Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
He ditched the condom. Brought a warm cloth and pressed it carefully between her thighs. Atlas was aware of her gaze on him the entire time, but he didn’t speak. Neither did she.
He was too busy trying not to fuck her a third time.
She has to be sore. Show a bit of restraint, you asshole.
And she…why was she so silent? Had he hurt her? Hell, no, he would never want to hurt her, but he’d been so hungry, so lost to need and to the desire that she unleashed within him.
He turned away, still feeling the weight of her stare on him. He ditched the cloth in his bathroom and returned to the bed as quickly as he could. He turned off the lamp, plunging them into darkness.
“What are you doing?”
Not fucking you. I am not fucking you again…yet. “Getting ready to sleep.” His eyes adjusted quickly to the darkness, as they always did.
She sat up in bed. “I can’t stay here.”
His chest ached. “Did I disappoint you?” If she told him the sex had been fine, or, worse, if he’d hurt her—
“I can still feel you on the inside.”
Atlas stilled.
“I can feel you in me. On my skin. I can still taste you. I feel like every part of me is marked by you.”
He froze in place. “I can feel you. Tight and hot around me.” Yeah, this was not helping his dick to calm down. Quite the opposite. “I can taste you. I have your sweet scent burned into my memory.” Then, to be clear, “There is no part of me that does not belong to you.”
“It was…just sex.” The rustle of the bedding.
“Is that all it was? Because it felt like more to me. But maybe that’s fine with you.”
She jumped from the bed. Eliminated the space between them.
Her hands flew out and wrapped around his arms as she held him in the dark.
“You know it could never be just fine. I couldn’t breathe.
I couldn’t think. I could only feel, and I’ve never, ever in my life felt so truly alive as I did…
with you. I never knew anything could feel that good.
I never wanted the pleasure to stop. I wanted to keep making love with you all night long. ”
Making love.
He told himself it was just semantics. A word choice. She didn’t mean it. They had been fucking. Rough, hard, intense…fucking. Making love—that was supposed to be tender and soft. Careful caresses and gentle kisses.
Not fucking her so hard the bed threatened to break. Not driving into her again and again when she had to be sore from the first time that he’d come inside of her.
But…
Making love. He liked the way those particular words sounded when they came from her.
“I can’t stay with you,” she said.
Oh, yes, you can. Get ready for forever, sweets.
“I have nightmares. I-I fight sometimes, in my sleep. You don’t want to be with me in the dark.”
He leaned forward and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “That’s exactly where I want to be with you.”
“Atlas—”
“I can handle the dark. There is nothing about you that I will not be able to handle.” There is nothing about you that I could not love.
But…no.
He didn’t know love.
Didn’t know about any of the emotions most people felt.
He faked his way through all the social drama.
He charmed. He made light jokes. He bullshitted his way through life so that others would not see the truth.
I’m empty. Cold on the inside. I laugh and I smile and I don’t actually feel anything deep inside.
He’d asked her…
Can a psychopath love? She hadn’t answered him. He didn’t need her to answer, though, because he’d done plenty of his own research over the years. He’d realized what he was, of course, early on. With his father, how could he not understand the truth?
I heard the screams when I was a child. I ran outside once, to the old shed. But he came out. He caught me. Carried me back inside the house and told me it was just the wind.
The wind didn’t scream that way. As if the pain was unbearable and death would be a blessing.
But he’d believed his father.
For a time.
He’d…watched his father. Learned. Realized that he and his father were both so different from others.
Atlas could mimic emotions. He could make sure he did not wind up in a cage, or with a needle in his arm like his father.
People wanted to see him happy? Fine. He could show happiness.
People wanted to see sadness? Oh, sure, he could muster up a sympathetic expression.
Could make his voice thicken and even get a teardrop to appear in his eye.
All of that was just surface.
Masking.
He didn’t really love. No matter how much he might want to, no matter how much he might wish—
Atlas shut down the thoughts. He swept Lily into his arms, intent on putting her back in his bed. But then he stopped.
I want to keep her. I want to force her to stay with me.
But if you kept a butterfly prisoner, if you tried to hold it too tightly, didn’t you just damage its wings? Didn’t you wind up killing the beautiful thing that you wanted to possess so badly?
He’d done that once, as a kid. Not too long after the night that he’d heard the wind screaming. He’d watched a butterfly for days. Seen it flying around his mother’s garden. Not some big, fancy garden. Just some wildflowers. They’d planted seeds, throwing them out. Laughing. And…
The wildflowers had bloomed. Butterflies had flown from one colorful bulb to another.
He’d chased those butterflies. Been mesmerized by the beautiful flutter of their wings.
He’d held out his hand, dirty from playing that morning, from sinking his fingers into the soil, and he’d waited, barely breathing, still as a statue until his muscles ached, until one butterfly—the smallest one there—had finally fluttered over his palm.
Quick as a snake, he’d closed his fingers around his prize.
So eager to keep it. To always have it close and watch those wings flutter and flutter.
He’d run for his mother, shouting for her, calling out in excitement for her to see what he had.
For her to see his most beautiful thing.
He’d run to the front of their little house, looking for her. Searching and searching.
She’d been talking to a neighbor. But she’d finally come his way. Smiled at him.
He’d opened his hand. The dirt from his palm had covered the butterfly’s wings. The butterfly’s still wings.
“Isn’t she beautiful?” He’d marveled at the butterfly even as he wondered why the butterfly was so still.
“Watch her fly.” He’d thrown the butterfly into the air.
Just to watch her fall back to earth. He’d stared at her, frowning, and the silence around him had grown. Then he’d realized what he’d done.
Too tight. My grip was too tight. I crushed her.
His gaze had swung back to his mother, and for just a moment, he’d caught her staring at him with absolute horror. Fear and horror.
“Atlas?” Lily said his name softly.
He forced his jaw to unclench. He hadn’t thought about that damn day in…forever. But now he could see that his mother had already feared he was like his father. His mother had known the truth about his dad way back then. She covered for him. She knew. She knew…
Just as she knew that when she looked at her son, she was staring at a monster.
But he hadn’t advanced to hurting animals. He’d never done that shit. Hell, he’d made a point of never having pets. Not like they were allowed in the group homes, anyway.
He’d understood what he could become. At fifteen, he’d read about the Macdonald Triad. The three behaviors that could supposedly be the signals that predicted whether or not an individual would be a future serial killer. Didn’t want to turn out like dear old dad.
He’d had zero of those indicators. No fucking bed wetting.
No animal cruelty after the damn butterfly because he’d refused to be around animals, and he hadn’t set fires.
Hell, there had been a fire at one of the group homes, but someone else had started it, not him.
He’d been the one to have his meager set of belongings ignited.
Those sonsofbitches in the room there had thought it was funny to watch his faded shirts and pants burn.
No one had been laughing when he’d gotten his payback.
“You have gone somewhere without me,” Lily said.
No, he was still holding her. He was just heading for the bedroom door with her and not putting her back in his bed as Atlas had originally intended.
He opened the door, not letting her down.
She hardly weighed enough. He’d have to be sure that Roland prepared her much bigger meals in the future. Eggs and toast would not cut it.
“Decided you didn’t want me with you?” Lily’s sigh brushed over his neck. “I understand.” Husky. “I warned you, I’m a difficult companion.”
He would always want her with him. “You are the only companion I want.” He had left her bedroom open.
He walked across the threshold as he kept his grip on her.
“But I won’t crush your wings.” With slow steps, he made his way to her bed.
His arms wanted to linger around her. He liked the way she felt against him far too much.
Yet Atlas forced himself to let her go. He put her in the middle of her bed.
Even pulled the mangled covers up over her.
A wise move to cover her naked body and block his temptation.
“I don’t have wings,” Lily told him.
Didn’t she? “You can sleep with me. You can sleep alone. Your choice.” He backed up a step. “I’ll see you in the morning.” I will not fuck you a third time right now. I will show some restraint. I will not fuck you again right now.
“Where do you want to sleep?” she asked.
With you. With my arms around you so you don’t get away. But if I hold you too close, too tightly, I’ll crush the one thing I want.
“Atlas?”