The Resurrected Compendium Read online

  Kelsey yawned, the back of her hand covering her mouth. “Dennis, I’m so tired. Where can I get some sleep?”

  “You can use my bed.”

  “It’s not big enough,” she told him flatly, no hint of flirtation, not even a ghost of a smile.

  He paused. “Mom’s bed’s a queen.”

  Upstairs in his mother’s room, Dennis carefully pulled down the covers with his good hand and waved her into the bed. Kelsey took off the borrowed jeans and shirt, leaving her in a tank top and boxers. She settled on the edge, staring at him until he looked away. She didn’t lay back.

  “I don’t want to sleep alone,” she told him.

  “Someone should…watch.”

  Kelsey didn’t let this deter her. With a lift of her chin, she inched back and patted the mattress beside her. “You’re exhausted too. Come to bed with me.”

  He shifted from foot to foot, still not looking at her. “Kelsey…”

  “Dennis,” she said sharply. “I need you.”

  Without another word, she scooted to the other edge of the bed and turned onto her side facing away from him. She waited, eyes closed, heart beating fast, for him to leave the room. After a long minute though, the mattress dipped. She felt his warmth behind her, though he wasn’t even close to touching her. She heard him breathing.

  Kelsey knew men. She knew how they walked and talked and most of the time, how they thought. She knew them because she’d gone about the study of them as intensely and with as much effort as she’d put into her schoolwork. What men liked. What they wanted. She’d shaped her body, colored her hair and whitened her teeth to make herself as pleasing to them as she could, because men were very often the key to getting what she wanted.

  What she wanted now, no…needed, now, was for Dennis to hold her.

  When he didn’t move toward her, she shifted, inching backward. Reaching behind her, she took his arm, slipped it around her to tuck his hand against her belly just below her breasts. She held it there with hers. With still an inch or so of space between them, the position wasn’t as comfortable as she wanted. She moved closer.

  At his sharp intake of breath, she paused. His breath caressed the back of her neck. More heat rose. His fingers twitched against her.

  Kelsey shifted again. Slowly, slowly. She pressed her butt against his crotch, wiggling just a little to get comfortable.

  Dennis sighed.

  Tears pricked her eyes, so she closed them. Her breathing slowed. He didn’t move. She wriggled just a little closer, waiting.

  When he made no move to slide his hand up to cup her breast, or to push himself against her — and he was hard, she could feel that with no trouble, when he made no effort at trying to make this simple embrace into something more, Kelsey pressed her free hand to her eyes to hold back the sting of tears.

  “Dennis,” she breathed in a voice low and hoarse, sort of shameful in its need. “Please touch me.”

  He shuddered, actually shook. Like he was disgusted. He made like he meant to pull away, but when she tightened her fingers in his, he stilled.

  Without looking at him, Kelsey slid their joined hands down the flat stomach she’d worked so many hours to make taut and tight. How hard she’d struggled. The meals she’d missed, the surgeries. Now her hip bones jutted, her stomach concave. She could laugh. All it took was the end of the world to make her model-skinny, and here she was with a man who didn’t seem inclined to want her.

  She pushed Dennis’s fingers beneath the edge of her borrowed boxers to cup her. The low noise he made in his throat encouraged her to curl his fingertips against her. Just…there.

  Slow, slow, slow. She guided his fingertip in tiny, steady circles. She waited for him to move on his own, to go too fast, get too eager, to try and slide inside her from behind…but Dennis only did what Kelsey wanted him to do.

  It went on and on, the pleasure rising incrementally, second by second, until she couldn’t stop herself from moving against him. Arching, Kelsey rolled her hips. He was so hard against her, but he didn’t even try to get inside her, it was driving her crazy and yet she couldn’t make herself shift or open for him. All she could do was keep his fingers moving on her.

  She whispered his name, turning her face to give him her mouth. Dennis didn’t kiss her. She let go of his hand to slide her arm up and around the back of his head. If his hand had stopped moving between her legs, she’d have screamed — but it didn’t. He’d found her rhythm. Just right.

  Just…there.

  Oh, how long it had been since she’d felt anything but fear or pain or utter exhaustion. It made this pleasure all the sweeter. It rocked her. It turned her inside out. In fact, she wept with it, or maybe there were other reasons for the tears, but whatever it was, she tasted salt when she came.

  Long, silent seconds later, she went still. Dennis breathed against her neck, his hand still tucked between her legs. Kelsey blinked and wiped her face, not sure of what to say.

  When it became clear Dennis wasn’t going to speak, she rolled to face him, her thigh nudging between his. She thought about reaching between them to touch him, but something in his eyes kept her from it. Instead, she cupped his face.

  “Dennis?”

  Dennis settled a little into the pillow.

  “Thank you.”

  He looked uncomfortable. “You don’t have to thank me.”

  She pushed her thigh a little higher. “Don’t you want…me?”

  Kelsey had thought she was a pretty good judge of when to be coy, when to flutter her lashes and dip her chin to make a man feel like he was in charge. She knew when to be aggressive, too. The perfect mix of madonna and whore. She had no idea how to deal with a man who seemed bent on resisting her.

  Dennis didn’t move, though he sure looked like he wanted to. He swallowed hard, his gaze shifting from hers. He closed his eyes after a second, as though the sight of her was too much. “Yes. No. I mean…you don’t have to do this.”

  “I want to,” she told him and got up on one elbow to look into his face. “Dennis. Look at me.”

  He did after a second, though clearly with reluctance. Kelsey moved away to give him some space. She frowned, trying to understand him and still unable.

  “I want you,” she said simply. “I want to do this with you. I don’t know how to be more blunt except to say Dennis, please fuck me.”

  He snorted, his body jerking, and sat up. He twisted away from her. The movement was so swift, so sharp, she didn’t have time to react until he’d completely given her his back.

  “What did I do?” She cried.

  “It’s not you.”

  She put a hand on his shoulder, careful not to squeeze too hard. “Then…what?”

  He looked over his shoulder at her. “I’ve never…I mean…it’s not that I don’t want to. It’s that I don’t know how.”

  She laughed; it was the wrong thing to do of course. Men never took kindly to laughter when it came to bedroom matters. But she couldn’t help it. “Oh, Dennis, you definitely know how.”

  She’d been with men who’d have slapped her for that laughter, but Dennis’s mouth quirked up on one side. “No.”

  She nodded, taking a chance on moving a little closer. “Oh. Yes.”

  He ducked his head, not looking at her again. His shoulders hunched. “You probably think I’m the biggest asshole alive.”

  “Because you’ve never slept with someone?” Truthfully, she found it surprising and endearing and charming and adorable.

  He nodded.

  She scooted to sit next to him, a scant inch of space between them so it wouldn’t seem overwhelming to him. She let her heels tap against the bed as she studied her hands on her lap. “You are not an asshole, Dennis. Not even close.”

  “I just never met anyone, I mean I met people, women, I mean. But never anyone I wanted to, well. Or that wanted to with me, I guess.”

  She found that hard to believe.

  Dennis shrugged. “And then the lon