I carry Maisie into the bathroom and pull the curtain back with one hand, turning the faucet almost as hot as it’ll go and then gently setting her onto her feet.
I bring my mouth to hers and press a soft kiss to her lips before I start to take off her clothes. First, one of my old hoodies, the only things she seems to want to wear when she’s with me, and then the loose, double-rolled sweatpants she refers to as her fat pants. Next, I unclasp her bra and drag it down her arms, my dick twitching at the sight of her soft, round tits and pale pink, hardened nipples.
The apocalypse could be happening right outside the building, and I’d still get hard for her.
She’s fucking perfect, and knowing that she’s mine makes possessiveness flare inside of me.
I still don’t believe that I deserve her, and I probably never will, but if nothing else, I’m a selfish fucker. I’m not giving her up.
Once she’s naked and ready for the shower, I reach behind my nape to grasp my shirt and pull it off, but she stops me with her hand on my abdomen.
“Let me.” The way she whispers it, it feels important to her somehow.
Nodding wordlessly, I drop my hands and watch as she works the fabric up over my stomach, then my chest, and rises on the tips of her toes to pull it over my head.
Her fingers slip beneath the elastic waistband of my shorts and briefs, and she slowly pulls them down until they pool around my feet.
I reach for her then, unable to stop from touching her for another second, and I wrap my arm around her waist, carrying both of us into the shower.
Steam billows around us as Maisie steps beneath the spray, and her eyes drop shut, her shoulders sagging immediately like she finally feels at ease enough to let her guard down.
She reaches up and smooths her palms over her hair, pushing the water back out of her face.
I close the distance between us, wrapping my arms around her shoulders and pulling her into my chest. Her small arms slide around my waist, and she clings to me in the same way that I am to her. She fits so perfectly in my arms that it feels like maybe she was made to.
Made to be mine.
We stay like this for a while, our arms wrapped tightly around each other, Maisie’s cheek pressed against my chest, and there’s no pressure to speak or to do anything other than what we are right now.
Holding each other.
And I’m leaning on her strength because I didn’t realize how badly I needed it.
It’s not the first time, or even the tenth time, that we’ve been naked together, but for the first time in my life, it feels different.
Intimate.
There’s nothing sexual about it.
“I want to tell you…” I say, clearing my throat when the words come out rough and uneven. “I want to tell you about my life. About… my mother, and the group home. All of it.”
When she pulls away from my chest and looks up at me, her eyes are wide with what I know is concern. “Wilder, you don’t have to if you’re not re?—”
“I am,” I say, reaching up to cup my hand along the delicate slope of her jaw. “I need to tell you, Maisie. For me. I need to do it for me so I can…”
Fuck, this is hard already.
“So I can try and fucking let go of it, because it’s pulling me down. I’m drowning. But also because I need you to know. Everything. All of me.”
Maisie nods. Her lips press along the dark ink tattooed over my heart, and it’s the same quiet, steady reassurance she always seems to know I need.
I have to unload it off of me, or I’m going to drown.
It’s going to pull me under, and until now, I’ve never had anything tolivefor outside of hockey.
“I don’t even know where to start,” I say, reaching up to push my hair back out of my face, and also to give myself a moment before I throw myself headfirst into the most painful thing I’ve ever experienced.
The memories… they’ve always been so vivid and real. It feels like I’m stepping back into the past when they take my mind hostage.
