“Thanks for the tip.”
I stayup for a while longer watching the end of the movie, and when I finally click the TV off, the house is so quiet I could hear a pin drop. I get up off the couch, pick up the crutches, and limp on them down the hall towards my room.
The conversation I had with Poppy is still replaying in my mind as I reach her door.
I pause next to it for a moment, every fibre of my being wants to raise my hand and knock. To go in her room and continue our kiss from the other night. Show her what she’s been missing all these years. Make her forget all the years of pain she’s endured, erase it all with one night of pure pleasure.
In the silence, there’s a soft, muffled whimper coming from the other side of the door. I wonder if it’s a bad dream, or if Poppy took my advice.
My pants tighten around my waist as mental images of her splayed out on the bed, her hand between her thighs, mouth open as she kneads herself, flash through my mind.
Poppy and I have only just crossed the line of kissing, and who’s to say she’d want a physical relationship outside of ourarrangement anyhow. We never talked about doing anything more.
Besides, I like that Poppy can have this moment for herself, a chance to connect to her body in a different way. Such an intimate and personal thing shouldn’t be interrupted.
I inhale a sharp breath through my nose, collecting myself, and keep walking until I reach my room.
CHAPTER 30
POPPY
Cordelia didn’t followme to my room tonight. Which isn’t abnormal, at least not anymore. It’s been a few nights in a row that she hasn’t slept with me. She’s started sleeping with Jett—against his protesting—although secretly, I think he likes it.
He complained about her fur covering his bedspread yesterday over breakfast, claiming that it was making his eyes itchy, but I’ve never seen him rub them once since she’s been here.
I did, however, catch him petting Cordelia and talking to her when he thought they were alone. Murmuring things about what a pretty girl she is and scratching her between the eyes the way she likes.
Cordelia can be standoffish when it comes to being pet, and that’s how I know that it wasn’t the first time he had done something like that.
I walk over to my bed, strip off my clothes, and enjoy the feeling of the cool sheets on my legs as I slip between the layers. My joints soften into the mattress as the pressure ofgravity is taken off them, and I relish the comfort and softness.
I inhale a cleansing breath, and exhale slowly. Though my body is relaxed, a different sensation thrums beneath the surface, heightening all my senses and dragging my attention down towards a pressure building between my thighs.
Jett’s voice reverberates in my mind, the memory of the deep timbre warming me through to my core. What he said to me. That all my body has ever known is pain, never pleasure. Not in the truest sense of the word.
I know what it’s like to feelgood.I love a hot bath, I love crawling into bed after a long day, I love a deep stretch first thing in the morning. AndI certainly have lots of good days between flares.
But I’ve never known truepleasure.
Even the good days are overshadowed by trying to anticipate when the next flare might happen. Trying to play it safe so I don’t inadvertently overdo it, stress my body to the point of paying for it later.
I’m always waiting for the other shoe to drop. The day that all I can do is crawl under a blanket and hide from the world because I don’t have the strength to face it.
Now I’ve had a hint of what that pleasure might feel like. The second that Jett lifted me against the wall and brushed the pad of his thumb over my underwear.
It only lasted a second. But the electric ripple that rolled through my entire body, expanding from that one point of contact was enough to pique my interest. To want to know the full extent of what my body is capable of.
I slip my hand beneath the covers, hesitant and unsure of what I’m even doing. Touching myself is foreign and strange,though I know it shouldn’t. It’s my own body, there’s nothing embarrassing about it. I just don’t know what to do.
I’ve probably watched more than a thousand movies in my lifetime and I never once thought to watch a porno. It probably would have come in handy right about now.
Okay, think about something sexy.
I try, and try, and yet, I draw blanks.
I’ll imagine my dream man, I decide. The man I want to marry one day. The man who will touch me and know exactly how to make my body do what he wants it to do. The man who will care about my pleasure as much as his own.
I squeeze my eyes shut, running the tips of my fingers between my folds, and still, nothing happens. There’s no clear image, just an abstract image of a faceless man with solid abs—nice abs though, I have to say.
