God, she wouldn’t ever be normal, would she? How could she hope to let someone else in when she couldn’t even let herself in? The burning in her eyes intensified. Beneath the tinted lenses, she blinked furiously. Her chest tightened. She would not cry. She would absolutely not fucking cry.
Noticing a bathhouse just ahead, she felt a small sense of relief. She would lock herself in a toilet stall and fall apart in private.
“Wheels!”
Debbie jumped, nearly tripping over her own feet. Whirling around, she found Preacher striding up a small incline, concern darkening his features. Her stomach flip-flopped. She didn’t want him to see her like this. She didn’t want him to look at her like that—with concern or pity.
“What’s wrong?” he demanded.
Nothing is wrong,she wanted to scream.I’m normal! Please, just look at me like I’m a normal girl!
“I’m fine,” she managed to squeak out.
“Lie,” Preacher snapped and plucked her sunglasses from her face before she could stop him. She attempted snatching them back, but he held them just out of reach.
“You’re fine, huh? Like hell you’re fine. What the fuck happened back there?”
Standing in the center of the path, a large group was forced to part around them, and Debbie could feel their questioning, curious eyes on her as they passed by. Biting her bottom lip, she looked down at her bare feet.
“Wheels…” Preacher’s hand brushed her cheek, and then he was cupping her chin, forcing her head up, forcing her to look at him.
His hand was cool, much cooler than her overheated skin, and she felt herself leaning into his touch. Her chest loosened, breathing becoming easier. Her stomach unknotted. Everything softened and slowed.
Debbie stared into Preacher’s searching eyes. There were no shadows there, no storms brewing. Clear, dark-brown depths stared back at her without judgment, without pity, without… hunger.
Debbie, all of a sudden, desperately wanted the hunger.
She didn’t remember going up on her toes or wrapping her arm around Preacher’s neck. She hardly registered pressing her mouth to his. It all happened so quickly. One moment she was looking into his eyes and the next she was kissing him.
Harder and harder she kissed him, faster and faster. Their noses bumped, their teeth clacked, their breaths were infrequent, erratic bursts of air between the tangling of their tongues.
She hadn’t meant to kiss him like this—so viciously. One moment she’d been filled with ugly memories, haunted by the touch of a monster, and the next she’d been filled with wanting.
Want rolled through her body like molten lava, turning her insides into liquid fire.
She wanted to erase all the ugly. And replace it with this. With Preacher.
Preacher. Preacher.Preacher.
His name was her pulse. Was the thrust of her tongue. Was the throbbing ache building within her.
His hands were on her now, one on the small of her back pressing her closer, the other cupping her head, angling her face. Their kisses slowed as they adjusted to their new position and then sped up again, his beard grating across her cheeks and chin. Her hands were in his hair now, her body bowed to his, her breasts crushed against his lower chest.
And then, just as she’d gone from aflutter to flying, Preacher was gone. His kisses, his touches, just gone. Dazed and breathing hard, Debbie staggered back a step, much to the amusement of several giggling bystanders.
Then he was back, gripping her wrist and tugging her off the pathway. He led her around the corner of the bathhouse to an alcove partially hidden by several towering pine trees.
Standing there, half an arm’s length away from one another, they stared. Preacher’s eyes were wild, his breaths hard, his chest visibly expanding. His shoulders were squared, his legs spread apart, one hand gripping his belt buckle right above the unmistakable bulge in his jeans.
She wanted him back. Every bit of her he’d kissed and touched wanted more. And in that moment Debbie wasn’t sure she’d ever wanted anything so badly before in her life.
He stepped toward her and stopped. “Ah, fuck, Wheels,” he groaned, looking away. He scrubbed a hand down his face and across his beard. “We can’t do this.”
Still reeling, she pressed her lips together, forcing her heavy breaths through her nose. Adrenaline and lust were caught in her throat—a ball of hot and cold, making breathing difficult.
“Lie,” she said after a moment, and his eyes shot to hers. “We can do this—I want to do this.”
His lips twitched “You’re… sixteen. I’m twenty-four.”
