I hear him come up to the door. He stops there, staying behind me. Even so, the air seems to crackle between us.
“Are you sorry I screwed up your date?” he asks, his voice neutral.
Shivers go over me. “Are you?”
“Hell no. That fucker didn’t deserve to touch you.”
That makes me smile, even though it feels a little sad. “Who deserves to touch me?”
“No one,” he says with such stark honesty that tears prick my eyes.
I turn to look at him, then. His worn leather jacket hangs open, revealing the soft green T-shirt over faded jeans. He’s fully clothed but strangely naked to me.
Because I can see him.
I can see that there is a gaping hole in his chest, a place where pride and safety and self-respect should go. It was ripped out of him a long time ago, but I only see it now. He couldn’t let Liam touch me, but he can’t bring himself to touch me either.
My feet move on their own, crossing the small space. And then I’m kneeling in front of him. It’s a position of supplication, but one of strength.
He looks down at me. For once I can’t read his expression. But I read his body. He’s aching, wild with fury and loneliness, an abandoned bear cub.
Completely dangerous. Completely unused to affection.
I thought I was the innocent one. Never had sex. Barely even kissed a boy. But how many times has Stone had sex with tenderness? Maybe never.
“Have you ever been in love?” I ask softly.
There isn’t jealousy inside me—not knowing what he’s suffered. I want him to have found love, a hundred times over. He deserves a thousand lifetimes of it.
“Yes,” he says, his voice hoarse, gazing down at me with raw pain in his eyes.
I hate the pain I see there. Is that what love means to him? Suffering?
I may be naive, but I know love doesn’t have to be about suffering. And it doesn’t have to be about drunk boys in dark alleys.
There’s something better in the world—I know it as sure as I know I’m kneeling in front of this strong, beautiful man who sees himself as a monster.
“Did you go to prom?” I whisper.
He laughs, uneven. “Fuck no.”
“You were still…” In the basement. The words are etched into the air.
“Nah, we were out by then. On the run. Definitely not worried about being tardy to class.”
“Did you miss it?” Maybe it was good that he came to prom night. Like some sad little replacement for what he never had, except I remember how he looked in that alley. Forlorn. It didn’t replace anything. It just highlighted what he never had.
“No,” he says, but I can tell he’s lying. “I knew that shit wasn’t for me. None of it. Tuxedos and flowers. What the fuck would I do with that? It’s not for me. I can never have a normal life.”
The statement rings inside me like a bell; I’ve been made hollow.
I reach out a hand, slide the pads of my fingers along the side of his wrist. His whole body vibrates under my touch like he’s about to shatter. Like he’s made of glass, even though I know he’s got strong bones and hard muscles and an unbreakable spirit.
Higher. I reach his forearm. His skin feels warm, muscles hard as rock.
I can never have a normal life.
Suddenly he closes his fingers over my wrist. “What are you doing?” he rasps.
What am I doing? I’m touching him. I’m feeling him, understanding him, for maybe the first time ever. I turn my hand to grip him back, wrist to wrist. Our hands form links of a strange chain, joined together against everything impossible.
The air pulses with new energy. Frightening energy. I breathe in the salty, musky scent of him. There’s no trace of perfumes or body spray, just pure male beast, surging with pain.
I feel drugged by his nearness. Unable to speak. I just want to touch him.
I just want him.
His fingers brand my wrist with sizzling heat. With every ragged breath, his chest rises and falls under his T-shirt. The open sides of his jacket move, too, grazing his faded blue jeans. Dull metal snaps set deep into his jacket are grayed with age and shift in the dim light that streams in from the other room.
For a moment I think I must be crazy, kneeling in front of him, holding his wrist like a lifeline, imagining he wants me the way I want him. The way he would’ve wanted the lucky woman he was in love with. Or maybe still is in love with.
Who does he love?
She must be older than me, I think. Worldly and beautiful. And I’m nothing but a sheltered girl who never even had a class with a boy. He would hold himself back from her; that’s how well I know Stone. Whatever woman is strong enough to have taken his heart?
He wouldn’t think himself worthy.
I know Stone, inside and out. I’ve seen him kill. I’ve felt his fingers dig into my flesh as he tried to drown me and couldn’t. I’ve seen him beaten and bruised. I’ve held the broken little bird he made just for me. Touched myself to his rumbled commands over the phone.
God, that phone call. I’ve replayed those words so many times in my head, it’s as familiar to me as the Girl Scout pledge.
Oh yes, sweetheart. I’m there. I’m holding your hands down to your cunt, telling you to fuck yourself. Shoving my cock in your throat until you’ve got tears down your cheeks. Until you’ve got saliva running down your chin. You’re crying, but you don’t dare stop touching yourself.
I pull my hand from his. Peering up at him through my lashes, I reach down and lift the hem of my skirt. I gather up all the useless fabric, pushing it around my waist to reveal pink panties.
“Holy fuck,” he rasps.
My sex feels cool in the air. Soaked.
Slowly and deliberately, I push my hand between my legs. I burrow my fingers under the hem of my panties. I reach down and stroke along the slickness I find there.
Breath shudders out of him. “Brooke.”
I don’t know what he means. Brooke, don’t? Or Brooke, more?
But it doesn’t matter. My life is full of smiles when I’m sad. Of somebody else’s secondhand clothes passed off as couture. A veneer of politeness to cover survival of the fittest.
All of these things are lies.
Me kneeling before Stone is truth. The wetness between my legs is as real as the rough wood floor scratching at my knees. My desire for him is raw. Unbearable.
He’s the man no boy can measure up to. He’s the moon lighting the vast, dark night of my life. “You’re the only one,” I say. “Not Liam. Not anyone. I don’t want them.”
“I’m sorry,” he says.
I gaze up at him from under my lashes. Meet his eyes, dark with lust. “There’s nothing to be sorry about.”
“I ruined you, baby,” he grates, his voice thick.
“I like it.” I pull my hand from my panties and start to undo his fly, unbuttoning the silver button, drawing down the zipper, clumsy with desire. “It’s what I want, Stone,” I plead. “I want to do it like we did on the phone call. Ruin me.”
He gazes down at me—burns down at me.
I gather the courage to whisper the words I’ve said in my head so many times. “I want you to put your cock into my mouth.”
“Fuck.” He shoves his hands into my hair, grips my head.