Chapter 17
Dean’s not used to sleeping in a bed with another person.
Put aside the fact that he’s never had sex in an actual bed with anyone. That’s beside the point because he and Ava are not doing anything that resembles sex right now.
He’s on his back in her soft bed, staring at the ceiling while worrying his lip between his teeth. She’s passed out next to him, curled up as close as she can get without pressing herself along his body. Maybe wary of sending him running out of the room in a panic if she touches him too much or gets too close.
One of her hands curls around his forearm though, light and consistent.
She tossed and turned at first and for a moment he thought the two of them would share this weird problem, but then she settled, arcing her body in his direction and letting out a heavy sigh. Meanwhile, he’s still wide awake, unwilling to move or make a sound. He remembers seeing a picture on the internet of a skeleton with a cat on its lap, the caption saying something about how a person can’t move until the cat leaves and he sort of feels like that skeleton. Frozen and worried he’ll wake up the precious thing that’s chosen to sleep so closely.
The previous night replays on a loop in his mind. It’s not the best plan considering he can’t do anything else about it now, but he’s gotten better at mentally smothering his hard-on every time the movie reel gets to the best parts. When she’s straddling his lap, pushing down on his cock and chasing his lips. And then he remembers how devastated she looked when they stopped, how tears streaked her cheeks as she told him why she had to do it drunk, and suddenly nothing is arousing anymore.
He can wait. She’s worth it even if she seems to doubt that fact much as he doubts it about himself, but if she needs him to be patient, then he’s all aboard the patience train.
Ticket for one: Dean Dawson.
He hadn’t expected the slight panic that overcame her, or how her hands shook as she went for his belt. He knows her marriage wasn’t an easy one, picked up on that along the way but hadn’t connected the dots on just how difficult it was until tonight. Does she hide the same scars on her body that he does? He hopes not. It’s part of the reason he’d been relieved to stop. Even if he had a raging boner and was downright suffering, going further meant letting her see him. Exposing himself in all the ways he’s most terrified of and expecting her not to turn away in disgust or pity at the lashes that crisscross his skin. She has seen a few of them before in prison, but it’s different now and he may not be ready, which sadly worked out, because she isn’t ready either.
Ava makes a pitiful little wail in the back of her throat and he frowns, watching her brow crease and feeling her fingers curl tighter around his arm.
She is struggling with monsters and he’s unsure of how to help, or if he even should. When he has nightmares, waking up in the darkness of his room panting and clutching his chest like he might have a damn heart attack at any moment, all he wants is to know he’s not alone. It’s a comfort he’s gotten used to never receiving, but he is with her now, able to offer something he’s wished for himself.
The next time she lets out that soft, guttural noise, he reaches over and traces the frame of her face. He pushes her hair off her forehead and runs a light hand down her cheek. “Shhh, just a dream. I’m here.”
He keeps his voice quiet, but she gravitates toward it anyway, resting her forehead against his bicep before she settles again. Someday he’ll be brave enough to throw caution to the wind and wrap her up in his arms, hold her close, and stroke her back while he whispers reassuring words in her ear, but for now, all he can do is let his hand cover hers.
He lays awake for another hour before exhaustion finally takes over.
* * *
Dean wakes early but Ava is still passed out cold, so he makes coffee for them both and sets hers on the bedside table while he looks out the bedroom window. People are gardening and walking their dogs, and he glares at a man getting ready to run his lawnmower at eight am on a Saturday. That should be illegal.
The bed creaks behind him and Ava wakes with a stretch, taking a sip of her coffee before making her way over to wrap her arms around him from behind.
“Morning,” she hums.
“Mornin’. Sleep okay?”
“I think so.” She squeezes him again, resting her cheek against his back, her words slow like molasses. “Did you?”
“Mhmm. Liked having you beside me.” It ain’t a lie. He might have struggled to find sleep but he absolutely enjoyed being that close to her.
He turns, letting her tuck herself against his front for a proper hug.
“I’m sorry about last night,” she says.
“Nothing to be sorry for.”
“Can we try again?”
He looks down at her as she looks up at him. “You sure?”
“I am. Have a good look at my eyeballs, not dilated anymore, right? All the whites are there?”
There’s a tease in her voice and he smiles with a nod. “Yeah, they ain’t saucers no more.”
“Then kiss me?” she whispers.
He doesn’t need to be asked twice. He bends to capture her mouth with his own, loving the way her body pushes into his, how pliable and soft she feels on his lips, and how eager her hands twist into his shirt to pull him closer.
All the blood in his body rushes south, his head swimming and pulse jack hammering. He back walks her toward the bed until her legs touch the edge and then she’s laying back and he’s going with her, the length of his body covering hers and her legs parting to welcome his hips.
“Wait.” She bites her lip, one hand on his chest. “Slow? Can we go slow? Just this first time.”
There’s still a trace of fear in her eyes. It’s hard to see unless he’s looking, but he is looking and it’s a glaring warning bell. He saw that same flicker of uncertainty the moment she rubbed over him on the floor last night, and she felt the outline of his cock through his pants. He knows that he is a lot to take. Ain’t got but two notches in his bedpost, not that he ever collected them, but both times had been a bit of a struggle to fit.
He isn’t sure if she’s wary of his size or wary of other things, but it might be a good idea to take it even slower than she’s asking. “If you need to stop, we can. Okay?”
“Okay.”
The tension in her body relaxes after that agreement and he rests his mouth at the juncture of her neck and shoulder, lapping a lazy kiss there while his hand works under her shirt. She inhales sharply when he finds a taut nipple and rolls it between his thumb and forefinger and then she sits up to pull the top over her head before laying back again.
Insecurity gets the best of her soon after and she covers herself with fidgeting arms. Not her breasts, those remain exposed. It’s the marks on her body she shields, the clusters of cigarette burns creased across her belly, the cuts along her ribs, and jagged lines that linger just above her pubic bone. Nervous palms flutter back and forth between them on reflex, eager to hide the stories etched into her skin that echo the ones burned into his.
His eyes sting and throat constricts at knowing someone hated her enough to hurt her so deeply, and then at the knowledge that even after such betrayal she’s trusting him not to do it again. He takes her hand in his own, pulling one away from the source of her anxiety, bending over her with one elbow braced on the mattress and tugging her palm under his shirt.
There is a journey on his skin waiting to be mapped out and he brings her fingertips to the first grouping of scars at his side, little carvings from a pocket knife situated just past his ribs and curving around his back. She wouldn’t have noticed these in the infirmary, so he shows her now, wanting her to feel all the ways they are the same.
It is easier to be vulnerable than he thought it could be when his motivation is to meet her in the middle so they can traverse this uncertainty together.
He allows her to explore on her own, finding puckered circles burned into his body and lashes spread out like tree limbs. She is the first person to touch him there and not cause more pain. The first person he’s allowed access, and it would be so simple to listen to the flicker of wariness in his bones telling him to back away and shield himself, but she is safe, she won’t dig her nails into the wounds and rip them open again.
Ava stops hiding herself somewhere around the moment she locates the belt marks on the round of his ass after inching a careful hand past his waistband. There is no pity on her face like he feared, only recognition of two ruined souls seeking solace in each other.
“I wanna make you feel good,” he whispers, and she nods almost frantically.
He’s never seen anything prettier in his life than her, all soft skin and light freckles, dusky peach nipples peaked just for him.
He bends his head to take one into his mouth and she hums her approval, threading her fingers into his hair, arching up into his lips. He grinds his hips down, needing friction, while swirling his tongue over her breast.
She slept in her clothes because he sure as hell wasn’t about to take her out of them even to be more comfortable, but right now she wants him to get her naked and he is only too happy to oblige. He unhooks the button of her jeans and drags the zipper down with shaky fingers. If only because he’s so damn nervous he’ll get this wrong and fail to please her, but he is here now and he won’t leave her wanting. So he drags her pants off her legs along with her panties, tossing them on the ground and burying his face into the dip of her belly button. He licks a circle there before moving to her lower belly, the light scent of her, warm and inviting, wafting up his nose.
She must realize what he’s planning because she freezes, her voice ragged. “You don’t have to. No one’s ever…I don’t need it if you don’t want to.”
“I want to.” He rests his chin on her stomach. “Do you?”
She nods, biting her lip.
“I ain’t never done this either,” he admits. “If I do something wrong just yank on my hair.”
She huffs out a laugh, her belly trembling beneath him. “Deal.”
He has never wanted to taste a woman as badly as he needs to taste her. The urge to bury himself between her legs like a dying man given his last meal is overwhelming, but he tries to go slow and ease them both into this. He pulls her to the edge of the bed and drops to his knees on the ground, nuzzles his nose above where he wants to be, and then licks a firm, testing stroke from her opening up to that bundle of swollen nerves.
She nearly comes off the bed at his first touch and he chuckles. “Easy, don’t break my nose.”
He doesn’t give her a chance to reply before he’s working the tip of his tongue through the dips and valleys presented to him. She is slick already, meeting his touch with a warm wetness that he laps at with a growl of approval. He isn’t quite sure where he should be, or what she needs to get there, but he’s watched plenty of porn in his life and it can’t all be wrong. He’s pretty sure that if he pays close attention to that throbbing little nub he’ll be doing something right, but he wants this to last as long as it can, so he ignores her clit for now and leans back a moment.
She twists her hips on the bed, searching for contact, and he doesn’t make her wait. He watches his finger trace the seam of her, spreading her open to reveal the pink inside, and blows a puff of warm breath on her already heated skin. She is glistening at her opening and he teases a fingertip over the liquid, spreading it around, up and over the spot that makes her hips thrust toward his hand. Then, back down to push a single digit past the first ring of muscle.
He watches as her body pulls him in, his finger slowly disappearing until he’s buried to the second knuckle. She is so damn tight and his cock twitches in his pants at the idea of her taking the whole shaft from base to tip. He isn’t quite sure if she can, but he imagines it anyway while he twists his finger within her and lowers his kiss to her once again, suckling where she’s plump and pulsing.
The way she rides his finger and his face has him close to coming in his damn pants and he uses his other hand to work his cock free and stroke himself.
“More…” She gasps, fisting the sheets. “More, please, I need…”
He works a second finger into her beside the first, stretching her around him, teasing her with the firm tip of his tongue in what he hopes is the right rhythm, but in reality, could be a fumbled mess. He loses his ability to do three things at once somewhere around the time his own orgasm starts to build and his fingers go still, the hand on his cock pumping fast and his mouth working her with eager flicks of his tongue.
She chases her goal, shifting his fingers where they rest within her by shifting her hips, and then she arches off the bed, suspended and trembling, gripping him as her walls flutter. He follows her as best he can, keeping contact with his mouth while she twists and writhes, breathing his name on a shuddering exhale before finally going slack against the bed.
Two more jerks of his wrist and he comes with a muffled grunt, wincing between her legs, his body strung tight while he spills over his hand and onto the hardwood floor.
When he leans back an inch and removes his fingers from her, he is fascinated at the sight before him. Her entrance trembles with aftershocks, still slack from where he held her open. He wants to taste her again, so he licks the liquid pooling there, pushing his tongue into her as far as he can go, the effects of her orgasm bursting on his tastebuds.
“Too much,” she whimpers. “Too sensitive.”
He leaves her, kicking his pants off his ankles and crawling into bed. He tugs her gently up to the pillows and wraps her in his arms, letting her settle over his chest.
She reaches for him, but he stops her before she can attempt to wrap a hand around his length. “Already did. I’m good. Better than good.”
There’s a giddy rush in his blood when she smiles up at him, her face soft and her eyes love-struck. They may not be ready for more today, but he made his girl come, and he’s as proud as he’s ever been. He can’t wait to do it all over again.
He’s about to dip his head and kiss her, but then something coughs, or wheezes in the background.
“The hell was that?” he says into the silence of the room.
“Maybe the—”
The sound cuts her off, coming from the corner of the room even louder than before, and she darts off the bed in search of it while he turns on the bedside lamp.
“Oh my God. Oh, Dean, something’s wrong…something’s…what do I do?”
She’s clutching a black and white fluff ball to her naked chest, her voice panicked and shrill. The kitten is limp, its face covered in snot that only worsens with every sneeze.
“Shit.”