Chapter 9 #2
I’ve never had that in a romantic sense.
It figures, given that the romance in my life has been almost zero.
Fucking? Yes. Fucking, I do know. There’s nothing wrong with consensual pleasure.
I’ve just never experienced the flipside of it.
Not because I didn’t want to, but because I didn’t know how, and often, the kind of women who I attracted weren’t looking for that kind of experience with a man. Maybe they didn’t know how either.
Willow is different. She’s soft. Sweet. Good. Young. She spent five years of her life already training to make the world a better place.
“You don’t have to worry about me.” The words scorch my throat. “I’ll be fine.”
She doesn’t believe me for a second. “Just because you’re older and a man doesn’t mean you don’t have feelings.”
“I’d be okay with being used. If that’s what you need, I’m happy to give it to you.”
“God, no!” She jerks her foot out of my grasp, but not to punish me.
She curls over her bent knees and cups my face with both hands.
“I’m not happy to treat anyone that way, especially you.
I know it seems fast. It seems like you could only be one thing to me, but you’re not.
I’ve learned more about myself in a few days than I’ve allowed myself to process in years.
It doesn’t all feel good and some of it is far from complimentary. ”
“I’m not making any assumptions. That would be unfair, coming from someone who has never followed an ascribed path.”
“If you want to continue, I want that too. Very much. I think it’s okay to want. The world tells people, especially women, that it’s not. That it’s slutty. I don’t think that’s true. I don’t think pleasure has to lead to pain and regret.”
“I’m only worried because we barely know each other. There’s room for error.”
She shakes her head, biting down on her kiss swollen bottom lip. “I know that you have a good heart despite how unkind life has sometimes been to you. You allowed hardships to soften you instead of turning you to stone. That’s not easy.”
“I might be a real bastard.”
Her thick lashes flutter, and at least I get a ghost of a smile.
“I don’t think Tarynn would have let me come up here with a real bastard.
You haven’t run from a thing I’ve told you.
You gave me one of the best nights of my life because you cared that I wasn’t left alone in any way, even with my own mind.
You’re here with me in this moment, checking in on me so thoroughly that if I couldn’t see the outline of your heart in that, I would never be able to see anything at all. ”
I lift both my palms, easing back so she has to release my face and get a good look.
“These aren’t gentle hands. They come with their fair share of blood stains.
I’m a little afraid that even though I’ve worked hard to change, that the stains will seep from me to you.
That I’ll tarnish you just by getting close. ”
“Odin.” She sighs, but not with impatience.
“It doesn’t work that way. I’m not afraid.
I like your rough hands. If you told me about your past, the only thing I would want to do is hug you, because I know that for people who have to fight to survive, literally, life has kicked them in the teeth.
Repeatedly. I don’t think that’s what makes a person soiled.
Rough around the edges, maybe. I think you’re strong because you had to be.
The things you could tell me would probably break my heart.
I’m sorry for the loss you’ve known and for the times you’ve been alone. ”
It’s my last defense I had to offer up, one last chance to push her away and keep her from wanting me like I want her.
I don’t know how she can be so convinced that this won’t end badly, but I want to believe her.
I want to grasp onto the way she’s looking at me, like I’m just a man who deserves to be wanted by anyone at all, let alone a woman like her.
Like this isn’t fundamentally wrong on every level.
Like I’m not too old, not too far gone, to be loved in some capacity.
“I was starting to feel that way.” I take a chance and set my hand on her knee.
She immediately covers it with her own. Her soft fingertips squeeze my rough, scarred knuckles.
“Lonely. Even in a club full of men I count as brothers. The thing is, they’re all pairing off.
Meeting people. Finding partners. Falling in love.
Not all, but there’s a significant amount now.
I keep telling myself it’s for young people.
I’m being silly. I didn’t even feel I was missing anything until the past couple of years.
I guess it’s contagious. Lovesickness. Coming from a man like me, that’s absurd. ”
“That’s not absurd at all. I’m lonely too.
It doesn’t matter what age you are. True connection is so rare.
People can be married and not have that.
” She lifts my hand and cups it in both of hers.
“I’d like to stay friends, if you want to.
I’ll come back. It might take me a while, maybe even a few years, but I promise that I won’t shut you out. ”
“Oh, shit.” I try to jerk back, but she holds firm. “Don’t say that. I want you to live your life. Do the things you want to do. Go back to school, become a vet. Open your own place. Kick ass at saving animal’s lives, or helping them over the rainbow bridge, if that’s what it comes to.”
“Aww, the rainbow bridge.” Her eyes grow misty. “I love that you know that term.”
“Get a cat. Get an old cat. Love it hard for me. Do everything you want in life and then some. You don’t have to worry about looking back.”
“I’m not worried!” She doesn’t let go of my hand, but she scoots around on the blanket, so she’s on her knees.
She bends her head over my hand and brushes a kiss over my knuckles.
“I’m certainly not going to wash this from my mind.
I can have a life and still want to remember good people who did incredible things for me when I needed it the most. That’s something that sticks with you forever.
It’s not a tradeoff. I don’t have to give up memories in order to have a future. ”
“Maybe not,” I concede, then lose my breath fully as she draws herself in against me. She peels my leather jacket from my shoulders, taking care with the heavy weight of it. She sets it on the blanket beside my camera and the backpack.
“I didn’t want to get cake on something that I know you treasure,” she explains, and then she hugs me. Hard.
Cake smushes between us, but it’s the last thing I’m thinking about when I can feel her hard nipples and soft breasts mashed into my chest.
She tugs on my beard playfully, but hard enough that my face tilts down or I’m going to risk hair being ripped out.
Tenderness floods through me, filling me so completely, so quickly, so terrifyingly full, that my body can barely contain it.
It’s painful and it’s exhilarating when Willow looks up at me with glossy blue eyes and blown pupils through the thickest lashes.
“I’m going to kiss you now and I promise, I promise, that it will be okay.”
A ragged groan tears free from the depths of my chest right before her lips meet mine.
Like the first time, she’s gentle before she’s fire.
She still tastes divine. I’m drunk off the sensation of having her so close.
Illicit, but at the same time, like she was made for me.
It’s not just cake smeared across our clothes.
She’s going to leave a deeper imprint, one that I wouldn’t wash away, even if I could.
She takes my hand and guides it down to her dress. There’s a slit up one side, along her left leg. She moves my fingers so that I follow that slit, tracing the silk of her skin all the way to the top. She keeps going, pushing the dress up higher and higher, past her knees, to her thighs.
I sip from her mouth, drugged completely by the feel of her.
She doesn’t stop at her inner thighs. She leads my hand right to where she needs me.
Her panties are soft and barely there, a scrap of silky fabric that she pushes aside so she can bring my fingers right to her shockingly warm center.
She’s drenched, and when my fingers slip through her folds, she whimpers against my mouth.
Hearing that sound drawn from her by my touch is obscenely hot.
I splay my hand over her, angling my hand to stroke her clit with my thumb. She gasps, her hips writhing against me as a jolt of pleasure rocks through her.
“Don’t stop,” she pleads against my lips. “Please.”
I can’t resist her soft cry, so I give her what she wants.
I circle her clit a few more times before my fingers dip down to play at her entrance.
She gasps, throwing back her head to gulp in air.
She opens her eyes as my fingers dip inside of her, two of the thick digits gliding forward to stretch her open.