Chapter 11 #3
I looked her all over. I ate her up from head to toe. Her pale skin was milky and luminous, free of imperfections. Her small breasts were high and firm, her stomach flat, and her legs slim and defined. Her hands were locked together, and she watched me timidly.
I rested my chin on one palm and continued staring at her, noting the redness of her cheeks.
“Are you embarrassed to have me look at you?” I asked her, forcing myself to stay seated because if I’d gotten any closer to her, I would have devoured her whole. She shook her head, but she was lying. She couldn’t even hold my gaze for more than two seconds.
I had changed my mind. I got up from my stool and approached her slowly, letting her desire build.
I could feel how much she wanted me. And it was a lot.
I kept staring at her, and it occurred to me that I’d like to take a picture of her.
I’d tuck it into my pocket and keep that image with me forever.
Selene chewed her lip and lifted her eyes slightly, giving me a slow, sensual flutter of her eyelashes.
I stopped right in front of her then and touched her chin, tracing the contours of her lips with my thumb.
They were full and rounded, slightly chapped in the middle.
“Lie down,” I whispered, pressing a kiss to the space underneath her ear.
Babygirl shivered, and I smiled at her. She sat down slowly on the couch but hesitated a few moments before lying down.
When she finally did, her auburn hair fanned out around her.
She kept her legs pressed together and her hands in her lap. Her eyes were apprehensive.
I moved closer to her and took a knee. I wanted to be on top of her, next to her but, most of all, inside of her.
“Relax,” I stroked her ankle and gently took her foot so I could slip her shoe off. I let it fall to the floor and cradled her foot in my hands. I massaged it with my thumbs, and she groaned approvingly.
I proceeded to give the other one the same treatment until I felt her muscles relax. I locked eyes with her to show her what was on my mind as I caressed her knee.
Selene gave a slight gasp, but I didn’t stop. Nothing could have stopped me then.
I kneeled down, parting her thighs delicately. I resisted the urge to be rough with her because she was already trembling.
“Will you tell me something more about yourself?” she asked. I tilted my head to one side and considered her question for a moment.
“No,” I answered decisively. I wasn’t going to talk about myself this time either. I fixed my eyes on her white panties, noting the place where the fabric was darker with her wetness.
My Babygirl wanted me.
I stroked up and down her thighs. All I wanted to do was plunge my tongue into her center and do to her what I did to no one else, but Selene unexpectedly pushed me off her.
“Then stop. I don’t want this.” She clamped her legs back together and bent her knees to the side, protecting herself from me. I could hardly believe it—no one ever rejected me. Women threw themselves at me, craved me wildly, and I wasn’t at all used to getting a categorical “no.”
“You really are stupid, aren’t you?” I blurted out, wounded by her rejection.
“Do you think it’s easy for me to talk about myself?
” I got up and backed away from the couch, leaving her there half-naked and humiliated.
I glanced around for my cigarettes before remembering I’d left them in the pocket of my jacket.
“And you think that’s what a woman does?
Just goes along with whatever you say?” Her voice behind me sounded sharp.
I didn’t bother looking at her as I retrieved my Winstons, extracting one cigarette with my teeth and immediately lighting it up.
It was nothing but a desperate attempt to calm myself down, but the nicotine did help.
“No, but a woman should be able to figure out when a man wants to fuck and when he wants to talk. You, on the other hand, have terrible timing.” I took my first drag and blew the smoke out into the air. Selene sat up and folded her legs underneath her.
“You’re the one who’s terrible,” she answered, watching me as I smoked and prowled the room like a caged animal, a giant erection under my jeans as I was forced to listen to her and unable to touch.
What the fuck was going on?
“What are you doing here, then? If I’m so terrible, go find someone nice. Go find Luke,” I said with a dismissive wave.
“I’ll consider it. At least he’s less of an asshole than you!” she shot back at me. I continued smoking so I wouldn’t blow up at her.
“Fuck you,” I hissed.
Selene could make me lose my patience like no one else. Not that it was particularly difficult to do, but she was an expert in the field.
Hot and uncomfortable, I pulled off my sweater and prepared to take a shower.
I’d lost count of how many I’d taken that day, but in my head it had been way too long since the last one.
I threw the sweater onto the kitchen island and then walked shirtless through the living room with just my dark jeans on.
Cigarette clamped between my teeth, I stole a glance at Selene and found her staring at my chest. Her big blue eyes trailed from my pecs to my abs. I heaved a sigh. I knew she liked what she saw, and I couldn’t do anything but accept that, but I took no delight in knowing she thought me handsome.
I considered my body a punishment and a tool: Sometimes I used it to seduce, while other times I just wore it like a suit of armor to protect me from the world.
There were two of us, after all, living inside that perfect shell. The Boy and I. And we were both so afraid.
“Come over here and stop acting like I’m your enemy. I would never hurt you.”
I looked at her, perched there on the couch and only saw a danger to myself. Selene didn’t know what was in my head, how petrified I was of trusting women after Kim had betrayed me so deeply.
I ground the cigarette butt into the ashtray and waved away the last cloud of smoke, remaining aloof.
Babygirl didn’t stop watching me like she couldn’t understand why I was acting that way.
Maybe she was wondering how I’d recovered my self-control after her rejection, why I wasn’t imposing myself on her the way I usually did, or why I wasn’t trying to talk her into it.
The answer was simple: I couldn’t.
I passed a hand over my face, fighting my body’s instinct to do anything except what my brain had been urging it to do for hours. My hard-on was still there, and Selene had clocked it; it wasn’t difficult to make out. She knew that I wanted her as much as she wanted me.
But I couldn’t tell her about my problem.
“You need to leave. For real this time, you need to listen to me,” I told her, more calmly but still severe.
If she hadn’t, I would have gone over there, picked her up, and tossed her out.
One hand slipped into my undone jeans, and I adjusted myself again. The head of my dick was now protruding from the elastic of my boxers, but I didn’t care. I just left it that way. Selene’s gaze dropped again to that exact spot, and she swallowed hard in embarrassment.
Enough of this.
The truth was, I couldn’t resist her, but I still didn’t want to open myself up to her. Selene demanded emotional connection while I insisted on the purely physical kind.
All at once I was furious with myself, with the tumult inside me that I couldn’t manage, the control I was about to lose, and the effect Babygirl was having on me.
Moments later, I advanced on her, drawn to her now more than ever.
“You don’t want to leave?” I said, melting down once again. “Fine, then. Lie down. I’ll show you why you should have gone when you had the chance,” I burst out, enraged.
Selene slid back on the couch, but she couldn’t escape.
I decided by that point that I was going to show her all about the sick way I wanted her so she would once again see me for the depraved person that I was and forget any possibility of being with me.
As soon as I reached her, I grabbed her hard by the wrists and forced her down. Selene didn’t fight me, but her widened eyes were full of unspoken feelings: disappointment, hope, desire, and fear. I straddled her, bending over.
I immediately began kissing her neck in that greedy, carnal, dominating, fiery way that she could never resist, and Babygirl arched her back, pushing her still bra-covered tits against my chest.
Fuck, it felt fantastic having her underneath me.
Our bodies began trading heat, want, lust, everything.
I grazed my lips along the velvet softness of her neck and watched as goosebumps spread across her skin. When she tried to move her wrists, I didn’t let her.
“What are your intentions here?” she asked, afraid but also aroused.
“The worst kind,” I answered without shame.
Perversion, after all, was an important aspect of what I considered true romance to be.
Without hypocrisy.
Without self-righteousness.
Without any fake fucking Prince Charming.
Instead, it was me.
A mind that was deep but also soiled.
A man convinced that there was no profanity except what was made that way by eyes that saw it or ears that heard it.
I was a romantic. In my own way.
One of those bad-tempered romantics, one of those who refused to hide behind some angelic mask and was never afraid of showing his real imperfections.
One of those romantics who stripped women of their modesty along with their clothes and brought out the whore in them.
A real romantic, in short. Realer than most.
“I want you,” I whispered, my breath controlled but my arousal running wild. I should have held back, but I was too hungry by then.
I was hungry for her, for her mouth and her eyes.
I was starving for her body, her little nose, and the funny faces she made.
I was hungry for her delicate curves and velvety legs.
I wanted to devour her warm heart.
I wanted to get inside her and befuddle my darkness with her light. I wanted her screams to be the soundtrack to all my cursed fantasies.