I nodded, accepting the idea of keeping the darkness of the last ten years hidden. Accepting that silence may have been the only way to keep Woodrow here. What happened to me would hurt him. . . hurt him too much, and he'd hide from the pain. And if Hell really cared for me, he'd manifest, intent on getting revenge.
I didn't want that.
I wanted this, the here and now, and the way Woodrow was looking at me, his twinkling eyes downcast and hungry as he lowered to give me a kiss. I stretched on my toes to meet him, eliminating a little strain on him.
“I missed you,” he tells me again.
“Show me. Show me how much.”
He lifted me into his arms, and kissed me harder. “Tomorrow, when you’re sober,” he whispered into my mouth, the words tasting ugly. “I want you willing. I want you so much. But I want you willing.”
“I am willing.” I tried to reach between us, between the fabric of too much clothing and the sexual tension, digging my way through both.
I found the zipper on his pants, then the button, and I shoved with one hand to get them down his legs, using my feet to assist me.
“Get them off.”
“Jolie, we. . .”
“Shut. Up. Now or never, Woodrow.” I felt I had the power to be demanding. “We have a lot of bad memories to replace,” I reminded him.
He blinked twice.
“If you’re in pain. If your throat hurts—”that was the only reason I’d stop.
“I’m okay,” he told me, but the words were almost silent. I wouldn’t have believed them if sober.
But I wasn’t sober.
So, I took what I wanted.
I slipped my hands into the boxer briefs that felt loose around his hips but not around his bulge, where the material was pulling. I wondered for a second if he’d lost weight. If he used to be more muscular than he’d become.
“I’m not in pain. No more than usual. I can handle it.”
His hands supported my weight, my legs wrapped around his waist. It was a challenge to touch him without ruffles invading the moment. “Get this off me,” I requested, yanking at the bodice.
“No, leave it on,” he said almost breathlessly through the kisses he was putting on my neck. “I want to fuck my wife in her wedding dress.”
He hiked up the fabric, holding it at my hips beneath his thumbs as his hands spread across my skin. I was still free of underwear, and my heat was begging the tip of his penis to edge inside me.
There was a delay while his eyes caught sight of the blood between my legs. There wasn’t much; my periods had been minimal and inconsistent for years now. After only two or three heavy days, there’d be hardly anything. Abuse had ruined the inside of my body, too, apparently.
“Are you okay to—”
I cut him off. “I’m fine. And you shouldn’t be squeamish, or the next time you read Hell’s diary, you’re gonna have some issues, if you guys still keep one.”
He looked at me like he was already having issues with what Hell might have done, but he didn’t waste time, positioning himself at my entrance.
“Consent is important to me.” He looked at me, waiting for a sneer that I’d have no doubt given yesterday. But when it didn’t come, he rubbed the head of his penis over my slit, the little balls nudging at my clit in a delicious way.
“I’m clean,” he told me. “I had checks while in prison and again afterwards.
“Did you have a thing for the prison nurse? Why would you need checks?” I wondered, praying I’d never have to wear a nurse uniform to get him off.
“No. I had to have checks for other reasons.” The short statement was a full sentence. The blurb of a story he wasn’t ready to tell.
“A story for another time?”
