Uninhibited

She’s the only one.

26.

ALICIA

We drive back in silence after the show. Tegan is staying in the city with friends, so it’s just the two of us for the journey back to Beachwood Bay. I gaze out the window at the neon lights on the highway, dazzling and bright. I’m in a dream-like state, drifting and breathless, still wrapped up in the fierce crash of Dex’s lips, and his body demanding everything I had to give.

It was like nothing I’d ever felt before. So intense. So out of control.

I shiver, snuggling deeper in his leather jacket. A small part of me wonders if I should feel used, the way he threw me down and ravaged me like that. But that’s the voice that tells me to order salad instead of pasta; and watch documentaries instead of my latest trashy TV fix. It’s the voice of should and mustn’t and don’t, and it’s growing weaker every day I spend with Dex—every time I do what I truly want instead of biting my tongue and worrying if it’s alright.

I wanted him. I loved it.

I need more.

The blur of traffic speeds by and the miles slip away behind us, silent in the night. I must have fallen asleep, because the next thing I know, Dex is lifting me gently into his arms.

I murmur, sleepy, but he hushes me. “I’ve got you,” he murmurs. I sink back into his warm embrace, my head resting against his chest as he carries me inside and through to the bedroom. He lays me on his bed, and gently eases my shoes off. “Just sleep,” he whispers, and wrapped up in the covers, and the scent of him, I do.

When I wake, the house is dark, and the bed is empty beside me.

I lie still, listening to the waves crashing, distant against the shore. Then I hear it, the quiet strum of guitar chords coming from down the hall. A melody plays, staccato, and then stops. A moment later it starts again, continuing longer this time, adding more notes, changing the bridge.

Dex is playing.

I slide out of bed. I’m still dressed in my clothes from last night, so I pull them off and slip into a shirt of Dex’s. Then I pad slowly towards the sound of his playing, following it through the empty house until I find him in a room past his office: a soaring atrium set on the corner of the house, nothing but glass walls and plush carpet and the midnight blackness of the ocean surrounding us.

He’s sitting on the couch, naked in a pair of jeans. He’s got a guitar in his lap, surrounded by looseleaf paper. I stay hidden in the doorway for a moment, watching him at work. He’s completely absorbed, playing the chords, pausing to scribble and cross things out. Slowly, under his masterful fingertips, I hear a song take shape. A verse, the chorus refrain, the notes stringing together in something hauntingly melancholy.

It’s beautiful.

He’s beautiful. Shadowed in the moonlight, the dark ink of his tattoo twisting over his golden tanned bicep. He’s all power and restraint, intensity and passion.

Dex finishes strumming the refrain and glances up, seeing me here.

“Hey,” I say, embarrassed to be caught watching. “I heard the music, and…” I pause, moving closer. “What is it?”

Dex looks away. “I don’t know yet.”

His answer is clipped, and when I reach him, I see that his body has tensed up. I stop. “What’s wrong?” I ask, confused.

Dex pauses, then he looks up at me with an anguished expression in his eyes. “I’m sorry.”

His voice is so broken, it sends a chill through my body.

“Sorry for what?” I ask. I sit beside him on the couch and place a hand on his shoulder, but he flinches at my touch.

“For what I did, back there.” Dex swallows. “I can’t believe…I swore I’d never treat you like that.” He grounds the words out. “It was wrong.”

Realization sweeps over me. What happened in the dressing room, he thinks that was bad?

“No!” I exclaim passionately. “Dex, you’ve got it wrong. You didn’t do anything to me. I was right there, with you. Remember?”

He looks confused. “But…I hurt you.”

“No.” I pause, feeling the delicious soreness in my body from his hard grip. “Well, maybe a little,” I add with a smile, “but only in a good way.”

He still looks conflicted, so I slide into his lap, straddling him. I cradle his face in my hands, looking deep into those dark, fathomless eyes. “I promise you, Dex, I wouldn’t let you hurt me. The minute you do anything I don’t like, that I’m not comfortable with, I’ll stop you. Believe me, you’ll know,” I add with a wry smile. “But you won’t hurt me, you’re not that kind of man.”

He exhales a shaking breath, still looking torn. “How can you know that?”

“Because I do.”

I don’t have a reason to trust him like this, but I know it in my bones: I’m safe with him. The passion, the reckless desire, it would never stop Dex from doing the right thing, no matter how strongly it sweeps us into the riptide.

Dex slowly relaxes against me, tilting his head to rest his forehead against mine. We stay there a moment, breathing each other in and out, no sound but the distant crashing of the waves and my own heartbeat, steady in my chest.

“What are we doing?” he whispers, sliding his hands over my back.

“I don’t know.”

Dex draws my face closer, claiming my lips in a slow, tender kiss. My body melts against him like I was made to fit. And my heart…my heart shivers in my chest at this closeness. How I can feel his emotions like they were my own. How scared and confused he is to want me like this; how fast we’ve gone from teasing and light flirtation to so much more.