Stain (Stain #1)(59)
She’s turned herself into something I need and I’ve learned the minute you find yourself needing someone, that’s when it’s game over.
You’re living for them now. Your heart is out there walking in flesh and blood, f*cking exposed to everything and everyone and there’s not a f*ck of a lot you can do about it. I look down at her. Mine is f*cking lying here in my bed. So damn sweet, so peaceful and angelic. I almost feel like a demon intruding on her moment of tranquility.
Her hair is mussed around her soft face, her kiss-bruised mouth is dark pink, drawn partially open as she slowly breathes. She still has that post-sex flush in her cheeks and again that sense of raw, male pride rushes in me. I’ve had my share of *, an entire f*cking variety in fact. Virgin, slightly used, and worn the f*ck out. None of them have been any different than the other. They’re nothing but holes to me. Fleshlights with faces.
Being with Aylee, being inside her tight, virginal walls, holding her, looking at her facial expressions as I moved inside of her, hearing and tasting the delicious little sex sounds she made? Those are things I’ve never, ever come close to experiencing. Connecting with her, attuning to her needs, her wants, are the only things that push me to see how much pleasure I can give her, how slow or fast I will move so that she is able to enjoy everything about being with me. Because I want to be with her again right f*cking now. The way she’d looked at me earlier, her beautiful, bicolored eyes glowing with so much damn emotions for me tore me apart.
She’d looked at me like I had the answers to the f*cking universe. The sincere way she stares at me makes me believe in things. She makes me believe in her, and me, and the concrete possibility that we could have a future together. She makes me believe love is possible, the sort of love that will take a goddamn lifetime to get over if I ever f*ck up. She’s unknowingly knocking the f*cking breath out of me and I can’t remember how to start again.
Shifting and leaning slightly over, I pause for a beat and hold very still, mesmerize with the blinding light of beauty in front of me that seems to radiate from the inside out. Taking a slow, low breath, I graze fingers that are too filthy to touch her down her smooth cheek and suddenly I remember again. Again I breathe deep, lean in closer, and this time bring my nose to the curve of her shoulder and inhale her scent. She smells so clean, so f*cking sweet that my mouth waters. I want a taste. Need her juices on my tongue again.
She’s on her stomach, one smooth, shapely leg extending from the navy blue comforter while the other curls halfway up on the bed. I slowly pull back the covers from her back to reveal her ass and the way she’s positioned I can see every beautiful inch of her. I’m behind her in a flash, my fingers skimming over the dark red skin of her * lips when…
“No!” It’s a distressing scream that follows with her shooting straight up from the bed and scrambling away from me like I’ve just threaten to kill her. I quickly get over my shock when I notice her whole body is shaking as she huddles close to the headboard. She has her legs to her chest, her arms holding them tightly there while her chin rests on her upraised knees. I’m torn between going to her and gathering her close or just waiting until she shakes off the obvious nightmare she just had. But the second I hear the sounds of her sniffles I’m by her side, no longer indecisive on what to do. When I reach for her, she shakes her head and scoots farther away from me, as if she wants to become part of the black headboard.
“I’m sorry,” she murmurs, hugging her legs tighter like that’ll stop the tremors in her body. “I thought…I thought you were…” She stops and turns her head to look at me. Her large, expressive eyes are glassy with unshed tears. There are shadows in them that the tears can’t hide. She looks haunted. “I’m so sorry, Maddox…”
Learning from my first mistake, I don’t make the attempt of touching her again, but I move to sit next to her, leaving enough space between us not to make her feel threatened. Sitting on my bed with her, I say nothing for a while, but my mind is racing. Her reaction triggers memories from my f*cked-up past. I remember waking up from nightmares just like she just did, scared out of my f*cking mind thinking that motherf*cker was still alive. I remember that feeling of being preyed on. Of being made to feel weak and helpless every single minute of my life. I remember being too damn afraid of letting anyone touch me because the only touches I ever received were violent and revolting. I look at Aylee, see the way she can’t even stand my touch, and I’m quick in putting two and two together.
“I thought I told you to stop apologizing for shit that’s not your fault.”
She makes an attempt at a shrug. “It’s a bad habit.”
“You thought I was who?”
She shakes her head again, her expression tightening into a frown as she curls her bottom lip between her teeth, an attempt to probably keep herself from talking.
“Aylee?”
“Maddox, please don’t make me. If I tell you, you’ll see how dirty I am. And then I’ll lose you. You’ll see my stains and you’ll tell me to leave you alone.”
“One thing you’re going to have to learn about me is that I don’t scare easily. Unless you plan on telling me you’re not into guys with tattoos there’s not a f*ck of a lot you can say or do that’s going to push me away.”
“I’m only into one guy with tattoos.”