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His tone was light and gentle and immediately put me at ease. Or at least more ease than I was. I stopped, letting his fingers hold mine by the tips. It was a small gesture, but it didn’t scare me. Just more reassuring. “I’m Will,” he said. “I’ll find someone to get you out of here, okay?”
do, the hands left my mouth and waist, and instead came up and covered my ears as he pulled me close. “Shhhh,” he soothed, his mouth next to my temple.
I brought my hand up to cover the sobs escaping, and that’s when he brought me into his chest, still holding his hand over one ear, but pressing the other into his heart.
lost in it. In his warmth. In his arms. In the thunder of his heartbeat.
“You could never not draw attention,” he finally said. “And it has nothing to do with you being blind.” The way he said it—gentle and thoughtful—made heat rise to my cheeks, and I didn’t know if he meant my dancing or if I was pretty, but I smiled to myself, suddenly warm all over.
Fine. I slid a leg into the car, ducking my head as he guided me into his lap, fitting my legs between his long ones. I leaned back a little, so I wasn’t right up on the steering wheel, my back pressed against his chest.
I shook my head, breathing hard as I tried to right myself. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry…” “Shhh,” he soothed, his left hand resting on my hip. “We’ve got all the time in the world.”
“My heart…” he said. “Shit.” I remembered what he said last week at my house. Do you know what I have to do to get it to beat like that? “I scared you.” “Not an emotion I’m used to being on the receiving end of,” he mused.
“I won’t let you go ag—” He stopped and evened out his voice. “I won’t let you go,” he said. “Hold on.”
She panted against me, and for a moment, I was reminded of our times together back in the day. When I whispered to hide my voice, but she was mine and I was hers, and she was in my lap, driving my car. Did she ever think about that?
“I’m leaving the school.” “The fuck you are,” Damon growled. And then to Mr. Kincaid, “It was just a disagreement. I’ll leave her alone. You have my word.” “Your word…” he mocked.
I turned my face away, breathing harder. “And be good,” he told me. “If I hear anyone touched you, I will crack his fucking skull.”
Jesus Christ. She was beautiful.
“I want her to want it,” I told Mikhail, his brown eyes looking up at me expectantly. “I want her to want me, to give me her heart, and be my soft, sweet, smiling Little Devil, clutching at me and unable to stop herself.” My heart quickened. “And then I want her to hate herself for it. To turn against herself and hate that she likes it, so she knows she’s weak and pathetic and no different than any other bitch. That she wasn’t special.”
He nodded. “I show up to see you again, and when I do, I see you getting in a car with another man.”
“Because they’re mine, not yours,” he warned, moving his mouth under my ear. “And you’re mine, not theirs.”
Sixty? Did I feel sixty when she touched me? I stopped what I was doing and got down in her face. “Old enough to vote, not old enough to buy liquor,” I told her. “But I can still get liquor. If you want.”
It was amazing she hadn’t figured it out yet, but I was careful to take off the rosary when I met her, and I always showered before I came. I thought it would be tough, not smoking to give myself away,
“You gonna keep being good?”
“What will I do?” I repeated, brushing her mouth with mine as I carried her into the stall. “I’m going to throw you down…” I lowered us, leaning forward as she held onto me, breathless. “And give you…” Lower, lower. “A big…” Lower. “Fat…” Lower… “Spanking.”
Yes, I wanted to see her again. She was mine. In our secluded, secret little world, she was mine.
But I just shook my head, keeping my voice low in case her parents were still awake. “I don’t know,
baby,” I told her. “Just don’t let me go, okay?”
Baby, I’ve never disappeared. I’ve always been here. This past summer when you were lying on
the beach, I was there. When you went into the shop with your mom for a coffee, I was right there. She never knew how close I always was.
I didn’t want her first time. I wanted every time. But I didn’t want to love her, either. I didn’t
It could mean more. Just with her.
I shook my head, still not looking at her. “I don’t do gentle,” I said. “But God, baby, you are tearing me apart right now.” She threaded her fingers through my hair. “The less special I make this, the less you’ll be hurt,” I offered.
to say. “You’re not making me dirty. There is no you. There’s no me. This is us. Just us.”
She made the sweetest little sound, her face twisted up in pain and pleasure as she adjusted to me, and when she started to arch her back and roll her hips to meet me, I knew I didn’t have to hold back anymore.
“Yeah, baby.”
The wave spread through my entire body, and I stayed there, pretty fucking sure nothing compared to her. She was incredible. Why did that feel so different?
But I stopped her, pulling her hand away. “No, don’t touch it,” I said. “I’ll… Just wait.” I climbed off her. “Don’t move.”
“This feels like the time I sat in a fountain once,” she told me. “The water spilled around us, shielding us. Hiding us. It was like a world within a world. One of my worst memories but also one of my best.” I smoothed my wet hair over my head over and over again, that day like yesterday in my memory. If only she knew the boy she was with in the fountain was the boy who just fucked her. Did she still hate him?
When you find out who just fucked you, you’re gonna see plenty of red then.
I heard him swallow and then he said, “Keep going.” But it came out as a whisper.
“Don’t stare at me.” I could feel his shitty little smile.
I touched him, grazing my fingertips across his cheekbones, down to his jaw, up his neck, and over the hollows of his cheeks. He moved into it, meeting my touch by cocking his head and turning it, giving me complete access as I checked my work, and then his words came back to me from all that time ago. Want to check the rest of my body?
“Good girl.”
But he just laughed. “Yeah, so do I. Don’t worry about it.”
for a moment longer before jumping off. “Oh, he liked you,” Will teased.
“And?” he finally answered, Damon’s voice strong and sure.
Every moment with her, I was real. I would’ve been faithful, and I would’ve died protecting her.
He didn’t want a puppy. He wanted a partner. But there comes a point when you have to defend your house and take charge. And not just in the bedroom.
“Baby, please.” Kai looked insulted.
cocked an eyebrow at Michael. “You gonna make my sister carry that?”
something of ours and get away with it passed out between her legs with his head resting on her chest.
“If she’s not home by two,” I gestured to Winter, “my security will bring her home. Don’t test me.”
was frozen. “You’re mine,” I said, kissing her mouth once as I humped her. “Mine.” I kissed her again. “Mine in that fountain. Mine in the locker room and in the janitor’s closet. Mine in the dean’s office.” I took her jaw in my hand. “You’ll have my kids and be my woman and fuck me, because that’s what I want.”
“I told her that I wanted you,” I went on. “That you loved me, because there was no faking what happened in that fucking video, and I told her that I loved you, too, and I was sorry for stealing you the way I did, but it was the only way I could get close to you.”
