‘And if it’s you knocking?’
He looks at me for a long moment. Those painted hearts unsettling in the dark.
‘I won’t knock,’ he says.
And then he leaves me standing alone in the cold with a knife in my hand and my brain fucking scrambled.
I go in, locking the door behind me.
I take the knife to my room and slip it under my pillow. Just in case.
He’s back.
ELEVEN
LIAM
I lieon my back in the dark and go over every second of our alley confrontation.
The fierceness of those sea blue eyes, despite standing barefoot in a musty alley and waving a knife she clearly has never used beyond chopping vegetables. If I thought she was glorious from afar, or while sleeping, it is nothing compared to how she is up close. That angel-spun hair, her cheeks flushed with anger, and that full chest rising as she panted.
I wanted to throw myself at her feet and tell her how much I’d missed her in our years apart. Can’t go in looking too desperate, though. The stalking is bad enough. Begging might be a step too far. For now, at least, I’m not beyond it.
So many times I’ve imagined the moment we’d meet, and never had it been in a grim alley while I’m wearing amask. I’d pulled her face from my imagination so many times, trying to picture what she’d be like now. Even my wildest dreams hadn’t done her justice. She’s beautiful. The most perfect woman I’ve ever seen. Somehow, she’s carried that childhood wildness into adulthood in a way I couldn’t. Perhaps all of her summers had been as magical as that one I experienced with her.
Yet she hadn’t forgotten me. A mere mention of the past had recognition glowing in her eyes.
The memory brought her to her knees. Or it would have had I not thrown myself into catching her. Her warmth almost sent me to my knees, too. Not to mention the way she felt in my arms. Like she belongs there. Smelling of citrus shampoo and mint mouthwash, and fitting in my embrace just so. It had taken everything within me not to pull her to my chest. To discard my mask and kiss her. But I fear rejection. At the moment, she knows that I’m the boy from her past, grown, but she doesn’t knowme.
She doesn’t know the scarred man with the trailing tattoos with a soul tainted black, not only by the things done to me, but now by the sins I can’t blame on others. I fear she will take one look at my face before turning from me for good.
Her face was so close. Those sapphire eyes looked up at my mask while her full lips parted like a pink invitation. I expected her to fight me. Slap me. Anything other than the tender way her fingers dustedmy cheek. Like I am some timid forest creature rather than a man grown.
The tenderness stole my breath. Yanked it right from my lungs so hard it ached.
No one ever touched me kindly. Like I deserved something more than pain and humiliation. I’ve had hands on my body my whole life, and not one ever did anything to look out for me. Her one gentle touch couldn’t eradicate the years’ worth of torture I’ve endured, but it sure felt like a balm to soothe the scars. I’m already burning for the next graze of her fingers. I can only imagine how much more potent it will be on bare skin.
I want to hear her say myname.
The thought keeps coming back to me like a whisper from some deep, dark spot in my head. Or maybe my heart.
Fuck, maybe even lower. Which I hate. Fucking isn’t an activity I’ve sought out. It’s always brought terror and pain, and yet, that one touch from Kat has my body reacting in ways I hadn’t expected. Surges of desire mingling with yet more fear. Fear of not being able to meet expectations. Hell, I want to surpass expectations. Kat deserves the best.
I’m not even average in the experience department.
I don’t just want to hear her say my name, I want her to pant it in my ear. Scream it out while writhing in my arms.
When she invited me in, I said no for two reasons. Firstly, because Ellie was on her way home, but mostly because I didn’t know how to cope with these growing feelings in front of her.
Lying here thinking about the warmth of her against my chest and the pale stretch of her thigh in the cast from the orange street lights. God, I ached to press my lips to her skin.
The guilt follows the thought, naturally. The guilt of coming into her life uninvited and potentially upending it. She has a boyfriend, in some way, at least from what I’ve seen. She’ll graduate this year. From her socials, it looks like her parents are both still in her life. She’s wanted. Loved. Who am I to barge in and ruin that for her?
She might know that I’ve watched her, but she doesn’t know how many nights I stood in the cold outside her window. She doesn’t know I’ve been using her used panties as a fucking coffee filter to consume her in some small way. Instead, she looked up at me as if seeing the broken boy from her youth.
I reach into my pocket and pull out the panties, running the soft cotton between my fingers. If only the coffee didn’t cover her scent, I’d press them to my face. Closing my eyes, I unloosen my trousers, freeing my throbbing dick, already engorged for her.
‘Kat,’ I breathe, dragging the cotton over my length, the texture making me quake. Tears prick my eyes as Ifight down the wave of nausea that threatens. My body remembers too much. Too many times, I’ve surrendered to the enemy’s hands to the sounds of mocking laughter. I bite down on my lip and force myself through it. I want to, for her. She might never want my touch, but I want to be ready if she does.
