“Obviously, we’d done plenty together, up to that point. So she knew…me. What I was like. What I looked like.” He sounded…embarrassed, or something like it. “I ain’t a small guy, not in any way. Okay? And she was well aware of this. Seemed to be pretty appreciative of it, if you know what I mean.”
I bit my lip, laughed silently. “Yes, Ink, I can imagine.” I threaded my fingers into his beard. “Nothing about you is small, so I can…well…imagine, that you’re just as…big…in other ways.” I buried my face in his chest. “I have to admit, I’ve thought about that.”
He stared at me. “You have?”
I let my palm rest on his chest, and then drift to his stomach. “I’ve thought about it quite a bit, lately especially.” Swallowed my own nerves. “Thought about when I’m alone, and…worked up.”
He let out a slow, controlled breath. “Dammit, Cass.”
“What?” I asked, endeavoring to sound innocent, even as I laughed under my breath.
“Making it hard to think.”
“Maybe you don’t need to think.”
He closed his eyes, breathing evenly, as if tightly controlling himself—his hand was gripping my waist, fingers dimpling my skin between shirt and pants. “Cass…you don’t know what you’re asking.”
“Thus the story of Elise, I take it.”
He nodded.
“You accidentally hurt her? Like, she wasn’t ready for…um. All of you?”
He shrugged. “I…no. But there’s more to it than that. Up until that point, she’d been encouraging me to just be open and honest with her about everything. What I was feeling, what I wanted, what I liked. To not hold back.”
“Good advice.”
“Thought so myself. Still do, but…what happened was a different story.” He sighed. “No way to tell this without getting a little graphic.”
“Doesn’t bother me, Ink. Just the story.”
“It was a few days after we talked about being ready to go all the way. Big deal for me, obviously not so much for her, but she said it was because she’d never been anyone’s first before.”
“I imagine being someone’s first would be a pretty big deal.”
“She seemed to think so.” A pause, thoughts and memories obvious in his eyes.
“Tell me, Ink.”
“We were at my place—a little loft over the shop—office space now, but it was where I lived then, before I built the tiny home out back. I started things, you know. Kissing and stuff. She knew what it was, and things just sort of progressed pretty normally. Remember, up until then, it’d just been hands and mouths between us. Exploration, experimentation. Kid stuff, to her, but all new to me.” Thoughts, silences. “Worth pointing out, too, that I’ve always been way, way bigger than everyone else. Stronger. Even in football, I held back, except during games, and even in games I’d hold back. Scared of letting myself go, totally. Scared of hurting people.”
I touched his cheek. “You’re a gentle person, Ink. Just who you are.”
“So holding back has been the defining feature of my life. Hold back physically, don’t take up so much space. Don’t be loud—don’t draw any more attention to myself than my size and appearance already do. Getting bullied and made fun of and shunned like I was my whole life like I was will do that you. Teach you to be smaller, quieter. Less.”
My heart cracked for him. “Oh god, Ink. That’s totally wrong. You should be you, all the way. Be as more as you can be, and fuck whatever anyone else thinks.”
“That ain’t so easy when you’re a kid.”
I sighed. “No, indeed.”
“So. Me, used to holding back. Her, telling me not to. Me, wanting to believe her. Wanting to be able to, just once, let go, even a little bit.”
I felt the shape of what was coming, and it hurt to think of.
“She was into it. I was doin’ everything she’d taught me to make her feel good. It was gettin’…rowdy. Not sure how else to put it. Aggressive. Not mean, not violent. Just…rowdy.”
I grinned against his chest. “I know what you mean.” I felt my cheeks heat. “That’s how I like it best.”
He growled. “Shit, shit, shit.” A long hard tense fraught pause. “God, okay. So.”
“What happened, Ink?”
“I lost control.”
“That’s what she wanted.”
“Yeah.” His voice was low, vibrating on nearly inaudible frequency. “She’d told me to let go, to not hold back. So that’s what I did. I let go. I just…let go. Threw control and caution to the four winds.”
“Good for you.”
“No, it wasn’t.” He sounded…angry. “I was…with her. Holding her. Um…you know, on her hands and knees, facing away from me.”
“Doggy style.”
“Yeah.” Pause. “Just…rough. Not trying to hurt her. She was makin’ sounds like she liked it. Wasn’t telling me to stop, wasn’t…nothing. But then she pulled away, like scrambled away. I thought at first she was going for a different position. So I grabbed her. Picked her up, flipped her to her back. Before, she’d kinda liked it when I tossed her around a little. She had curves on her, so she liked feeling light, I guess.” Another pause filled with harsh breath, halting, pained words falling out. “Took her like that, thinking it was what she wanted. Or, truthfully, not really thinking. Just feeling. Just…taking. She was…crying. Sobbing. Slapped me. Kicked me, hard. Scrambled to her knees, off the bed.”
“Oh god.”
“I’d really, really hurt her. Too rough. Too much.”
“She never said anything? Never told you it hurt, never sounded like she was in pain?”
He shook his head. It may have been a trick of the moonlight, but it seemed like there were tears on his cheeks. “She was limping. Crying. She didn’t say a word to me. Just dressed, wouldn’t let me near her. Left. Never came back. Left all of her stuff—clothes, money, books. Everything but her purse and camera bag. Left. Never saw her again. Found a PO Box in her name, a few weeks later, and sent her stuff to her.”
“Ink—”
“There ain’t’ no excuse for what I done.” He swallowed. “I just lost control, and I hurt her.”
“You didn’t—you couldn’t have known. She never told you to stop or to be a little more gentle. She told you to not hold back.”
“She told me she knew I wouldn’t hurt her, so don’t worry.”
“And then you hurt her, and she…” I shrugged. “Reacted unkindly.”
“Reacted like anyone would being hurt by their sexual partner.”
“No.” I touched his jaw. “No, Ink. I’ve had partners get a little too rough before, and it’s a matter of just asking him to be a little more gentle. And really, the guys who have done that were selfish assholes to begin with, and not thinking of me in the first place.” I held his eyes, but he didn’t want to look at me. “Ink, look at me. Listen. If a woman is excited, if she’s really enjoying it, if her body is ready, she can take…well, a lot more than you might think.”