With the way he’s watching me. With the way he’sdependingon my answer like that, hanging on it.
At my reply, an additional vein on his temple makes its appearance and pulses. “A tampon. So you made me feed my fat dick to a pussy that’s only known a tampon. You know my cock is fat and big, don’t you? Youfeltit.”
I curl my toes inside my flats as a phantom throb starts up between my thighs. “Yes.”
“And you lied to a guy like that. You lied to me.” He grinds his jaw. “You pissed me the fuck off with your made-up stories and —”
“I wasn’t making up stories,” I tell him, craning my neck up. “Toby was real. He did kiss —”
“Shut up,” he snaps. “Shut the fuck up right now, Fae. You don’t want to finish that sentence. You don’t want to finish it when it’s been killing me.”
“Killing you?”
“Yeah, it’s been killing me that I hurt you and I didn’t even get to make it better.”
“But you did make it better, remember? You hugged me and you —”
“Not like that.”
“Then how?”
I feel him shake the dresser again, the biggest shake yet I think. I notice his chest heaving, expanding under his t-shirt, those veins pulsing, beating like the heart he doesn’t have as he says, “It’s killing me that I made her cry and I didn’t get to lick her tears off. I didn’t get to soothe her with my tongue. She must’ve been all sore and puffy. Swollen and red. After the way I abused her. After the way I beat her up with my cock and I didn’t even get to suck that soreness away. I didn’t even get to make nice with her with my mouth. I didn’t even get totellher that my dick, the thing that hurt her, he’s a horny bastard. He wants to hurt her again and again. He wants to use her up but I won’t let him. Iwon’t. Not until I take away her pain. Not until I kiss it all better. It’skillingme, Fae.”
I was wrong.
The shake that I feel when he finishes is the biggest one yet and I lose the battle with myself.
I touch him.
I touch the furious lines of his features, rub my thumbs over his arched cheekbones and the hollows of his face. I even touch him with my body, crash my softness against his harsh surfaces, his hard and heated muscles.
He shudders and I can’t stop the undeniable relief that floods through my veins at getting to touch him when I thought that I never would.
Going up on my tiptoes, I tell him, “It’s okay, Reed. I swear I was fine. I swear —”
“Was she though?” he asks, cutting me off. “Was she all red and puffy?”
That throb in my core grows and becomes a current, strong and thrumming. “A little. But —”
“Was she swollen too? All bruised up.”
“Reed —”
“Was she?”
“Yes.”
“How long?”
I press my hand on his face even harder, press my body into his as I answer, “A couple of days. I couldn’t…”
“You couldn’t what?”
“I couldn’t sit in class,” I whisper.
His nostrils flare and his jaw jerks under my palm. “You couldn’t —”
“But it was fine. I promise. I went to the nurse and I got medication.”
