“Ouch,” Tiffany’s hiss of pain has my eyes popping open.
I got so caught up in the memory and the anger it causes; I squeezed her hand. Feeling like shit, I massage her fingers. Taking slow breaths, I try to tell my story again.
“Five days after that argument, my parents died in a car accident. The brakes failed in their car. They died instantly.”
She gasps beside me.
“Both my parents were the only children of their parents, and my grandparents had long passed away or were in retirement homes unable to take us in. So we were given over to our godfather.”
I swallow again, trying to brace myself for this part of the story. “After we moved in with Walter, his life seemed to get financially better. Every so often he would bring something for my sister and I to sign. Not long after, he’d come home with a fancy new car, or flashy jewelry for his wife. I brought my concerns to Marissa first. She was older, and I assumed wiser.”
I will never forget that day. Marissa’s hazel eyes flared with anger. She accused me of starting trouble. Told me I was beinga pain because I was the reason our parents had died. She’d just fed into an insecurity that was already festering.
“Not long after I brought my sister's attention to the spending habits of Walter, life at my godfather’s house got harder for me. They’d all go out of town and leave me home alone. I was eight. They ostracized me and left me out of everything. Walter would pick little fights with me, and call me names, and when I would react, he would put me on crazy punishments. He once made me go two months with nothing but water and bread to eat. There were a lot of tiny little things that piled up.”
I swallow as I remember the night it all went to hell. My anger had been boiling over inside me like an unwatched pot. It was slowly rising to the surface. And this time, I didn’t have my mother and father to calm me down and talk me through my rage.
“I was in school. It had been a long night of my godfather calling me weak and coddled. I’d just gotten off a punishment that prohibited me from coming out of my room unless it was to go to school or use the bathroom. I was in class when a kid cracked a joke. Looking back, it wasn’t that bad of a joke, but it felt like a huge thing at the time.”
I pause as I gather my thoughts. After he mentioned parents, I remembered little after that. I think I blacked out.
“What did you do?” Her voice pulls me away from the dark place.
I turn to face her. The urge to touch her takes over me. I pull her up from the front of the car, widen my legs and tug her in between them. Her back is pressed against my front. I wrap my arms around her and hold her close to me. My heart is pounding, but it slows the moment she’s in my arms.
“By the time they pulled me off the kid, he was in a coma.”
She gasps but doesn’t speak.
“Everything happened fast after that. The kid’s parents pressed charges. The judge and Walter came to an agreement to keep me out of court. They sent me to William Bone’s school for boys.”
Saying that name out loud sends a chill up my spine. The hell I endured at that fucking school still has a hold on me. The atrocities that happened will forever leave a mark on everyone who was there. I thought the shit my godfather did was torture, but the staff at William Bone’s taught me the real definition of cruelty.
“I don’t talk about my childhood or my past, because it’s not something I like to relive.”
She lifts and turns in my arms to face me.
“I’m not withholding it to keep you out, Angel. I just don’t enjoy talking about it. That place…” I shut my eyes, not even able to finish that statement. The smell of cigarette smoke and cloves claws at my chest. The feeling of heavy hands pushing down on my shoulders nearly makes me vomit.
Her small hands cupping my face bring me out of the horrors of my memories. I open my eyes and see unshed tears dancing in her eyes.
“I never needed to know every detail, Nico. I just wanted to know you. The real you.”
Turning my face slightly, I place a kiss against her palm.
“I am the man I showed you. What I did to get you may have been unconventional, but I am who I told you I was. And just know the real me loves you more than anything in this world.”
She smiles before leaning down and pressing a sweet kiss on my lips. I take advantage, feeling starved of her kisses. Slipping my tongue into her mouth, I take control of the kiss. Angling my head, I deepen our connection. Her grip on my face grows tighter, telling me she’s missed this just as much as I have.
My hands drop to her ass. I grip each cheek in my palms and squeeze. My jacket, which was once over her shoulders, fell to the ground, forgotten.
She whimpers, and I swallow it down as if it came from my mouth. Her nails scrape at the hair at the back of my neck. My cock presses against the zipper of my pants. It’s been so long since I’ve been inside her, I may nut in these pants.
I slow the kiss down, pecking at her lips. Finally, pressing my forehead to hers, I stare into her eyes. Moving my hands up to the nape of her neck, my fingers brush against the zipper of her dress.
I watch her intently, waiting for her to shut me down. Carefully, and in no rush, I unzip her dress, giving her ample time to stop me. When she doesn’t say a word, I keep going.
I needed this. The burn to bury my dick so deeply in her feels like my body is on fire.
