A wave of longing washes over me, easing my desperation.
Like he’s perched inside my brain, looking out, Caylon moves his hand back down to cup me, sliding a finger between my lips and stroking gently inside me. His other hand slides underneath my neck, curling around my jaw to keep me facing back towards him while his eyes scan my features.
His lips are so kissable. Except the arsehole taped over my mouth so I can’t. Even if I want to.
As his hand moves between my legs, suddenly I want to a lot. A whole lot.
I close my eyes, remembering the spell he had over me at the party. The way his mouth had possessed me, claimed me like a trophy.
Now, like then, he kisses along my collarbone, lays a trail of desire that follows the curve of my jawline, then dips farther down.
“We need to get you out of these clothes,” he mutters, his voice still sounding like he’s only just dragging himself out of a weekend long bender. Blurry and rough and setting off a million sparks.
When he withdraws his hands to accomplish the new task he’s set himself, a whimper sounds in the back of my throat. I don’t know why. I certainly didn’t make the noise. The noise of a lovestruck teen being denied her favourite new plaything.
Caylon hears. Of course, he does. Hears and smiles that self-satisfied smile that makes me want to claw the skin from his face.
Or kiss it into oblivion.
Since the latter is still off the table, I settle for daydreams of the former while he unlocks one cuff, pulling my numb hand through the voluminous woollen heft of the cardigan and the far-less-enveloping cotton tee.
The bra I started off with yesterday morning is gone. Left in the haze of our bathroom visit, maybe. I don’t have a clear memory of that—just the nagging thought that something had gone very, very wrong.
And that was before he turned the cold water of the shower onto me.
My naked breast feels the air, and the nipple stiffens in response to the cold. That’s all. The cold.
Nothing to do with the hand that gathers it up to squeeze it, then rub its palm over it again and again.
I try to flex the fingers of the hand he’s set free and can’t. It’s spent so long trapped in an awkward position as I slept that beyond the shoulder is just numbness. Barely even the awareness there’s a limb there at all.
Caylon takes my fingers and massages them, warming them between his palms, then linking his fingers through mine.
He’s gentle and I close my eyes because if I keep them open, keep watching the expression of adoration on his face, I’ll cry, and I don’t want to. I’m sick of being weak. The butt of everyone’s joke.
I try to jerk my hand away but the pins and needles swamping my limb haven’t worked enough magic for my muscles to respond. All that happens is a faint tremor runs the length of my arm and his fingers clench tighter through mine.
When he rolls me to his side, the cardigan falls off my topmost shoulder. Caylon pushes the t-shirt up and over my head, baring my chest and stomach.
He puts his hand flat against my sternum and I flinch away. His eyes flicker up to mine then return to my chest as he leans forward to plant a kiss right over my heart. “I love you, Em. I promise no one will ever hurt you again.”
The words floor me, spreading me wide, leaving me exposed. I feel like one of those butterflies with their wings and legs pinned to a board, except my heart thumps too quickly in my chest, my eyes flood with tears.
If he meant those words, I would take them. I would treasure them. I would say them back and I think… I think I would mean them, too.
But he doesn’t. It’s a trick. A delusion that warms me from the inside-out because I’m so desperate for it to be the truth, even though I know it’s not. It can’t be. This is just another wicked game that boys play. Pretending to be there for you until they get what they want and leave.
I shake my head and snort, even though it’s painful.
“Nothing can hurt you,” he continues as though he doesn’t see my rejection. “Not now you’re dead.”
There’s a moment of cognitive dissonance so great that I can scarcely process what’s in front of me, let alone think of what he’s saying.
I’m dead.
They should be words that frighten me, not bring me comfort. Not filling my heart with a warm glow of relief.
He strokes the hair back from my forehead, playing with the shortened strands. “This hair is blowing in the breeze while you’re swaying back and forth under that branch.”
