30. Aedan
AEDAN
I pushed through the crowd, acting as a wedge to keep them clear of Sylvie.
They weren’t so brave, now that they were face-to-face with her.
..and me. It was impossible to tell which of the men had yelled the worst things.
But all of them were guilty. All of them had, at a minimum, come along and watched.
None of them had left in disgust when Jacki had torn off Sylvie’s top.
I was ready to kill every single one of them.
I settled for battering them aside, using plenty of elbow and shoulder, and growling at any who resisted. Outside, I bundled Sylvie into a cab and told the cabbie to take us to my place.
I looked at Sylvie. “No arguments,” I said. “I don’t want you to be alone, tonight.”
She nodded.
At my apartment, I showed her to the shower.
“Get in,” I said. “Take your time. I’ll get us something to eat.
” What I really wanted was to do something nice for her—some big bath filled with bubbles and scented candles and all that girly shit.
But I didn’t have any of those things. All I had to offer her was hot water and men’s shower gel.
And yet she looked at me as if I’d done all that and more.
I left her alone to shower. The thought of her naked in there had me instantly hard in my pants but she’d been through too much—I didn’t want to do anything that would make her feel pressured into sex, not right now.
So I retreated to the living room and ordered a massive pizza with everything on, and dug some cold beers out of the refrigerator.
When the bathroom door inched open, it was like a rerun of that time she’d fallen in the river...but so much had changed, since then. She stared at me around the edge of the door, steam billowing out around her, and I stared right back at her.
Her nose had stopped bleeding and she’d washed the blood away, but she was still red and tender there. Her left cheek had a dark bruise where Jacki’s fist had cracked across it and her right eye was turning purple, the lid swollen.
Her lip was trembling and her eyes were filled with tears. “How do I…” She swallowed. “How do I look?”
And I realized that she hadn’t seen herself, yet. The mirror in the bathroom broke a long time ago, after I—
Well. It broke.
The only mirror is in the living room, and she couldn’t see it from where she was. And I’d hustled her straight through to the bathroom when we arrived. She hadn’t seen the damage, yet.
“It’s not so bad,” I told her. I got up slowly and walked across to her, grabbing the best towel I had. She hesitantly released her grip on the door and I slowly opened it and wrapped the towel around her like a dress.
I guided her to the mirror, stepping behind her and wrapping my arms around her waist for support. Her steps got smaller and smaller as she approached. When she saw her face, I saw her go pale. I thought she was going to be sick.
“It’ll heal,” I told her as she touched her cheek.
She’s never been hurt before, you feckin’ idiot, I told myself.
I was used to coming home with a broken nose or a mashed-up lip, back in the day.
But she’d always known the same face in the mirror.
Now it had suddenly changed. She must not feel like her anymore.
I lifted my arms and wrapped them tighter around her, hugging her close to my chest. “You’re beautiful,” I told her.
She shook her head and I heard her breath catch. She was on the edge of tears.
“Beautiful,” I said. And she was. It broke my heart to see her hurt like this. But it didn’t for one second change the way I felt about her.
And for the first time, I felt that deep lurch inside, the one where you feel like the floor’s just been pulled out from under you.
I’d been thinking about how much I wanted her, but I’d been skating around the other stuff: how much I liked talking to her; how she made me laugh like no one else did; how I’d wanted to protect her from the first moment I met her.
No. No way. Jesus, look at me—look at my shitty apartment. Look at what I am. She deserves a hell of a lot better than me.
She turned around, wincing as she moved her hip. “Thank you,” she whispered. And she drew me down into a soft, tender kiss. And for a little while, I let my doubts go and allowed myself to pretend we could actually be together, long term.
I could feel her naked body through the towel, cool and deliciously soft against me. But before things went any further, there was something I needed to do. I picked her up and lifted her onto the bed on her back. Then I unwrapped the towel, leaving her naked.
Her eyes widened.
I held up my hands in defense. “I’m not—Not that. I gotta check the rest of you.”
She looked chastened...and a little disappointed. “Oh.”
The way she said it made my cock twitch and strain against my thigh. Damn, but this girl turned me on. “Not that we can’t do that too,” I growled.
Her voice changed again, a nervous little laugh creeping in. “Oh!”
I looked down at her. The most gorgeous girl I’d ever seen, naked on my bed, and I had to be halfway professional, at least until I’d checked her over.
I took a look at her hip, where she’d whacked it against the wall.
There was one hell of an ugly bruise there, purple and green and spreading to cover an area the size of my hand. Ouch.
I took her ankle in my hand and tried lifting her leg a little, then bending it. She winced, but everything seemed to move okay. I’d been worried she might have fractured something. I tried rotating the joint a little and that seemed okay, too.
It was difficult to ignore the fact that I’d just opened her legs, and that her naked pussy was right there in front of me.
We stared at one another.
She pressed her thighs together. “I want to,” she said quietly. “But I’m not sure I can. I’m too banged up.”
I nodded quickly. “Gotcha.” And I started to cover her up. Then I saw her blink a couple of times, not quite crying but on the verge. She thought I didn’t want to. She wasn’t up to sex, but she needed that reassurance. She needed to know that I still found her beautiful.
“There is something we can do,” I said. “Without you moving.”
“Oh yeah?” she asked softly. “What?”
I opened the towel again. Her legs were still a little way apart. I climbed onto the bed and lowered my head between her thighs.
She drew in a huge, startled gasp of air as my tongue touched her lips and flicked up the line between them.
I’d always loved going down on a woman and Sylvie had the sweetest, most perfect pussy of them all.
Up on the roof had been great but here, with her lying on a bed, I could really go to town.
I had to be careful to avoid touching her hip, or moving her legs.
I didn’t want any pain to distract from the pleasure.
I slid my hands up to her breasts and began to gently stroke them, and she groaned.
God, they felt so good under my palms, full and soft and with the nipples already hardening to warm, stiff buds between my fingers.
I traced the shape of each lip again and again, staying clear of her clit for now.
I listened to her breathing and felt her movements under my hands.
Only when she was panting and gasping and grinding her head into the pillow did I flick my tongue over the hidden little nub for the first time.
I closed my mouth around it and sucked and she went wild.
Very slowly, I parted her folds with a finger and then slid it up into her. God, the warm, silken pressure of her around me, so smooth and perfect. I began to pump slowly at her while I wrote the alphabet with my tongue on her clit.
I heard her grab the headboard of the bed.
Her breathing was coming fast, now, and I could feel her thighs twitching.
She was instinctively moving to lock them closed around my head, but her banged-up hip was forcing her to keep them open.
In a way, that made it even better. That little bit of helplessness, the fact she had to just surrender to my mouth.
I added a second finger and curled them into her until I found that secret place that made her groan low in her throat and arch her back.
My tongue moved faster, sliding over her clit again and again, taking her higher and higher, then pulling back just before she could reach the summit.
I teased her like that for a half hour, until she writhed and cried out my name and finally clawed at my shoulders and begged me.
Only then did I speed up my fingers, fucking her deep and circling that secret spot.
Only then did I go crazy on that firm little nub, lashing it with my tongue and this time not stopping.
Only then did I take her nipples between finger and thumb and pinch… .
She came, rocking the bed and banging the headboard against the wall, her whole body going tense as a bowstring.
I felt the shudders run through her, loving the way she arched her back and pushed her breasts up into my hands, the way her pussy contracted around my fingers.
At the very end, I moved up the bed and kissed her, my fingers still inside her, feeling the last tremors squeeze me even as she panted against my lips.
Seconds later, the door buzzer went and I rewrapped her in the towel and left her cuddled there while I paid the pizza guy.
We found a position that was comfortable for her—me sitting up in the bed with her between my legs and lying back against my chest—and I fed her pizza like that, and we drank cold beers and watched late-night TV until the early hours.