19. Damian #4
She laughs shortly. “I dropped out. Worked as much as I could waitressing until I was nearly ready to have the baby, saved up as much as I could. I had a side job as a cocktail girl for the first few months, until I started to show, and they said they couldn’t have that.
I went back to work almost immediately after Adam was born.
And then I started leaking one day at work—” She touches her breast, and for once, I’m not wildly aroused.
All I can think about is how much she’s been through, how no one, not one person, has taken care of her until now.
It makes me want to fucking take care of her forever.
And that terrifies me.
“They fired me. Which, technically, is illegal—just like the first job firing me for being too visibly pregnant was. But what was I going to do? Sue them?” She rolls her eyes.
“I needed all my money just to keep Adam and me with a roof over our heads. I saw an advertisement for the Hibiscus hiring, and I went. And when Doug said that all the girls did side gigs, and that I needed to shoot some video and do cam work, I went along with it.” She bites her lip, looking at me as if she thinks I’ll judge her.
“I needed the money. And it was good money.”
“You didn’t give him up.” It’s an observation, nothing more, but I see a flash of guilt in Sienna’s eyes. I recognize it; it’s an emotion that I’m getting more and more acquainted with, lately.
“No.” She chews on her lower lip. “I should have, probably. He might have had a better family. People more able to take care of him. But I was lonely, and I just… I didn’t want to.
” She gives a tiny shrug, looking at me with a lopsided, guilty smile.
“There was no one to tell me what to do. I got pregnant, and I wanted to keep him. So I did. I guess it felt like… a decision I could make for myself. Whatever came of it. Even if he might have been better off?—”
“He wouldn’t have been,” I say sharply, cutting her off. “Don’t say that, Sienna. You’re a wonderful mother.”
Her flush deepens, and she looks startled.
“That kid adores you,” I continue, somehow unable to stop now that I’ve gotten started.
“And he should. You’ve sacrificed everything for him.
You've worked jobs you hated, lived in places that weren't safe, done whatever it took to keep him fed and clothed and loved.
Don't you ever question whether you made the right choice. "
Sienna swallows hard. "But now he's in danger because of me. Because of the choices I made."
"He's in danger because there are evil people in this world who prey on the innocent. That's not your fault." I shake my head sharply. “Don’t blame yourself.”
"If I hadn't been working at that club?—"
"Then you would have been somewhere else, and something else bad might have happened. You can't blame yourself for other people's cruelty."
She nods, wiping at the corner of her eye again.
Something tugs at my chest, pulling me to her, to comfort her, but I don’t go.
I don’t know how to be a comfort to someone, how to be anything but brutal and cruel.
I could kill someone for her, but I’m not sure how to take away her hurt.
And I’m afraid of what I’ll do if I touch her, of how much I still want her, even now. Of losing control .
"You're a good mother," I tell her instead. "The best mother that boy could ask for. I've seen how you are with him, how patient and loving and fierce. He's lucky to have you."
Sienna gives me a small, watery smile. “Thank you,” she says softly. “You sound like you believe it.”
“I do,” I promise her. “I’m just telling you what you should already know.”
She lets out a sigh, rocking forward as she brushes her bare feet along the carpet. After a long moment, she looks up at me again, her green eyes soft. "Thank you for protecting me tonight. For making sure they didn’t hurt me."
My chest tightens. "I didn't do enough. I let them take you in the first place."
She shakes her head. “Now I’m just telling you what you should already know.
” She stands up, taking a step toward me, but stops again, standing at the corner of the bed.
“As soon as you could, you fought for me.
You did everything in your power to keep me safe, and I'm still here.
I'm still alive." She holds my gaze, something intense in hers.
"And the only man who touched me tonight was you. "
The words tear through me, guilt flooding me at the same time as my cock twitches and starts to swell at the memory of how I touched her. “I never should have. Not like that, not in front of them."
“The way it happened was awful,” she agrees softly.
Her throat moves as she swallows, a flush creeping up her throat, down her chest to meet the lace at the edge of her tank top, flushing her cheeks.
God , I want to see her body flush for me like that again, to feel her come for me on my fingers, my tongue, on my…
“But, Damian…” She hesitates, her voice suddenly trembling, nervous. “I…I liked how you felt inside of me.”
Fucking Christ. My body responds instantly to her words, blood rushing south so fast it makes me dizzy. My cock is rock hard in an instant, those words on my sweet wife’s tongue making me ache for her so badly that it hurts.
“Tonight was only the second time,” she repeats, her voice getting stronger, more confident, as if she’s gearing up to say something that she’s been thinking about.
“And the first time… it wasn’t good. I didn’t know what I was feeling, or if I even liked it.
He definitely wasn’t as big as you.” Her gaze flicks down to my groin, where I know she can see the thick ridge of my cock, standing out in sharp relief as it strains against the fabric of my pants.
“It didn’t feel like you did. And I never found anyone else I wanted to be with, until… ”
“Sienna.” My voice sounds strangled. “Stop.”
She shakes her head sharply. “No, Damian.
Listen. Tonight, even with everything that was happening, even with them watching us.
.. it felt good. You felt good. You made me feel things I didn't know I could feel.
" She swallows hard. “I was terrified, but… you being there, it being you … that made it feel like I could survive it.”
I feel like I can’t fucking breathe. She’s looking at me with those eyes, wide and green, and I can see the desire in them.
I can’t pretend any longer that it’s not real.
She has to know by now that she doesn’t need to seduce me to stay here, but she’s still standing there, looking at me like that, asking for…
"I want to know," she whispers. "I want to know what it's like when it's just us. When there's no one watching, no gun to anyone's head, when I can think clearly, and I’m not overwhelmed. I want you to show me how good it can be."
This isn’t right. I can’t… shouldn’t… do this… "Sienna, you've been through a trauma tonight. You're not thinking clearly." I swallow hard, trying to think through my own fog of lust, when every cell in my body is screaming at me to take her, to take everything that I want.
“I am ,” she insists, and she takes another step toward me, another, prowling closer like I’m the prey.
My little wildcat. Her eyes trail along my body, up to my face, and she smiles, stopping just in front of me as she reaches out to touch my chest. The touch, delicate as it is, feels like an electric shock, pleasure shooting straight to my cock.
“I want it slow. Purposeful. Not you saying you can’t and losing control anyway.
I want you to touch me like you mean it.
I want you to show me how good it all can be, and I know you can give me that, Damian, because it’s been good every time you’ve touched me.
It’s better and better, every time, and I want to know how all of it can be with you. ”
My breath is stopped in my lungs, my chest aching. My cock throbs desperately. "You don't know what you're asking for."
"I'm asking you to make love to me. Really make love to me, the way I know you want to.
" Her hand flattens against my chest, warm through the fabric of my shirt.
“I want to be yours, Damian. However long it lasts. I want to do this with you. I want it,” she repeats, as if trying to hammer the point home.
“Please,” she whispers, her voice so full of need it makes me ache.
God , I want her. I want her so fucking badly.
But she’s been through hell tonight, and the last thing I want is to take advantage of her vulnerability.
I don’t want to be like the first man she was with…
hell, the man I’ve been since she got here.
I’ve been fighting it all along, and she’s rapidly breaking down every defense that I have.
“I want you,” I admit. “I’ve wanted you since we were in that church and you tried to claw me to shreds, dikaya koshka . But you need time?—”
“I’ve had time,” she insists. “I thought about it on the drive home, and while I was showering, and while I was waiting for you to come up here, because I knew you would.” She shifts closer, her body a breath away from mine, so fucking warm and soft. “Do you know what I thought about?"
I shake my head, not trusting my voice.
"I thought about how it felt when you were inside me.
How safe I felt even in that terrible place, because it was you touching me.
" Her hand moves lower, coming to rest just above the waist of my pants, touching the edge of my shirt.
I want her hand to slip under it, to touch my bare flesh, to undo…
"I thought about how my body responded to you, even there. How much I want you..."
"Sienna." Her name is a groan of agony on my lips.
"I know I'm inexperienced. I know I don't know much about sex or pleasure or any of it. But I want to learn." She looks up at me through her lashes. "I want you to teach me. Just like you taught me, before. "
And then, before I can grab her hand or stop her or leave the room, or anything else that I should be doing to keep this from happening, she lifts her hand to my chest again, and rises up onto her tiptoes.
When her mouth presses against mine, soft and sweet and needy, the last of my control shatters.