Her gaze is so hot it’s like a firebrand as I peel my t-shirt off from the bottom up. I rip at my jeans, eager to get the soaked, cloying denim the hell off. I never thought about it all day. The discomfort. I had my mind on other things, but now that Ami is naked on my bed, her legs spread just enough that I can seethrough them to my prize, which is pink and glistening, I want those clothes the hell off and the faster, the better.
I kick out of my boots and peel the wet denim off. Her eyes widen, like she’s forgotten that I don’t bother with boxers—a habit I developed as a kid when my so-called parents never had the money or the inclination to provide me with proper clothing. It carried on with me and after so many years of not wearing any, I find it uncomfortable and unnecessary now, when I can obviously afford it.
“Want to do this right,” I rasp, teetering so close to the edge of complete destruction. “Want to spread your legs and taste you until you’re coming and thrashing against my face. Want to take my time with you, warm you up proper, get you ready for me.”
“No,” Ami whimpers, slashing her head from side to side, the exclamation point at the end of her protest. “I just need you. In me. Right. Now.”
My cock agrees, springing up until I’m staring down at the head, as it’s so hard it’s standing straight vertical. “Ami,” I groan, her name like a prayer. “If you talk like that, this is going to be over far before you want it to. I might not even make it inside you. I’ll come all over those pretty tits and those gorgeous nipples instead.”
Her body jerks violently and slowly, she parts her legs so that I get a full view of exactly where she wants me.
There is nothing shy or hesitant about her now. Nothing that speaks to her being a victim of sexual assault. Her hand is folded over that tattoo on her stomach so that I can’t see it. Her eyes are locked with mine and I see no fear or hesitation. Nothing other than naked, unabashed desire.
“Maybe I want you to. Maybe I want to take you in my hand and jack you off until you come all over me.”
“Ami…”
She blinks, and her face flushes, like she’s afraid it was too much.
“No. Don’t do that. Don’t be ashamed. Don’t… don’t go back there. Back to that place of fear and powerlessness. Take it back. Take it all back. You can do anything to me that you want. I’m not pretty. There isn’t an inch of me that isn’t scarred up. I am who I am and that’s not fucking much, but every bit, every single bit of me, is yours.”
I want to hear her say it. I need to hear her say it. To come to me willingly.
It might have happened overnight, but I know better than that. She’s been fighting, trying to piece herself back together ever since it happened. She’s had enough time to think about me. About us. About what coming back here meant. About what facing me could mean.
She didn’t just come to this decision over the past eighteen odd hours since I left her. She knows that I’ve done something. She doesn’t know what it is, how bad it was, but she knows I was willing to give up my freedom for hers. She knows that now, that now she’s free. That now, whatever lingering guilt or horror remains, I’ll be here to fight it off for her. To defend her. To protect her. To make her mine in every sense of the word.
But I need to hear her say it. I need her to tell me she wants me. With her words, not just her body. That she’ll take me as I am—scarred, broken, nothing more than my name and the club Ibelong to. And her. Because even when she wasn’t here, she was still a part of my heart and what was left of my tattered soul.
She unfurls herself from the bed, slowly, when she realizes that I won’t come to her. That I need her to walk across those few feet separating us. She looks like a goddess, her pert breasts on display, her nipples like dark, ripe cherries straining for me, begging me to suck and bite them.
She’s glorious.
And when she takes my hand in hers and presses an open mouthed kiss to my palm, I know that she’s mine.
I fucking know it.
But then she raises her head and stares at me with eyes shining like twin obsidians. She blinks hard and her fingers curl over mine.
“I’m yours,” she breathes. “But… before we fuck the pain and the horror and the years away, after we strip each other down until it’s just our hearts and our souls, I need you to tell me. Tell me what you’ve done, because if I give myself to you, I can’t bear for you to leave me. To disappear. To be taken from me.”
The look on her face, the brutal trust in her eyes, slays me. I want to tell her the truth. I want to tell her everything, but I know how she’ll take it. I don’t want to hurt her anymore than she’s already been hurt. So I do the only thing Icando even if it makes me asshat number one. I just hope that I can make it up to her soon. That I can come clean and hope that she’ll understand why I did it. Not just because I want to get in her panties, even though I do. It’s because she needs this as much as I do, and it isn’t just about sex. It’s not just something physical.
I bend the truth.
Chapter 21
Ami
Irealize that we’re having this conversation completely naked. I marvel at how strange that is for us—Gage who hasn’t shown a single person his scars. Me who didn’t tell anyone that I was a rape victim. Yet here we stand, unashamed, naked, nearly flesh to flesh.
Talking.
“I roughed him up. That’s it. Put the fear of god into him. He won’t touch another person again. Not the way he touched you. Not ever.”
I stare up at Gage, my gaze locked with his. His eyes never dart away. He doesn’t even blink. I search his face, but his mask is back, a wall keeping me out. If there’s more, I sense that he’s not going to tell me.
“I just want to know that you didn’t kill him,” I sigh. “That’s it. I couldn’t bear it if you were taken from me. I spent my whole life running. The past year was spent trying to figure out a way to make it back here to make a clean break, but now… I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I want it. I still want a future. I want this. I want this with you. I don’t know what that means for our future, if we have one, but I don’t want us to try and make it work and then have it all come crashing down. So if that’s a possibility, I need to know now. I need to know so that I can prepare myself. So that I can plan. Because I can’t just fly through this without a plan. I can’t, Gage… I can’t just rip up those papers and change everything.”
