Chapter 11 #2
She’d said she was wearing a thong, but she’d probably been lying. I wouldn’t have been surprised to see her hiding a pair of those awful cotton panties. Almost as bad as her pajamas.
“You already influenced me more than a month ago,” she said, standing there at a distance from me.
“And now you’re talking to me, finally,” she added, sounding pleased.
That was another issue. I had started talking to her way too much.
I never told her anything about my past, but I was more talkative in general.
Sometimes it was just to flirt or tease her, other times to explain things she couldn’t just intuit.
“It won’t work between us,” I said casually, trying to clarify again for her one of those things that she refused to accept.
But I didn’t like the melancholy I saw in her azure eyes.
All I wanted to do was protect her from me and get it through her head that there could be no relationship—that I could never give her what she wanted.
I didn’t want to drag her down into the abyss with me. I wanted the best for her, and I was not the best. We both knew that.
“Why?” she insisted, and I felt my nerves beginning to fray.
“Why, why, why… It’s always fucking why with you, Selene!” I burst out, even standing up to emphasize my point.
“Why don’t you just take off your clothes?
Why don’t you just put your hands on me and use me?
Why?” I raised my voice as I walked toward her.
“Why don’t you push me down on that couch and fuck me like the rest of them?
Like they’ve always done? Why? It would be a lot easier, you know.
I could accept having you with me, but only my way, never in the way you want.
” I’d gotten too close, and she’d backed up until she hit the wall.
When I saw her tremble, I cursed my inability to be rational like a normal man and stepped back.
Who knew how hard her heart was beating or what she was thinking of me.
I scrubbed a hand over my face because I’d never been in a situation so difficult before.
Women had never been a problem for me. I could take what I wanted—a momentary high—from them and then move on, almost indifferent to even the most obscene acts.
Yet even when I’d had multiple bodies to enjoy at once, I’d never felt what I felt with Babygirl.
To be honest, the sex we’d shared hadn’t been anything special but I’d liked it because it was simple, genuine, natural, and, above all else, true.
Really goddamned true.
“Because, to me, you are not an object,” she said in a low voice.
I turned sharply to scrutinize her. Why would she say something like that?
I automatically searched her face for a hint of the feelings I despised, like pity or compassion. I would have put her out on her ass if I’d seen them there, but I didn’t.
Then I smiled wickedly.
Did she believe that women used me like an object?
Did she think of me as some kind of victim?
She was dead wrong.
The exact opposite was happening. I was the one who used women as objects. I was the one projecting Kimberly onto each one of them and taking revenge for what she’d done to me.
I was the one who broke them with my dominating attitude, making them like it and then tossing them aside, just like Kim had done to me.
I was on the other side now.
“You really are an innocent, Selene. Too much of an innocent.” I took another step back, getting further away from her scent, which only confused me.
“You sure? You use them, and they use you. It all comes from the same place.” She pushed off the wall and advanced on me. She walked slowly on those high heels and a little awkwardly, showing none of the confidence that usually irritated me in other girls.
With her perfect, well-proportioned body, she looked like an innocent fairy and a bewitching siren all in one. Not a single man at that club had failed to notice her.
Everyone—truly everyone—had looked lustfully at her.
And what about back in Detroit? How many guys were looking at her when I wasn’t there?
“Neil…” Babygirl prompted. “Are you listening to me?” she continued cautiously.
No, I wasn’t listening to her anymore.
And she had noticed my absence—that I was lost in my own reflections.
Acting on instinct, I grabbed her by the nape of the neck and pulled her to me. I clutched her hair in my fist and brought my lips to within a hairsbreadth of hers.
“You need to be gone in the next five minutes. You really need to get out of here,” I said in an angry whisper. Her slim little hands rested on my chest, and I could barely breathe.
“Okay,” she managed, sounding intimidated. Was she afraid of me? I rubbed the end of her nose with mine and pressed a kiss to its small, upturned tip.
She was perfect.
“Make that ten. Ten minutes.” I descended on her mouth. Ten minutes would be long enough to satisfy the sick need I had to taste her all over.
“Agreed,” she answered.
Good. I liked it when she was accommodating.
Still holding her by the hair and trying not to hurt her, I wrapped my other hand around her waist and groped her ass hard. Selene let out a tiny hiss.
She’d just have to get used to me and it wouldn’t be for the rest of our lives, after all. Just the next ten minutes.
After a moment’s hesitation, she bit her lower lip and shut her eyes. She was ready to submit to me, the devil himself. So I kissed her.
My tongue slid impatiently into the paradise that was her mouth and was immediately met by hers, ready for me.
Timid and uncertain.
Yes, that was the kind of kiss I wanted to receive.
Then, Selene slipped her hand into my hair and drew me closer to her, so I started kissing her my way.
The way that hurt her.
The way that hurt me.
Selene was the only one who didn’t just arouse me; she made me actually lose control. She didn’t know anything about pleasure, yet I liked everything about her, even her shyness. I was dominant—not just in bed—she seemed to appreciate that part of me, though she’d never admit it.
“Make it fifteen. Fifteen minutes, and then I’m booting your ass. And I will boot it, you know. Your ass will be bright red tomorrow,” I whispered, irritable and terribly confused, but all she did was nod.
I went back to kissing her. My thoughts were swarming, crowding together chaotically.
Too chaotically.
The more I kissed Babygirl, the more I searched the meandering pathways of my brain for an escape route, of which I found none.
All my blood was concentrated in my cock, and it was getting very difficult to think rationally. Her sharp moan further inflamed me and only made me lay claim to her with more force.
All at once her hands were pushing at my shoulders because she couldn’t breathe.
She never could kiss very well, my Babygirl. She was too awkward.
I looked into her eyes as I paused to let her get some air. Selene rested her forehead against my chest and breathed.
She breathed me in.
“You still can’t kiss,” I mocked while she stood still, breathing deeply.
“You… You…” she babbled, trailing off.
“I… I…?” I asked derisively, stroking the back of her neck soothingly. Slowly, she looked up at me. In her eyes, I saw seas of pleasure, oceans of arousal.
I could feel her hot breath curling over my skin, on my flesh, and along my muscles.
“You have to go.” I felt like a prisoner of my senses, delirious. I was actually delirious.
“You don’t want me to go,” she answered with certainty.
The blood began to race in my veins, and the combined scent of us hung in the air.
I was enjoying being hers in that moment, in those fleeting fifteen minutes. But I had to make her see it was just an unworkable illusion.
“I’m going to fuck you,” I said then, hoping it would make her understand the kind of trouble she was getting into.
“Okay. Do it,” she said challengingly.
She’d lost it for sure. We were caught in a storm of destructive desire, and neither of us could think straight.
“I’ll do it like I do it with the other girls. No feelings,” I insisted, sure that this would finally make her back up.
I remembered what Dr. Lively told me: I had to abstain from sexual intercourse, from violating my own body or else…
“You seem to feel pretty strongly about the lack of feelings.” She smiled at her own joke, and I gave her a puzzled look.
What was that silvery glint in her eyes?
Was she looking at me with…adoration? I licked my lips, gathering a bit of her flavor.
That sweet, irresistible feminine taste.
Then, I stroked the soft skin of her cheek, and she kissed my fingers.
Her every breath produced shivers.
In me. In her. In the both of us.
“On the couch,” I ordered her abruptly, pulling back. I was doing it all wrong once again, but I wanted her. I wanted a little taste of her, at least.
Selene looked at me for a few moments, hesitating before finally obeying. I frowned at her body—she was wearing too many clothes.
“Undress. Slowly,” I demanded before sitting down on a stool to enjoy the show. I needed to keep my distance from her, or I wouldn’t be responsible for my actions. I ran a hand through my hair and tugged on my sweater. I wanted to take it all off.
Selene turned my way and gulped. She watched me thoughtfully and took a deep breath, gathering enough courage to make herself bold.
Her hand shook as she slid down the first strap of her dress.
I looked at her collarbone and then at the perfect curve of her neck.
She repeated the action on the other shoulder and allowed the dress to slowly fall to the floor.
In an elegant movement, she lifted first one leg and then the other out of the dress until she stood there, balanced on her high heels, displaying herself for me proudly. She wore nothing but a pair of cotton panties, white and angelic, along with a matching bra and some sheer thigh highs.