Wanted

Chapter 20

Jude

In the darkof my bedroom, I run my fingers through Frankie’s hair.

She lies on my chest, her fingers tracing delicate patterns across my skin.

This feels like a dream I never dared to have. One I don’t want to wake up from. But I know when the lights turn on, when the morning comes, a new reality will begin.

I stare at her face, her parted lips and closed eyes, visible through the flashes of lightning out my window. The storm continues to pummel the town, the power remaining dark. With Frankie in my arms, I seem to have beaten the worst of my compulsion. I didn’t need to light any candles.

My breath leaves my lips with a muted sigh, and I carefully shift. My legs bump against her soft, smooth skin beneath the blankets.

“I feel spoiled.”

I hum and press a kiss to the crown of her head.

“You take good care of me.” Sleep clogs her voice. “Nobody has ever taken care of me.”

As soon as we left the shower and dried off, we came into my room, where I pulled Frankie into my arms. She promptly dozed off, only to wake a few minutes ago. While she slept, I lay awake, relishing the novelty of her warmth pressed against me.

“Did you have a nice nap?”

She stretches and tips her chin to peer at me through the darkness. “The best,” she whispers.

My tattered heart swells to twice its size.

“Do you regret it?” I ask.

“God no.” A smile enters her voice.

“Can I ask you about it?”

“About what?”

“Your virginity.”

“Do you mean how was I a twenty-eight-year-old engaged virgin?” The humor in her voice eases any lingering awkwardness. Her ability to be open fills me with comfort. The trust she gives me feels misplaced and undeserved, yet she keeps on freely giving it.

“You don’t exactly seem…”

“Virginal, meek, repressed?”

Frankie turns until her torso touches mine. The swell of her breasts pillow beneath her chin. “Because I wasn’t those things. To me, being a virgin wasn’t about shying away from sex or purity. I wasn’t saving myself for some fairy-tale prince.”

“Then what was it?”

Even through the dark, her eyes level with mine.

“A choice.”

I run my tongue over my lower lip before sinking my teeth into it.

“I embraced my sexuality even more because I refused to feel pressured. And before you get it twisted in that beautiful, overthinking head of yours,” she goes on, stunning me silent by calling me beautiful. “Giving it to you was my choice too.”

“I’m honored.” The words sound hoarse, bouncing around us in the dark.

“Thank you for not freaking out.” She tilts her chin up and kisses me softly. I rise from the pillow to meet her lips. “Or treating me like glass. I’m not that fragile.”

“You’re definitely not,” I rumble, thinking of how hard she took me in the shower. How desperately hard I want her to take me again.

“I loved every second of it.”

“Baby…”

“I want a repeat.”

Blood rushes south to the area covered only by the blankets.

“You need to wait and see how you feel. Aren’t you sore?”

“I feel…” She kicks the heavy duvet off her legs. “Like I’m ready to feel you again.”

Who am I to deny her what she wants?

I slide my hand between her legs, cupping her gently. “So fucking hot.”

“No one has ever made me feel this needy before.”

Me too, baby.

Her touch alone turns me into a fucking inferno.

Grabbing her hips, I twist to the side until we trade places. Her back flush to my bed, her head replacing mine on the pillow.

I ease my middle finger inside her entrance. She gasps at the intrusion.

“How does this feel?”

I lean over her, watching her face in the dark.

“A little sore, but it’s the good kind. It’ll keep me thinking about you.” She giggles.

Masculine pride swells. I could puff out my chest and pound on it at the knowledge. Damn right, she’ll be thinking about me tomorrow. If she lets me have my way, I’d have her sore and thinking about me every day that ends in a “y.”

“I’m always thinking of you, Frankie.”

“Jude,” she whimpers as I twist my wrist and insert another digit.

“This time, I’m going to get you off slow.”

I crawl down her body, stopping to worship every couple of inches with my mouth. Her peaked nipples tighten against my tongue. She grinds her hips against me as I tease the little buds with my teeth and soothe the sting with a broad swirl. As I stop at her bellybutton, her pelvis bucks and a low moan slips from her lips. I chuckle against her soft skin, running my stubbled cheeks along her stomach. The muscles hollow and twitch as I kiss a path between the bones of her hips.

Sex has always been about pleasure, the quick, hard, and fast ride to chase that high. But I realize as I tease Frankie within an inch of her life, bringing her to the edge with my fingers and kisses, that I’ve never had fun sex before her. Only a means to an end. A furious rush to the finish to quash a bodily need. An unbridled joy unlike anything I’ve ever felt has me grinning like a goddamn fool against Frankie’s abdomen.

Her cunt pulses around my fingers, the first sign of an impending orgasm, and I bury my face between her thighs and feast.

“Jude!” she squeals, her thighs clamping around the sides of my head as her heels dig into my shoulder blades.

My fingers work a steady rhythm, curling inside and stroking deep while I lap at every inch of her sweetness. I focus on her clit, swirling and sucking as she undulates beneath my mouth.

Just as she starts to come, the lights flick on, a startling contrast to the pitch darkness encasing us. But I don’t stop, working every last twitch from her, determined to own all of her pleasure and make it my own.

“Jude,” she pants. The sheets at her side remain twisted when she releases them. “What happened.”

“Power’s back.” Lifting onto my elbows, I lick her remaining dew from my lips. The salty flavor melts on my tongue.

“Jude.” The watery quality of her voice has me meeting her eyes. Tears brim along her lash line. “What happened to your back?”

Oh fuck.

No, Jesus.

Fuck.

So lost, so caught up in all things Frankie, I forgot. I forgot that I never got dressed. Forgot the clothing I wear like an armor, covering the shameful marks of my past. With the lights shining bright from the ceiling, a spotlight reveals the raised pink and purple slashes. Can’t pretend she doesn’t see what she thought with her own two fucking eyes.

“Don’t look at me like that,” I snarl, throwing myself off the bed and stalking to my chest of drawers. There’s no use wrapping a blanket around myself. I’d just look pathetic and she’s already gotten a good enough look.

In fact, she’s had the only look that I’ve ever willingly or unwillingly given since I was a kid.

“I don’t know how you think I’m looking at you, but I promise you I’m not.”

“You are.” The beat of my heart threatens to bust through my ribs. Numbness trickles down to my fingertips. Labored breaths send my chest heaving loudly in the quiet room.

“I’m not.”

Muscles freeze, preventing me from covering myself. I can’t even fucking turn around as the compulsion to count holds me captive.

One.

Two.

Three.

Why isn’t she saying anything? Why isn’t she telling me how sorry she is? How much she fucking pities me.

Four.

Five.

Six.

Sev –

The room plunges back into darkness as Frankie switches off the light.

Warm, delicate fingers curl around my palm, solidly grounding me back in the present. They tug, urging me to turn around. In the dark, I might feel just brave enough.

In the light, I want to hide.

“Come back to bed,” she pleads. Her pull is stronger than my demons, and I find the strength to follow.

Still without putting a shirt on.

What’s the fucking point now?

Frankie gets onto my bed on her knees, tugging my hand. She lies down in the middle. I sit awkwardly, unsure what I’m supposed to do.

“I won’t look,” she whispers. “I can’t cheat because it’s dark, but I wouldn’t look if you didn’t want me to. Lie down.”

Exhaling loudly, I drop onto the bed beside her. At the last second, she intercepts my head and guides me to lay on her stomach. Her fingers slip into my hair, tenderly massaging my scalp.

My eyelids flutter in the dark as her rhythmic tugging relaxes me. The motion of her steady breaths reminds me of a boat on serene waters.

And for some reason, after seconds stretch into minutes marked by the crash of thunder and spark of lightning across the night sky, I begin to talk.

“I have undiagnosed OCD.”

The words feel brittle in my throat, cracking as I spit them into the darkness.

“I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but those long pauses aren’t for dramatic effect. I pause because I’m counting.”

Inhale. Exhale.

One. Two. Three.

“I pause…”

Four. Five.

I grit my teeth. “I pause in uncomfortable moments because I was whipped as a kid.”

Frankie’s breath hitches, her torso bouncing beneath my head. Yet her fingers never falter their comforting strokes.

“Jack and I, our childhood was shit. I’ll spare you most of it, but my parents weren’t much different from yours. A couple of abusers who should have never had children. Our dad, he was a mean bastard, and his favorite way to dole out punishments was with his belt.

“Now, Jack, he was smaller than me by a lot back then. He didn’t start growing until we hit our teens. The day after our dad nearly beat him to death was the day I started volunteering to take his punishments.”

If I close my eyes, I can still hear the whoosh of the brown leather, the searing slap it made against my fragile skin. That sound buried itself so deep into my psyche, I doubt it’ll ever work itself out.

“I don’t regret it. I’d do it all over again if it meant keeping my brother alive.”

She trembles beneath me, and her free hand finds mine in the dark. I entwine our fingers, holding tight as I keep talking, revealing secrets I’ve kept buried in my marrow for so long.

“To get through it, I developed a habit of counting. I’d keep track in my head how long it took to finish his beating. Now he was a mean guy, but he wasn’t trying to wind up in jail for murder. What he did to Jack scared a little sense into him once the school started asking why Jack was gone for so long. So he made sure to hit hard and deep, but he was fast about it. Never went more than twenty seconds if I was counting slow. Enough to leave me black and blue and bleeding, but still breathing to live another day.

“Counting was my coping mechanism to get through the pain. I could stop once the final blow was over. My brain somehow confused itself into thinking the counting meant safety, and I developed an obsession. Counting keeps my family safe. Now, whenever uncertainty creeps in, I count until it goes away.”

Frankie shudders beneath me. “I’m sorry,” she croaks, fighting to keep her sobs locked up tight.

“Don’t.”

My heart splinters at the pain she feels—for me. I don’t deserve her tears or her sadness.

Flipping over, I crawl on top of her, sliding my naked body along hers until we’re face-to-face in the dark.

“Don’t cry for me, baby.”

The tears sliding across her temples glisten in the flashing light. I frown at the explicit sadness twisting her beautiful face.

“You haven’t shed a single tear about your own circumstances since you got here, and I don’t want to be the thing that makes you cry. It was a long time ago.”

“You were doing it ten minutes ago. And an hour before that. And when you were racing up the trail to find me. The physical punishment might have happened decades ago, but, Jude, you’re still affected by it to this day.”

Squeezing my eyes shut, I drop my forehead against hers. “I know,” I admit. Feelings of shame pulses through me like a second heartbeat.

“Look at me,” she pleads, her fingers brushing my hair from my forehead.

When I do, she continues.

“You have nothing to be ashamed about,” she whispers vehemently. “And you have nothing to hide.”

Frankie tilts her chin, meeting my lips in a tender kiss. “Not from me.”

Just as I start to get lost in her soft mouth, her hand traces across my back.

I stiffen. “Frankie,” I warn as shame curdles in my gut.

“I’ll be gentle.”

Every muscle in my body grows taut in anticipation of her curious touch. But I don’t deny her. I don’t think I could deny her anything, even if it means exposing all of my ugly scars.

“Trust me.”

The first press of her fingertip against a scar on my scapula sends a shudder wracking through me. I collapse against her with a groan, keeping my weight off her with my elbows and burying my face in the dark warmth of her neck. Her sweet scent envelops me, transporting me away from the acrid smell of pot, and leather, and blood. Grounding me in this room with her.

She moves on, finding the longest blemish stretching from my left shoulder across my spine to my right hip. Questing fingers glide reverently along the puckered skin. The feel of her tenderly touching a place that has only known pain releases something inside my chest. I fist the sheet beside our heads, bucking against her as my mouth finds her neck.

“Frankie.” It’s less of a warning now. Almost a tortured plea slipping off my lips. But I don’t know what I’m asking for.

Forgiveness?

Acceptance?

Something… more?

How is it possible in the short time I’ve known her that she’s been able to attack so many of my walls? The fortress I live behind appears to be no match for this woman, and I’m not sure how that makes me feel.

“You’re beautiful, Jude.”

I hiss as she finds the scar across my low back that’s still sensitive from time to time.

“That’s enough.” Holding her against me, I flip us back around until she’s lying on my chest.

“I wasn’t done.”

I catch her fingers and bring them to my lips. “For tonight you are. You made your point.”

“Did I?” She raises a skeptical eyebrow, visible through the light trickling in from the hall.

Not really, but furthering the argument won’t change anything.

I know I’m damaged. My siblings each endured rough childhoods, yet none of them are still affected the same way I am. Nobody carries silly compulsions into their adulthood from a past they can’t seem to let go of.

Not even Jack.

But I don’t need her to spell anything out for me. I don’t need to see the look in her eyes when she realizes I’m more work than I’m worth.

For now, I’ll enjoy what she’s willing to give.

And when she’s ready to let go, I’ll become a memory.