Chapter 6 Neil
“We had both known what my answer was always going to be.”
Neil
I rested my chin on my hand and stared at Selene while the fingers on my other hand began drumming on the surface of the kitchen island.
I didn’t need to stand up to loom over her; I could overpower her just as well sitting down. Instead of shouting and allowing my craziness to show like I had been doing since the moment I set foot in Detroit, I decided I was going to stay calm and give her an assessing stare.
As I’d expected, the girl couldn’t meet the challenge for long, and she lowered her eyes, bowing to my innate charisma.
Did she seriously think that I was going to choose her and stop fucking other people?
Impossible.
Unfortunately, Selene couldn’t understand the pressing reasons that kept me from changing, the ones that kept me in my own personal limbo.
The Boy needed it from me.
He needed to feel strong, to know that no one would ever subjugate him or tear at his soul or hurt him ever again. For me, choosing Selene wasn’t just about setting aside the blonds; it meant abandoning the Boy.
Which was something else entirely.
If casual sex with many partners had just been about pure physical pleasure, entertaining myself, or even indulging a kink, maybe I could have gone without it. In my case, though, there was much more at stake.
My mental health, for one.
And the other part of me that I kept locked away.
“I can’t do that,” I told her without a hint of uncertainty, and her shoulders slumped in disappointment.
We had both known what my answer was always going to be.
Though I could appreciate her attempts to accept me as I was, my problems were too deep and too glaring.
Just from the way I’d railed her up against that wall, anyone could tell I was absolutely not a normal person.
If I were in her position, I’d run far away from someone like me.
“Why?” she insisted, injecting some strength into her voice. Her tenacity was admirable, but, alas, it would not be enough to change the reality of the situation.
“Again with all your whys?” The only way I could destroy her hopes—whichever ones she had—was to make her hate me. I had to behave in such an unacceptable, disrespectful, and downright mean way. I needed to unleash the full fury of the animal that lived inside me.
“I deserve to know,” she shot back, and I gave her an amused smile.
And just who had given her the right to poke around in my life?
I had allowed her to have the smallest glimpse into my world and to learn a bit about my doomed soul; she shouldn’t have dared to demand more.
“It doesn’t matter who else I take to bed. What matters is that I am, in some way…” I paused, rubbing my lip with my index finger before echoing a word she had said to me recently on one of our calls: “Yours,” I said softly. Selene started, as though she hadn’t expected to hear something like that.
We had two very different ideas of what ownership was: I belonged to the world, and the only time I was hers alone was when we were together. She, however, only ever belonged to me, and, somehow, this made sense in my head.
Nothing else mattered.
“Mine? You’ll never belong to me so long as other people get to touch you,” she answered obstinately.
It was typical female logic: Babygirl believed, just like all the others did, that if I committed to her, it would be a victory on her part and that I would fall for her.
Maybe even fall in love with her. I wasn’t stupid: Selene was the kind of girl who could coax genuine feelings from the most damned of souls.
The problem was, as long as I had the Boy inside me, I would never really have my freedom and could never really form a relationship with anyone.
The Boy would only ever allow me a few trips to my Neverland before I had to come back to reality.
To my blonds and the trauma we both had and all the conditions I’d been suffering from since I was a child.
“Pretend I belong to you. Forget about what happens with the others,” I suggested. It seemed like a reasonable solution to me, but Selene just shook her head scornfully.
No, she wouldn’t be satisfied with having me for an hour or even a day. She wanted me always. She demanded all of me, not just my body. I had known that she would from the very start.
My Tinkerbell couldn’t imagine, though, what I’d actually been through. She had no way of knowing how different the sex I had with her was from what I did with other people. It was just domination with them. I dominated Selene as well, but at the same time, I allowed her to touch my soul.
My Babygirl was too naive to understand the gravity of that gift.
“Come here,” I demanded, sliding back a little on the stool.
I patted my knee so she would understand that I wanted her on my lap.
Selene hesitated for a moment, unsure whether to do what I said.
I gave her a look, however, that clearly told her I was not willing to be disobeyed.
And so she assented, moving around the kitchen island with notable elegance.
She perched on my knee, and her coconut scent wafted over me, reawakening all my desire for her.
And that desire only grew stronger from one day to the next.
I was afraid that it would never go away, that I would never be sated no matter how many times I feasted on her.
“I’ve learned something tonight—you really can’t cook,” I teased her, resting my hand on her quivering thigh.
Selene pretended to be unmoved by the low tones of my voice, though I knew she enjoyed it thoroughly.
I examined her finely drawn profile. I adored her huge, expressive eyes as well as her plush lips and the small, upturned nose that made her look like a cheeky little imp.
Without conscious thought, I had slipped my hand under the hideous, oversized, and generally sorry blue T-shirt she wore until I reached her breast. I was well aware she didn’t have a bra on; I’d seen her peaked nipples pushing against the fabric of her shirt, and I couldn’t wait any longer to touch them.
I squeezed one breast in my hand, and it occurred to me how perfectly it fit into my hand. It was a little larger than Alexia’s and lightly fragranced with a coconut scent that was more delicate than Jennifer’s heady perfume. It was as though it had been crafted especially for an asshole like me.
I found myself closing my eyes and nuzzling into her neck like I couldn’t help myself.
My strong grip coaxed a shy little moan out of her, and I had to resist the urge to bend her over the counter next to us.
I hadn’t been remotely gentle when I was impulsively fucking her earlier, and I didn’t want to unsettle her again.
It was still imprinted upon my mind, the sound of her back hitting the wall, her ragged breathing with each one of my energetic thrusts.
I’d fallen on her like an animal, driving in and out of her ceaselessly, not stopping even when she went rigid against me as she tried to accustom herself to my rough invasion.
I had to admit that I enjoyed pulling her over the line with me because, each time I did, I learned something new about her and uncovered more of what excited her.
I knew now that she liked rough, dominating sex more than the merely passionate variety, and we were of the same mind about that.
It had been a huge struggle during her first official time when I had to force myself to touch her gently and temper my aggression. I wasn’t me; the real me was very far away from the sweet, tender man I had shown her on that one occasion.
“You took something from me, so you should give me something of yourself. Our compromise is still in effect.” Selene tried not to stammer, but I could tell from her reddened face and the silken sound of her voice that she was struggling to hold on to the prudish distance that she tried to use as a shield against me.
“What do you want to know?” I asked, trying and failing to suppress a smile.
Our compromise…how could I forget about that? The girl knew how to get what she wanted even if she did use very different methods than I did.
“The truth. What happened with Alyssa?” she blurted out, turning to the topic that had infuriated me more than anything else for the past few hours.
“She was the one who kissed me,” I began with palpable anger in my voice.
“I have no idea what she was thinking. She jumped me, and I instinctively reciprocated for a second. Logan walked in on us and blew up.” My hand slipped down slightly from her breast to her downy stomach, which tightened just from the touch of my fingertips.
Selene stared at me with her ocean eyes, and I wanted to kiss her.
Goddamnit.
“That’s really how it happened?” she whispered uncertainly, as I stroked her flank with my other hand, pulling her closer to me. I could feel myself being drawn toward her full lips, worse than a teenage boy with his first crush.
“I’ve got a lot of flaws, but I don’t lie,” I answered seriously, holding her gaze to show her that I wasn’t trying to hide anything.
“Alyssa told me that you came on to her. And she described the way you kiss, the intensity, and it seemed…accurate.” She grew sad, looking down at the hands she was wringing to vent her nervousness.
So I grazed my nose along her cheek and pressed a kiss to her throat, making her shiver.
Sometimes, I didn’t understand myself at all.
I couldn’t figure out why I felt the need to constantly be feeling her or breathing her in.
“She made it all up. She knows me, Selene, and she knows how I am.” I wasn’t trying to convince her, only to make her realize that she couldn’t trust just anyone and that it was particularly easy to make up wild stories about me that still had a ring of truth.
“How am I supposed to trust you?”