What She Needs - Lacey Alexander [14]
She didn’t answer for a long moment. Why had she been so freaking honest on those forms? About her loving yet superconservative parents always acting as if sex were a dirty word, acting as if everything about it were wrong. About her older cousin, Donny, who had, on more than one occasion, made obscene remarks to her when she was an adolescent, and had once rudely grabbed her between her legs at a family picnic when no one else was around—and, of course, she’d been too mortified to tell her mother, afraid it would seem like her fault somehow. And—oh Lord, this meant he’d also read about that time she’d been in a crush of people at an amusement park when she was fourteen and a man’s hand had snaked out of the crowd to squeeze her breast, leaving her to feel helpless and violated. She’d never even seen his face.
Sitting there across from Brent Powers, she hated that this man had gotten such a close look into a private window of her life. She was long over all those things now—she’d written them down in response to pointed questions, thinking only a woman would ever see her answers. And never expecting anyone to think they’d . . . scarred her, for heaven’s sake.
“Just so you know,” she finally said, wondering if she appeared weak after thinking back on unpleasant things, “I’m a well-adjusted adult who is perfectly capable of overcoming a few less-than-ideal situations in my youth.”
“Less than ideal? That’s a mild way to put it.”
“I disagree. Much worse things happen to people all the time. I’m a grown-up—and I got over all those things a long time ago.”
“I don’t believe you, Jenna,” he said, his voice as dark and smooth as melted chocolate.
God, the man was insufferable. “Then what do you believe? And don’t give me this ‘You have to show me’ crap. Tell me what it is you believe about me.”
“All right,” he finally said.
Their gazes met and locked across the table, and her heart beat harder than she thought it should. She felt tense, a little tipsy, and still struggled against the fluttering sensation in her panties every time she looked into Brent Powers’ eyes.
“I believe you want, value, crave, and even revere sex a lot more than you think. But I also believe that, deep down, you fear that all but the tamest forms of sex are, on some moral level, wrong. I believe there’s a very sensual, sexual woman inside you, hiding behind a bunch of negative messages you received as a kid. I believe you’re in serious denial and that you need to be shown how amazing, how really phenomenal, sex can be. And further, I believe you need to trust me here—just take it on faith—that I know what I’m talking about, because your denial is thick enough that you won’t be able to see the truth without my help.”
She took it all in. Absorbed it. Felt a little abused. Embarrassed. Angry. Because none of that was true. Yeah, those bad things had happened—but most people, girls especially, had to deal with stuff like that at some point in their lives, didn’t they? It was awful at the time, sure, but it didn’t mean she was screwed up because of it. “You want to know what I believe?” she asked.
“Sure.”
“That you’re the most arrogant man I’ve ever met. And that you have a serious God complex.”
“No,” he said, “I don’t think I’m God, Little Mary Sunshine. But I do think I can save you.”
His words settled deep down inside her. They were too much. Too overwhelming of a promise for her to take. And why on earth did it make the juncture of her thighs throb even harder?
She couldn’t look at him anymore, just couldn’t. In fact, she wanted to run away—just like when she’d arrived here.
Instead, though, she simply stood up and walked a few steps to the gazebo’s railing to peer out on the beach. The sun had sunk below the horizon now, but the sky remained awash in color, and it was much easier to face the sunset than the man who was