Chapter 22 En Prise #3
“Please. Please make me.”
“Mm, so polite when she’s got a cock inside her.” His mouth twitches, caught between a smile and a gasp. “So good. You’re doing so perfect.”
Buzzed on that particular sentence, I nod as much as I can when we’re this close, noses brushing. “You like it when I say that?” he asks roughly.
“I do,” I whisper back. Slightly hoping that he might call me a good girl. Because it’s hitting me that this might have been what I’ve been looking for, without realizing it. A man who’s strong enough to make me bend, but gentle enough not to break me.
“I like saying it. Like feeling you. Seeing you let loose just for me. You know how long I’ve wanted this?
Thought about your hands on me? Thought about making a mess out of this perfect, perfect woman?
I—fuck, I dreamed it was your hand instead of my own.
Thought about making you mine however you’d let me.
If this is all you want, it’s all I need, just you, just—”
And I’m done. The long, slow avalanche of an orgasm that felt so close for so long crashes over me and I’m dragged to nothing.
It’s quiet here, black shadows and white words.
Warm hands, the idea of Faust really only wanting just me, however I let him have that.
Quiet and nice. And I don’t realize he’s come, too, until his rambling words become a heated breath against my cheek.
That was…
Life-altering. Mind-bending. So good I could cry.
Attaching.
He’d warned me about this kink playing tricks on my head, and I still feel attached to him. My heart staring up at him, wide-eyed, as he shifts us onto the bed, massaging the tension from my knees with his big, careful hands.
I don’t think I can do that again.
Quietly, Faust goes to clean up. I hear the faucet, the sound of towels. Then he’s back, lying beside me like it’s the most natural thing in the world. Fitting around me. He smooths a warm washcloth over my frazzled muscles, careful around my legs. “Does it hurt? Do you need ice?”
Athletes and their ice baths. Stupid. I can’t speak, or I might cry.
“Arcadia?”
I can’t look at him, either. It’s silent for a moment. Then he asks, “Can I help?”
That—is a yes. Maybe. I nod.
“Can I touch you?”
Throat burning, I nod again.
He makes the softest, kindest noise, pure affection. Slowly, he sets the washcloth down, then pulls me into his arms, his chin somewhere above my head. I sniffle into his throat. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay. You’re okay.” There’s a pressure at the back of my head. His fingers, winding through my hair. “Did I do something?”
I have to tell him the truth. “No. It’s… it was too good. It felt like, I don’t know.” Like he loved me. I laugh weakly. “I’m not used to it.”
“Yeah?”
I go silent, and he doesn’t push me. Though he does pull my hair from back around my neck. Gently, he divides it into three sections. Not all of it, just whatever he can reach. And I go very still.
He’s braiding my hair for me.
Whatever was holding me back breaks. “I don’t understand.” My voice cracks, and I press my fingernails into my palm. “I don’t understand how you can like being nice to me.”
Faust pulls in a surprised breath. And maybe I’d never considered this, either; that surrounding myself with the worst men and worst people, point-blank, might have an effect on how I see the few good ones.
“It’s easy. It makes me happy, doing this.” He sets the unfinished braid down, fingers returning to trace circles on the back of my neck. “Looking after you makes me happy.”
I can’t do this again, I amend, silently, my thoughts swirling.
Since my heart is beating a steady, happy rhythm against each of my ribs, glowing, warmer and bigger and bouncier than it was a moment ago—all because of what he just said.
I want him so much it hurts. Every day, like he’d said during the heat of the moment.
When men often say very true and honest things they totally mean.
Even the good ones.
Ha.
“You’re only saying that so I let you do that to me again,” I whisper, needing to play off my own tension. The push and pull between where I am right now and where I should be. “You’re a sex fiend.”
“You think?” He sounds so introspective, I half wish I could see his face.
“Mmhm. You’re already addicted. You’d say anything.”
He’s still tracing circles on me. I’ve lost count of the laps. “Maybe I would,” he says softly, more to himself than me. “Maybe I would.”
That voice does it. How, for a brief moment, he does sound like he would say whatever he had to in order to feel me again.
I lean back, my shoulder swooping into the mattress, and Faust is already here, meeting my eyes.
So close that I can see the darkest patches in his twin brown irises.
The ghost of stubble across his face. I kiss him, or he kisses me, and it quiets me down again, that momentary panic hushed by his long fingers and tight grip.
When we’re kissing, I don’t think about how much I wish we were and all the reasons we shouldn’t. I don’t think at all.