Chapter Nineteen
Daughtry had never done that in his life. Lost it and had sex on the floor. Because he couldn’t make it to a bedroom. Because
he couldn’t control himself. He had certainly never thrown a Tupperware full of cookies.
And Bix was looking up at him, bright eyed and happy. Asking for a shower.
“Hell yeah,” he said.
Because for now he was just going to pretend that he was a different person. For now, that seemed like a pretty damned reasonable
thing to do.
So, naked, he reached out and grabbed the thing of cookies, then lifted Bix up off the ground. He put the cookies in her arms,
and carried her in his, down the hall to the bedroom.
Bix chucked the cookies down on the bed. “Will need them later. Sustenance,” she said.
She looked up at him and nodded. Gravely.
“You always think about food.”
“If you’ve ever gone without, you think about it a lot.”
She made comments like that sometimes. And they just undid him. But then, she did. Altogether. Over much.
He carried her into the bathroom, and opened up the glass shower door. He leaned into the space, and Bix laughed as she turned the water on.
He set her down outside, while they waited for it to warm up.
“I thought you were showering with her. That night when I got home from the bar.” She took a deep breath, and his eyes were
drawn down to her breasts. So perfect. So pretty.
“Were you jealous?”
“Jealous as hell,” she said. “Because I wanted your hands running all over my skin.”
She pressed her thighs together, the action making it clear that she was aroused, and that did something to him.
“You’re a scamp,” he said.
“Obviously,” she said.
Steam started to rise from inside the shower, and he wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her in, beneath the scalding
water.
She sighed, and he moved his hands over her skin, got them all soapy and slid them over her curves. Did that until she was
panting, until she was arching against him.
“Settle down,” he said.
He got some shampoo, washed her hair. Scrubbed his fingers through the silky strands. And when he looked at Bix, he sighed...
It almost looked like tears streaming down her cheeks, but of course, that could just be the shower.
It didn’t have to be anything else.
Maybe they weren’t tears.
She opened her eyes, though, and he could see that they were glassy. “No one has ever taken care of me before.”
It was like a punch to the chest.
No one had ever taken care of him before either. And that he was doing an all-right job of it with her...
Don’t. You don’t need to go there.
But it was fine. For now. He just wanted to care for her. He just wanted to give her things. Because she was Bix. And she
was special.
He moved his hands over her curves again, then between her thighs, stroked her there until she was sighing.
He felt himself getting hard again, which he would’ve thought was impossible after that explosion of passion in the living
room. But he wanted this. The passion.
It was reckless, he knew, but it was safer than the tenderness that was threatening to cave his whole chest in.
He pushed two fingers inside of her and watched her face as he pleasured her.
Then he backed her up against the shower wall, and positioned himself at the entrance of her body, and thrust inside.
He gritted his teeth. Nearly swearing when he realized what he’d done.
But she felt so good.
He was losing it. Because this wasn’t him. He was more controlled than this. He was more responsible than this.
Holding her tightly, still buried inside of her, he opened up the shower door, turned the water off. And stepped out holding her.
She clung to him, and he walked her to the bed, laying her down next to the cookies. “Hey,” she murmured when he withdrew
from her.
“Condom,” he said. “My bad.”
But he meant so much more than that. It sounded casual. And he didn’t mean it that way. It really was bad. And he really did
regret it.
It really was him, as if he had jumped onto a parallel path. One he had decided to get off of years ago.
And now here he was again. He had been careless. And he couldn’t be careless with her. He couldn’t afford to let feeling,
to let need overwhelm him like this. He got a condom out of the bedside drawer and rolled it over his hardened length. Then
he went back to Bix, kissing her deep as he thrust into her again.
She looked up at him, her eyes going glassy again as she wrapped her arms around his neck. “Daughtry.”
And right then, he would’ve given her the world. He wanted to slay every dragon that had ever come for her.
The intensity of the feeling that was building inside of him was unlike anything he’d ever experienced before. It wasn’t just
an impending orgasm. It was more than that. She was more than that.
It was everything. Absolutely everything.
He focused on the pleasure. Focused on the building need within him. On the orgasm that was chasing him down like a hellhound.
He focused on that, because it was easier. He focused on that, because it felt good.
And he tried to pretend that it was just sex. And that it wasn’t quite so spectacular, and mind-blowing and soul altering because it was Bix. Because she was like a magical creature that had torn a hole through the fabric of his world, stepped inside and cast a spell on him. Affected real change within him. Change he hadn’t wanted or asked for.
Bix.
Oh hell.
She chose that moment to open her eyes, to look into his.
And that was what pushed him over the edge.
He clung to her hips as he thrust hard inside of her. “Yes,” she whispered. And she began to shudder and shake, coming apart
around him.
He thrust deep, giving himself over to his need at the same time she did. And they held each other as they came apart.
Bix rolled over onto her side and he went to the bathroom to discard the condom. When he came back, she was eating cookies.
“Would you like some milk?”
“Yes, please,” she said, her mouth full.
He shook his head, went into the kitchen and got two glasses of milk. It struck him how satisfying he found that. Taking care
of her like this. Giving to her like this. He came back into the room, and sat on the bed, handing one of the cups of milk
to her.
He took a cookie out of the tub and dipped it in the milk. “You really made these?”
She looked proud. “I did. I had help.”
He took a bite of the cookie. “Damn, Bix,” he said. “This is great.”
Right then, it was easy to imagine a future that neither of them actually wanted. One where she baked him cookies. And he
made her breakfast. Where they went to bed together every night and got up together every morning. Yeah. That was really easy
to imagine right then. But that was only because he was raw, and the sex with her was so mind-blowing it made it difficult
to think straight.
“I had a good time with your sister. And everyone else. I kind of understand the friendship thing now. So I told them the
story about my brother and they... they kind of freaked out. Like what I was saying was crazy.”
“What story did you tell them?” All he could think of was the story she told him about her brother leaving her in the woods.
It had made him want to kill the guy with his bare hands.
“Oh, and it was just one time my dad left him in charge of me, and he locked me in my bedroom for a couple of days. He gave
me some water. I pretended that I was camping. That’s funny, because the other time you know when he left me in the woods,
I actually was camping.”
“Bix,” he said. “What the fuck?”
He felt like he wanted to kill someone. Kill something. This rage, this was something he wasn’t familiar with. It was a part
of himself that he had cut off so long ago it felt foreign.
“I’m fine ,” she insisted. “They looked the same way you did. It’s just... It was stuff that happened. There’s no use getting all
traumatized about it.”
“But it’s fucking traumatizing,” he said. “Nobody should’ve done that to you. Your father should have protected you. Your
brother should have protected you. That’s what siblings do. My family is dysfunctional, but the siblings all have each other’s
back.”
“Mine didn’t,” she said. “I just... I get it. And I appreciate you being angry for me. The same as I appreciated them being
angry for me. But I can’t afford to be all upset about the terrible things that have happened. Because... because I have
to live. I have to live.”
“Bix, I... It’s wrong. What he did to you was wrong.”
It was more than that. It made his chest hurt. Made his whole body hurt.
But Bix wasn’t... It was like she didn’t really know. The way they ought to have treated her. What she deserved.
“When you go out into the world, Bix, don’t you ever take shit like that from anybody. I can understand not wanting to sit
down and be upset about things that happened that you don’t have control over, but I need you to be mad enough that you will
never accept any of that, ever again. Ever. Do you get it?”
“Yes,” she whispered. “It’s just... I’ve never been able to afford to be picky about how I was being treated.”
“Oh hell, Bix,” he said. “I just hate it. I really do. I hate that you were treated that way.”
“I hate that you were treated the way you were. So it’s mutual, I guess. I promise, I’m not going to accept anything... anything bad. Because you’ve taken such good care of me, I’ll expect it from now on.”
He felt like a tight band was squeezing his chest. “Well. If I’ve done anything, I hope... Good. Good.”
But when they went to sleep, he had the strangest swirl of emotions going through his chest. Contentment, desire, anger.
Because he wanted to throttle her family. The people who had been entrusted with taking care of her, and who hadn’t.
He was glad that Bix was so resilient. Angry that she should have had to be.
Mad that she seemed to not understand how extraordinarily awful it was that she had been treated that way.
He really hated that.
He had another day off tomorrow, which was good. He intended to spend it with her.
Because it wasn’t permanent. So there was no point holding himself back at all. Because it wasn’t permanent, and there would
be a natural conclusion one way or another.
And it was supposed to be something he was enjoying. Not something that tore his guts out. But then, nothing was supposed
to be able to tear his guts out. Not quite like this. And here he was.
He looked down at Bix. Sleeping soundly. She was so small. She wasn’t fragile. And it didn’t matter that life had treated her in a particularly harsh fashion; she just seemed to get up and get on with it. She was feisty and resilient in a way that...
Well, his response to the things he’d been through had been to shut himself down. But then, Bix wasn’t like her dad.
And Daughtry would always have to worry that he was like his.
Because he could remember. He could remember enjoying going and threatening people. Being tougher than them. Smarter than
them.
Bix had never gloried in that.
The world had very few people like Bix. That was the truth. People who had been through hell, and who had come out like this.
The world had too many people like his father. Like her father. Too many people like him.
And all he could do was hold himself back. While Bix...
Bix deserved to be free.