A Many Splintered Thing / Day 20: Then she opened the towel and dropped it so it puddled around her waist.

Posting this on the fly before taking girl child and her friends to her uncle's pool for a little belated birthday swim today. Boy child is manning the fort for me. Right now I'm trying desperately to get ready. If you see any issues, shout 'em out in the comments. I won't be gone longish.

XOXO
Sommer

~~~~~~~~~~



She moved to sit up and Caleb wrapped his arm around her tighter. He pressed his mouth to her ear and said simply, “Stay.”
She would or she wouldn’t. He forced his body to go lax. Made sure she felt his arm around her welcoming but not forceful. He inhaled and exhaled three times, waiting, as Zen as he could managed to pull off when all he really wanted to do was roll on top of her and plunge inside her.
She relaxed and he felt his own body relax fully. He kissed the side of her head. Her hair was soft and it smelled like fruit. What kind of fruit he had no earthly clue, but he liked it.
“Why?” she asked.
He could feel the hurt coming off her in waves. It was like putting your hand near a fire pit that had extinguished but remained hot enough to burn you.
“Long story. And zero to do with you. I just wanted…” He shrugged and then pulled her so that she molded herself against him. She felt nice. Long and lean and warm in his arms. “I just wanted to do that. Just that for tonight. Is that…” He chuckled. “Is that a punishable sin?”
She didn’t answer for a moment and when he said, “Well?”
She said, “I’m thinking.”
He grinned. “What time is wakeup call around this joint? I forgot to ask.”
“We start shift at eight. I get up at seven.”
He rolled away for a moment, feeling the absence of her pressed against him, and set the alarm clock on the beside. “I’m getting up at six forty-five because I’m an over achiever.”
She snorted and he rolled to his side and then positioned her so that she was lying with her back against his chest. He brushed her hair back and kissed the side of her neck. “Don’t read too much into this, Dahlia,” he said.
“I thought you wanted me,” she said. He had to give her credit, a lot of the women he’d known would have pouted. That statement would have been tainted with tears or an attempt to make him feel guilt. This wasn’t. This was a short, strong statement without the bullshit.
That made his desire to turn her over and enter her as strong as ever. Stronger, possibly. He took another deep breath and second guessed himself. What the hell was he doing? He had her—this long legged, smart-mouthed, whiskey drinking creature—in his bed and he was going to lie here and go to sleep?
Yep, you are. So she can trust you and you can trust her.
If she force the issue, manipulated, threw a fit—if she did any combination of those things—he’d know what he was dealing with. Because lying here in a strange house in a strange town with a strange but tempting woman he realized that the last thing he wanted was another Jasmine.
“I did. I do. I just…I’d like it to be this way for tonight. Can we leave it at that?”
Another long pause in the dark and then she pushed her legs back against his and her ass against his cock and her back further against his chest. She was nestling herself against him and he waited, wanting to know, would she try to force the issue? Try to get a rise of out him—so to speak—by rubbing herself against him.
Instead, she took his arm, draped it over her waist and said quietly. “Of course we can. Yes.”
He wasn’t sure how to react. So he smiled and squeezed her and within moments she was breathing deeply, her body soft and still against him.
Caleb found himself falling down the rabbit hole of sleep not long after.
*
When the alarm clock went off she was already sitting there looking at him. She wore nothing but a blue towel wound around her body and her hair was wet.
He smiled at her and touched the dripping end of her hair. “I thought you said you got up at seven.”“I woke up and couldn’t go back to sleep. So I took Alice out to pee, got the paper, took a shower.”
“Painted the house, fed the hogs, and plowed the land…” he teased.
She smiled. Then she opened the towel and dropped it so it puddled around her waist.
So she waited for morning to force the issue. Not sure if she gets points for this or not.
She took his hand and his dick got hard. Well, harder, thanks to morning it was hard to begin with. She moved his hand and he expected a large handful of breast and instead she placed his palm on the scars.
His heart quickened, a tempo he doubted he’d have experienced if she’d done anything else. He felt that freefall sensation that came with intense emotional response. His heart broke a little as she began to speak.
“My father started coming in my room when I was twelve.”
“Oh, Jesus. Dahlia—“
“Hush up, Caleb,” she said.
He shut his mouth so hard his teeth clacked.
“He made a habit of visiting me at least once a month. Sometimes, more.” She swallowed hard. “I don’t know if my mother knew then. I really don’t.”
Then. But he kept his mouth shut and let her talk. The scars seemed to burn beneath his palm.
“By the time I was fifteen there had been a pregnancy scare. I had tried everything to talk him out of it. To turn him off. To deflect him. But I had a little sister and I…well, it became more important to me once I hit that age to keep his attention offher even if it meant it was on me.”
“When I was sixteen, I finally went to my mother. Desperate, I guess. I was still terrified of him, but more at that point, terrified for Delilah. My mother called me a liar.” She shook her head, pulled his palm away from her chest and kissed it. Then she replaced it on that pink puckered skin and his heart broke even more. He wanted to wrap her in his arms and keep her close. For a minute, for an hour, for the day…
“She either knew what he was doing and didn’t want to admit it—because that meant it was real—or she didn’t know and I had brought it to light. But I’d opened my mouth and it became reality. So…one night when I was about to turn seventeen, my dad was gone on business. I remember being so relieved and excited that he was out of that damn house. It meant I had some peace. I could go to sleep and not worry. I came home to find her waiting in my room. My sister wasn’t home. It was just us. And she was waiting…”
He could feel her heart banging under his hand. It felt like something small trapped in there trying to get out. Caleb tried to pull her in so he could at least hold her but she stiff armed him and shook her head.
“She said I was a whore.” She laughed. It was an ugly sound. “That I had seduced my father. That I’d tried to steal him from her.” Another laugh and he wanted to put his fist through something. Preferably her mother. “She was right up in my face. Screaming. And I was shocked…I was motionless. Then she proceeded to pull out a straight razor that my father prided himself on shaving with—it had been my grandfather’s—and…” She coughed. “Well, as you can see, she got in three good swipes at me before I kicked her feet out from under her and ran.”
He pressed his lips together so he wouldn’t rant. Or possibly scream.
“This one,” she said, tracing his finger up the center scar, the longest one. “This one is the one the attending ER doc told me another inch or so and she could have nicked my jugular.” She smiled.There was no humor in that smile. Just sadness and pain.
She dropped his hand and pulled the towel around her. “Long story short,” she said, briskly. “It all came out in the wash, as they say, and I was emancipated not long after. I had a job after school already. A boss who testified on my responsibility and work ethic. I would be finishing high school and luckily had teachers willing to speak on my behalf as well. I was adamant and I got a decent judge who saw that I meant what I said. Delilah went to live with my mother’s sister. A nice woman who gave her a good life.”
“Your parents?”
“Jail and jail. One for attempted murder, my father for obvious reasons. I lucked out. I hear horror stories of monsters like them getting off or getting short sentences. I had scars, physical, emotional, mental, but I got some justice and my sister was safe. And that’s saying something.”
He sat up and took her face in her hands. “You tell me that story, woman, and then tell me how lucky you are?”
“In that respect.”
“I’m going to warn you because I have morning breath,” Caleb said, feeling his heart pick up once again but for an entirely different reason. “But I’m going to kiss you now.”

photo credit: Sommer Marsden Double Rock Park 2013