marriage, please move your headboard away from the wall.”

  She winked at me while I looked for a convenient hole to crawl into.

  I should be used to this by now—there was rarely any privacy in a large family. It was one of the reasons I’d gotten my own apartment as soon as I could afford it. But because everything with Ash was so new, so unformed, it was embarrassing to think that we’d been overheard.

  The kitchen was wonderfully warm and full of delicious aromas, with the enormous turkey already in the oven.

  And lucky me, the full set of my parents, aunts and uncles were sitting around the table. It was obvious they were talking about me because the conversation dropped away as soon as I walked in.

  I grabbed a piece of toast from a stack and started spreading it with thick, creamy, country butter. I was 29 years old and I earned my own living—I didn’t need their approval.

  “Happy Thanksgiving!” I said brightly.

  “Happy Thanksgiving, pumpkin,” said Dad affectionately.

  “Where’s your, um, husband?” Mom asked. “Oh goodness, it feels so strange to say that!”

  You and me both, Mom.

  “He’s sleeping in. He’s been at rehearsals Mondays through Saturdays for a month, and long hours, too. The premiere is in just over a week.”

  “Are we invited this time?” Mom asked coolly. “Or is it a secret premiere?”

  I loved my mom, but she had the ability to make me feel wretched without saying a single word. Except this time, she had plenty to say.

  “Well,” I said carefully, “Ash will be given four free tickets for family and friends, but he’s a bit disappointed in the show.” I sighed. “He doesn’t think it will do well, so you might not want to . . .”

  “We’re going!” Mom said emphatically. “I’ve sat through 22 years of school plays and concerts—I’m certainly not going to miss this. If I’m invited, of course.”

  I withheld a sigh.

  “You’re invited. You too, Dad. Anyone else want to go?”

  Eventually, the spare ticket was allotted to Bernice, although Mom declared that all my sisters would want to go, as well. I didn’t know how Ash would feel about that, but there wasn’t much I could do. And I kinda loved that my family was trying to fin
d a way to support him—us.

  “Good, that’s decided,” said Mom. “Now, I need to call Father Michael about arranging . . . well, I don’t know what it would be called . . . some sort of blessing. What faith does Ash follow, if any?”

  “Bridget,” Dad chided gently.

  “No, Brian, this is important. I don’t know why Laney chose to sneak off to have a secret marriage, but as her mother, the least I can do is ensure that she stands in good grace, whatever husband she is married to.”

  Everyone winced, but I glared at my mother.

  “Mom, just stop! We’re happy as we are. We don’t want any fuss—that’s why we did it this way.”

  Which wasn’t a complete lie.

  She changed tack abruptly.

  “Father Michael will be so disappointed, I won’t know what to say to the poor man. He officiated at your Christening and your Confirmation; all your sisters’ weddings. He was good enough for them. Just because you chose to marry outside the faith, I don’t see why . . .”

  “I didn’t.”

  I knew I shouldn’t have said that, but Mom brightened immediately. “Ash is Catholic?”

  “Yes,” I sighed, “but that still doesn’t mean that we . . .”

  Over Dad’s shoulder, I saw Collin walk into the room, looking tired with red eyes, and blotchy skin beneath his pale stubble.

  Everyone stopped talking, even Mom, and the day was officially the worst start to Thanksgiving ever.

  “Hello, Collin,” I said quietly. “Would you like some coffee?”

  He nodded then cleared his throat.

  “Coffee sounds great. Thank you.”

  I poured him a cup then suggested he drink it out on the covered porch. It was cold out there, but at least we’d have some privacy.

  I passed him one of my uncle’s coats, and I wrapped myself in a thick quilt.

  “How are you feeling?” I asked, as he nursed his coffee.

  He thought about that for a few moments.

  “I don’t know, Laney. Confused, I guess. Why did you do it? Why did you marry him and not me?”

  I decided to go for full disclosure. I owed him that.

  “I gave up thinking that we’d get married a long time ago, Collin. I just assumed it wasn’t what you wanted and I was happy living in my apartment. You’d never mentioned marriage.”