My strong grip coaxed a shy little moan out of her, and I had to resist the urge to bend her over the counter next to us.
I hadn’t been remotely gentle when I was impulsively fucking her earlier, and I didn’t want to unsettle her again.
It was still imprinted upon my mind, the sound of her back hitting the wall, her ragged breathing with each one of my energetic thrusts. I’d fallen on her like an animal, driving in and out of her ceaselessly, not stopping even when she went rigid against me as she tried to accustom herself to my rough invasion. I had to admit that I enjoyed pulling her over the line with me because, each time I did, I learned something new about her and uncovered more of what excited her.
I knew now that she liked rough, dominating sex more than the merely passionate variety, and we were of the same mind about that.
It had been a huge struggle during her first official time when I had to force myself to touch her gently and temper my aggression. I wasn’t me; the real me was very far away from the sweet, tender man I had shown her on that one occasion.
“You took something from me, so you should give me something of yourself. Our compromise is still in effect.” Selene tried not to stammer, but I could tell from her reddened face and the silken sound of her voice that she was struggling to hold on to the prudish distance that she tried to use as a shield against me.
“What do you want to know?” I asked, trying and failing to suppress a smile.
Our compromise…how could I forget about that? The girl knew how to get what she wanted even if she did use very different methods than I did.
“The truth. What happened with Alyssa?” she blurted out, turning to the topic that had infuriated me more than anything else for the past few hours.
“She was the one who kissed me,” I began with palpable anger in my voice. “I have no idea what she was thinking. She jumped me, and I instinctively reciprocated for a second. Logan walked in on us and blew up.” My hand slipped down slightly from her breast to her downy stomach, which tightened just from the touch of my fingertips. Selene stared at me with her ocean eyes, and I wanted to kiss her.
Goddamnit.
“That’s really how it happened?” she whispered uncertainly, as I stroked her flank with my other hand, pulling her closer to me. I could feel myself being drawn toward her full lips, worse than a teenage boy with his first crush.
“I’ve got a lot of flaws, but I don’t lie,” I answered seriously, holding her gaze to show her that I wasn’t trying to hide anything.
“Alyssa told me that you came on to her. And she described the way you kiss, the intensity, and it seemed…accurate.” She grew sad, looking down at the hands she was wringing to vent her nervousness. So I grazed my nose along her cheek and pressed a kiss to her throat, making her shiver. Sometimes, I didn’t understand myself at all. I couldn’t figure out why I felt the need to constantly be feeling her or breathing her in.
“She made it all up. She knows me, Selene, and she knows how I am.” I wasn’t trying to convince her, only to make her realize that she couldn’t trust just anyone and that it was particularly easy to make up wild stories about me that still had a ring of truth.
“How am I supposed to trust you?”
She still didn’t believe me, and I couldn’t fucking stand it. I would never hurt my brother with a reprehensible move like that. Nor would I lie aboutit to my Babygirl who was, at that very moment, still looking at me with suspicion in her eyes.
“You just have to. I’ve got no reason to bullshit you about this,” I said, growing irritated, and her gaze drifted down over my chest. She wanted to touch me again. I could feel her desires and read her thoughts. I gave her a sly little smirk, and her eyes snapped up to my face, pulling me from my own twisted fantasies.
“You have to do something to earn my trust,” she said positively, a new firmness in her voice.
“Like what?” I asked skeptically.
“I’m not asking you to start a relationship with me, just to be faithful…” She paused. “Sexually,” she suggested, chewing her lower lip uneasily. Nothing had changed; the substance of her request was the same: She was asking me to choose her, even if she was asking in a slightly different way.
“Babygirl,” I said in a soft, wry voice. “Do you think I’m as green as the little boy you were out with tonight?” I needled her, referencing that Ivan dude, who looked all of twenty. A cute kid, sure, but he had nothing on me. I recalled Selene telling me that he was her friend’s twin brother and that he played basketball. He was your standard issue college-aged guy; he probably did okay with women and generally led a charmed life.
I went on the offensive then and began stroking her beneath her shirt again. No one could resist when I went into virile seducer mode, but somehow Selene tried to squirm away from my touch.
“Quit it… Stop it, now!” she shouted, trying in vain to break out of my hold, though the goosebumps all over her skin told a different story.
“Being faithful to you would be the same as getting into a relationship with you, and it wouldn’t be like how it was with Jared. I’m different, Selene. A freak,” I told her gravely, tightening my grip around her to keep her in place.
“You aren’t a freak to me. You’re special, and I could accept you as you are. I feel like I’ve already shown you that,” she answered, stung. She was undoubtedly referring to the last time we fucked in a bed when I’d told her about my anorgasmia. And then, the very next time we were together, I had punished her because… Well, I didn’t really know why myself.
I’d felt this uncontrollable rage in my chest when I’d caught her with someone else while I was so anxious to get to her and explain what happened back in New York with her little friend Alyssa.
She’d pissed me off during that phone call, and I wanted to talk to her about it face-to-face. But when I found her smiling at that guy, it made me think that she hadn’t attached the same importance to the call. And now she was acting like nothing had happened, telling me again that she could accept me as I was.
How could she possibly be so sure about that?
She didn’t know that I had been raped, had no idea that my innocence had been torn from me against my will, and that I’d been molested for a year. If I could turn back time, though, I would have made the same choice: I would always let Kimberly violate me to keep her from taking her twisted perversions to my brother.
