Counterfeit Love

Hell, the only kiss I had to my name was a weird five-second kiss in a pool with a friend's cousin visiting from Italy.

I simply had no experience dealing with the chaos that came with having a body that craved something from another person.

And then, everything had been taken from me, turning something that should have been a decision, something born of want and trust and affection, into something twisted and ugly and agonizing.

After that, the work had been on my mind, my heart, and soul, on all the parts of me that couldn't be touched physically, but had been destroyed nonetheless.

The work had been intensive, all-consuming.

And until the mind was somewhat fixed, there was simply no use trying to analyze the body.

I guess that was the good thing about a body, compared to the mind. It knew how to heal. The body knew time and care and rest and love could help it recover; it could remember how it was always meant to work.

I felt as unprepared for the passion as I would have been if I'd been assaulted with all these sensations when I was a girl still.

It was overwhelming the way the sensations came all at once.

The skittering pulse.

The pounding heart.

The tight chest.

The strange almost ticklish sensation down my arms. Like someone doing spiders up my skin.

The heaviness on my lower belly.

The aching between my thighs.

When they came all at once, it was almost, I don't know, startling. Like I had no control.

But in a pleasant way, that felt right, felt empowering.

Which was why I didn't want to have a conversation with Finch about it right then. I wanted to get my mind and body on the same page.

So I took myself into the shower, and I washed away the chemicals, noticing how different even my own touch felt after being so aroused for so long. Just a brush of a soapy loofa over my breasts sent a spark of need between my thighs.

Even after I cleaned and dried and dressed and settled in bed, my system still felt like a live wire.

Curling on my side, I listened to the sound of the shower running, found my mind wandering across the suite, into his bathroom, into the shower, picturing the water running down his tattooed chest and back, over the gentle indents of muscles there.

All that wandering was not helping the full-body attraction issue.

On a grumble, I flopped to my other side, grabbing the remote off the nightstand, flicking on a random channel to drown out the sounds of the shower.

I expected to stay awake, trying to analyze likely over-analyze--the whole situation.

Instead, once I heard the click of Finch's door, I drifted almost immediately to sleep.I woke up with a scream dying in my throat.

"It's okay," Finch's voice called softly from the doorway. "You're safe. We're at the hotel," he added, tone soothing as my hand pressed to my chest, trying to slow my breathing.

Swallowing the sick feeling in the back of my throat, I glanced over. "Did I wake you?" I asked, noticing his sleep-tossed hair, the heavy lids.

"You were crying," he told me, pushing off the doorway, making his way toward the bed.

Was I?

With a sudden surge of insecurity, my hands flew upward, finding wetness on my cheeks.

"I'm sorry," I told him, wiping at the tears.

"Don't apologize to me for having a bad dream, doll," he demanded softly, moving toward the other side of the bed, climbing in on top of the blankets. It was a small thing, but I felt it was his way of saying that this was just him being a good friend, that he had no expectations about the two of us being in a bed at the same time.

And I appreciated that.

"What time is it?"

"Just after two," he told me, bouncing around on the pillows. "You know what--you're right."

"Right about what?" I asked, feeling my heartbeat slow, my anxiety ease.

"The pillows. Yours are a lot better than mine. These sheets are even better too. What are we watching here?" he asked, jerking his chin toward the TV.

"I fell asleep watching Golden Girls reruns," I told him.

"Great. Now in an hour, we'll be craving cheesecake," he grumbled. Feeling my gaze, his head shifted on the pillow. "My grandmother used to watch this. I have likely seen every episode multiple times."

"You have a lot of layers," I mumbled, watching as he shot me a smile.

His hand reached out, thumb tracing next to my eye, catching a bit of wetness I had missed.

"You want to talk about the nightmare?"

"I want to do something about the nightmare," I corrected, letting out a breath as I reached up to run fingers through my bed-messy hair. "It was him," I admitted.

"Just a couple more hours," he promised, arm reaching out, pausing to see if I flinched away. When I didn't, it slipped under my shoulders, pulling me until I rolled onto my side and rested on his bare chest.