We have a lot to discuss. We’ve never spoken this much before. I’ve never wanted to grab her under her arms and crush her to my body more than at this moment. I see the uncertainty on her face. Something happened back there that she doesn’t understand, but I do. How much do I tell her of what I overheard? Dreams and nightmares come from somewhere, don’t they?
Did Sorrow suppress what she has nightmares about because the danger to her, what she yelled out, is real? I don’t want my father to worry, but Kyle was his business partner, and if this danger has something to do with my father’s business, he has every right to know. And I would have every right to keep Sorrow near. She won’t be moving to a big city anytime soon until I address any threats to her.
“I have nightmares, and you checked up on me. It’s the reason you’re close by when I wake up to get a drink of water.”
“Yes,” I answer. “Earlier, a memory surfaced, didn’t it?”
She nods. Her clear glacier-blue eyes shine with unshed tears. Fuck it. I get up off the couch, sit beside her, and pull her into my lap. She yelps with surprise.
“I’m sorry. Sorry that you’re scared and worried.” I can’t stand seeing the worry on her face. I hate that she’s scared and nervous around me.
Her small hand flits to my shoulder. She’s unsure. Sorrow is broken beyond anyone’s help. Malice’s words from one of our conversations play in my head like a song on a loop.
You wish you broke hearts. We all know you do the opposite. You put the broken back together, Trace. That’s why I’m glad Sorrow is staying with you. At first, I had my doubts, but you’ll help her get through her trauma.
How can I break someone’s heart when they haven’t fallen for all of me? The girls want my body, want to stoke their curiosity about my reputation. That I can breathe life back into their bodies with how expertly I work at them with my fingers and mouth. Malice is wrong. I don’t put the broken back together. Those girls were already damaged by the time they sought me out, and I gave them what they were asking for.
Two broken people don’t make a right.
Is that the reason I feel this deep emptiness? Am I reduced to giving and receiving oral because I’m as broken as the girls who seek me out for a stolen moment to feel something, anything, other than loneliness? Fuck me, I’m not lonely. I have Malice and Trace. But they have their girls.
Damn.
Blowing out a breath, I stroke my thumb across Sorrow’s cheek. She’s broken beyond anyone’s help, and I’m not the right guy to put her back together, but I can try, starting with her never feeling unsure when around me. I take her thin arms and wrap them around my neck. Her brow furrows.
“Do what you want with me, Sorrow. I’ll never reject you.” I skate my thumb across her worry lines.
“That’s a lot of power to give to a girl you dislike.”
“I don’t dislike you.” It’s the opposite.
“You avoid me at school. You don’t step in when the girls laugh at me. But you do when the guys try to talk to me.”
“I won’t fight your fight, but I sure as fuck will fuck up any guy who thinks he can wet his dick with you.”
Her eyes widen before anger lights them up into this dark blue I can get used to looking at all day long. “That’s not your call to make.”
Not my call, my ass.
Seeing red, done with holding in my temper, I crash my mouth over hers. I need her sweetness, her softness, her surrender. Sorrow needs to understand she is my little mouse. I won’t let another predator near her. Once they get a whiff of her sweet scent and her innocence, they’ll tarnish it and tear her to pieces. She’s already suffered enough tragedies. Only the strongest of the strong can protect and defile her innocence. That would be me. Only me.
I coax her mouth open with my tongue. She opens to me with a soft sigh. I taste the walls of her mouth and tangle our tongues. Fuck, her sweetness, her softness, her surrender . . . My heartbeat is loud in my ears. Every cell in my body fucking hums. And when she sets her small hands on my chest and leans into the kiss, I groan. I am in fucking heaven.
Shifting on my lap and turning into me, she sets her palms on my jaw and slows the kiss down to something worshipping and exploring. I go with the flow and let her. Her body melts into mine. I sink further into the couch. My hand rests on her hip, and the other is at the small of her back. She’s skinny. Tiny. I want to wrap my wings around my little mouse and protect her from the elements and other predators.
Sorrow probes my mouth with hers in a slow exploration, her concentration all in the kiss. Sorrow kisses me without any expectation on her part—none, nada, zilch. And I’m finding that I like kissing her for the joy of kissing someone without the expectations and conditions that come with it. I eat up her sighs of contentment and her murmurs of how sweet my mouth is, how tender my kisses are, and how she’s longed for them.
“Is that so?” I murmur on her mouth, my eyes hooded with desire.
“Yes,” she admits.
“I’m sorry about earlier.”
She looks at me with confusion.
“All the f-bombs, and the wet dick part.” I hold her head in my palms and skate my thumbs over the arches of her cheeks. Her skin is smooth and flawless with a tinge of pink. Fuck, she’s beautiful. “I’ll go easy on the crassness.”
“I like your crassness. It’s you.” She lowers her eyes but not her head.
