This wasn't an invitation to ask. It was an answer to something unspoken between us. He'd seen my scars—the ones I'd tried to hide, to erase, to pretend never existed. And now he was showing me his own.
Not with words. Not with explanations or justifications.
Just…proof that he understood. That he carried his own damage. That he wasn't standing in judgment of mine.
With my hand still on the chess piece, I pressed a kiss to the puckered scar under the Roman numerals and slowly moved up his neck. When I shifted to kiss his lips again, I swore I saw something impossible flash through his eyes.
Vulnerability.
He kissed me again and slowly pushed us both over the edge to another mind-shattering orgasm.
After,I lay on the bed next to him, my head resting in the crook of his shoulder, listening to the steady rhythm of his heartbeat.
Reality was seeping in, and I didn’t know how to make it stop. I wasn’t sure if I should stop it.
The sex we just had wasn’t like the other times; it wasn’t hard fucking, a power play, complete domination. It was intimate, deeply intimate, and in most ways, it was far better than the mind-numbing, screaming orgasms he had forced from my body before. These were coaxed, gently pulled, but they didn’t leave me feeling hollow and used.
Instead, I felt connected, safe, and even cherished. That was something I couldn’t afford to let happen. I could recover from a quick fuck. I could recover from being used and abused; women did it every single day.
But how was I supposed to recover from my assailant offering the closest thing I had ever felt to love?
"Can I ask you something?" Darius shattered the silence with his low, dark, rumbling voice.
"Since when did you need permission?" I asked.
"My question isn't business, it's personal," he said, as if that made a difference.
Putting that damn collar around my neck may have been business for him, but every moment since those diamonds were fastened around my throat had felt very personal to me. Not to mention lying naked in this bed, my head on his chest and my arm slung over his waist.
"Go for it," I shrugged.
"Your mother, does she always talk to you like she did at the Kennedy Center?"
I bit back a frigid, brittle laugh.
"No," I answered honestly. "Sometimes she can be far more...cruel. We were in public, so her temper was under control."
"She tried to hit you," he said slowly, like I had forgotten.
"She tried to slap me," I corrected. "It was calculated so if someone were to snap a photo, it would look like a proud mother patting her daughter's cheek."
It was true, she had become a master of manipulating poses, learning how to cause the maximum amount of pain without outward signs. The few times she slipped, she paid off the reporters for the photos.
"She called you a whore and other things a woman should never be called, especially by their mother."
This time I couldn't hold back my laughter. It poured out of me in icy waves.
"It's not funny." He rolled over to look me in the eye. The concern reflected in his eyes only made me roll mine.
"You're worried that my mother called me a whore, when you have been treating me like one?" Tears spilled from the corners of my eyes as I laughed harder. "You call me a whore and a slut while you are fucking me, but you take offense when someone else?—"
Peals of laughter swallowed up the rest of my words. The hypocrisy was breathtaking.
Darius went still as he waited for me to finish.
When I finally got myself under control and caught my breath, he rolled over so he was on top of me. His cock lay heavy on my lower stomach as he sank some of his weight onto me, pressing me into the mattress, calming me.
His fists wrapped around my wrists and he held them above my head.
