“What am I supposed to do with you?” he muttered wearily. He sounded tired of fighting against me and the connection we had. But that didn’t mean my words had convinced him, and he surely wasn’t about to acknowledge the possibility of anus. He was probably going to regroup and think up some other strategy to drive me away.
“Accept me. It’s your turn now,” I told him, and I could feel it in my chest: that all-encompassing pull toward him, so powerful there was no point in fighting it.
The love I had for him had thoroughly invaded me and had contaminated every part of me.
That was when Neil moved. He tucked my hair behind my ear and leaned down to sigh against my lips. I wanted to ask him about the dark web, about how far Kim had taken her perversions with him, but I decided that could wait for another time. I didn’t want to smother him or be rude.
It was hard enough for him just to deal with the fallout from such heinous abuse every day.
“You…” he began in a soft voice, “little fucking girl…” he went on, irritated by my tight hug. “You don’t know the risk you’re taking.” The heat of his breath made me part my lips in the hopes that he might kiss me. Instead, Neil just smiled his enthralling smile and didn’t move.
“So prepare me then,” I answered, my eyes locked on his.
My Disaster grabbed my ass in response, pulling me flush with him. It was his own way of returning affection. “Why me? Why not pick that Ethan guy? The basketball captain with the perfect life?” he asked, an unsettled thread of possessiveness in his voice.
“Ivan. His name is Ivan,” I corrected him, amused, and looped my arms around his neck. I grazed the nape of his neck with my fingernails and watched his face transform. His rigid features relaxed; he was enjoying my touch.
“I don’t give a fuck what his name is,” he shot back. “You never actually told me if you kissed him,” he added, sounding bothered. Again with that? I couldn’t believe he still wanted to talk about my non-date, but if he insisted, then I should take the chance to tease him a little.
“What’s your goal here?” I asked him. “The clinic didn’t do enough to scare me off, so now you want to push me into the arms of another man? It’s not going to work.” A challenging smile spread across my face, drawing his golden eyes to mine. He slid one hand from my butt to my waist to squeeze it compulsively. I loved those little instinctive touches.
“I can see how this is going to go, Selene,” he said in a persuasive murmur. “I won’t do anything but fuck you. Always. Every time I get a craving for you. I’ll never give you a love story, though. And we both know why…” he finished, his masculine, sensual voice seeming to touch every single part of my body.
I knew exactly what he was trying to do.
“You’ve crossed lines with me that you wouldn’t with anyone else.” I felt his hard member pressing into my lower stomach—I could literally feel his desire. Neil was reacting to me exactly the same way I reacted to him.
“You’re in Detroit, and you still don’t really know what I get up to here when you’re not around. I like to fuck. I still think you’re too naive and too young.” He licked his bottom lip—the lip that I wanted to seize and suck and bite and vent all my frustration upon. I wanted to kiss every inch of his skin, to caress every part of his body until I dug out his deepest fears and swept them all away.
“What if I told you that I did kiss Ivan?” I switched strategies, deciding to play dirty. I watched with satisfaction as his muscles tensed and his beautiful eyes scrutinized mine.
“Then I would tell you you’d made a major mistake,” he answered with false, forced calm. Meanwhile, our bodies traded heat, sensation, and want as though they were now dependent upon the other. Our words floated away on the wind, and the truth was that we were bonded by something so strong, so toxic, and so intense that it amounted to complete insanity.
“What if I said that I’d gone to a party at his frat and that I shut myself up in a room with him alone?” I continued. His stare turned sly, his jaw tightened, and he put a hand around my throat, holding it in a firm clasp. I tensed as I felt his fingers tightening against me, but I didn’t back down.
“Then I’d give you a swift kick in the ass and send you back to Detroit right now.” His tone turned spiteful and dark, and his full lips flattened into a hard expression. My victory was close at hand.
“And what if I told you instead that he didn’t kiss me? That I rejected him because I could only think of you and how you make all the others look like insignificant little boys?” I regarded him seriously, slowly moving my fingers from his waist to his defined chest like I was tracing the lines of a sculpture.
“I would say that you did the right thing.” His voice softened, and the corners of his eyes crinkled up slightly.
I was so in love with him.
“What if I told you that I didn’t let him touch me because there were no flaws in him? And because it is flaws that I adore most about you?” I hoped Ididn’t scare him—I didn’t know any other way to explain how I felt. If a silent language was the only one that Neil could accept, then perhaps I could make him feel that there was nothing to be afraid of when it came to me.
“Then I would tell you that within every man there is a little boy in search of his Neverland. You’re mine. You always have been,” he whispered softly, a small but sincere smile bringing the light back into his eyes and into mine as well. I clung to him, infusing into my embrace all the fear I had of losing him at any moment. The dread that I would not turn out to be the one for him would go away, just as I knew his personal torments would always reemerge.
But I would not be afraid.
His world was rare and wondrous to behold, so I would enter it delicately, on tiptoes.
“Then lay down your weapons, Peter Pan. I win.”
Not waiting a moment more, I pulled him to me and arrogantly seized his lips.
I took him.
I took his madness.
