“Is this okay? I’m kinda warm.”
“Yeah, it’s okay.”
After he hit the Play button, he scooted back until he lay flat, his head on the pillow. “Come join me, will ya?” His smile brightened my otherwise downtrodden state.
Everything Lincoln had done for me since the night he saved me was to show me he cared. Whether it was for my safety, or my basic human necessities, such as food, he made sure I had what I needed. He was patient with me while I learned to trust that what he told me was the truth. He didn’t push me to do anything I wasn’t comfortable with, even going as far as sleeping on the ground each night beside the bed.
It was then I realized he wasn’t rejecting me.
He was respecting me.
32
I tried like hell to concentrate on the damn movie, but all I could think about was her mouth and the feel of her clutching on to me like she was afraid to let me go. Then she hit me with “I thought if you gave yourself to me, I could take back a piece of my heart.” What the ever-loving fuck?
The girl nestled in the crook of my arm with her head on my chest exhilarated yet scared me.
She was fragile but strong.
Bold but shy.
“I love this part,” she said, looking up at me to make sure I was watching. The gleam in her eyes cut right through me, and all I wanted to do was capture her mouth again, but I refrained. My stare flitted from hers to the screen, smiling when the character awkwardly ran from the bullies before his leg braces busted away to allow him to go into a full-on sprint.
“It’s a good part,” I agreed, pulling her closer.
Everything was going fine. We were relaxed, together, and engrossed with the film, but when Maddie suddenly draped her leg over mine and cuddled even closer, my breath caught in my throat. Then her finger traced over my stomach, my muscles twitching from the contact. If she kept this up, I was gonna be sportin’ a hard-on, one I’d barely managed to keep at bay this entire time.
“Maddie.” I swallowed and inhaled a choppy spurt of air. “I… that feels….” I didn’t even finish my sentence before she extended her arm and placed her hand on the mattress on the other side of me, lifting the rest of her body until she hovered half over me. Her mouth was close, her warm breath fanning over my lips.
“I want you to make love to me, Lincoln.” Her eyes traveled from mine to my mouth and back again. She appeared resolved but tentative at the same time.
It took my brain a few seconds to compute what she’d said, and when they hit their mark, I pulled back so I could see more of her face. The flecks of gold around her irises seemed to brighten as she looked at me, and I almost forgot to respond.
“What?” I finally said, pulling myself out of my self-induced trance.
“I want you to make love to me,” she repeated. “I’ve never wanted anything more.”
“Are you sure?” What the hell was I saying? There was no way we could have sex or make love as she put it. Fuck, I’d never “made love” to anyone before. At best, I had sex, fucked. Never made love.
Her face lit up as if I’d said yes. “Yes. I know you’re worried about me, and I love that about you, but I want to be with you.”
She loved that about me? Loved? I focused on the wrong thing, distracting myself from the real issue, which was that Maddie told me she wanted to have sex. Correction… make love.
I could either continue to deny her and possibly compound any hurt feelings she already had, or I could give in to what we both wanted.
Hard choice. No pun intended.
“I don’t want you to do somethin’ you’re not ready for only because you think I want to or for any reason other than it’s really what you want right now. You’ve been through a lot. More than most. Quite frankly, I’m surprised you’re able to function as well as you are.”
“My dad was crazy religious, and while I didn’t agree with everything he told me, I did believe one thing, and that was that God would help me.”
“Help you? How did God help you by allowing those bastards to do what they did to you?”
She shook her head. “No, God helped me by sending you to save me.” Her eyes glassed over, and the last thing I wanted her to do was cry, but if we kept talking like this, it was inevitable.
Pressing my lips to hers, I could feel her smile when I kissed her, when I teased her tongue with mine, when I nipped her bottom lip before exploring her depths once again.
Maddie tried to move on top of me, but I needed to be in control. I wanted her beneath me, squirming, begging me. Flipping her onto her back, which was an easy feat since she weighed next to nothing, I spread her legs with my knee.
“You’re positive about this? Are you still having any pain? Everything good there?”
“All good,” she answered, rolling her eyes, which made me chuckle. My girl was spirited. My girl? Yes, she was mine, a possession I needed to announce before any more of our clothes were removed.
“Once we do this, you’re mine, Maddie. I don’t own you, of course, but you will belong to me and only me.”
“And will you be mine in return?”
“Yes.”
“Okay.” She raised her head off the pillow and kissed me, anchoring my body to hers when she wrapped her legs around my waist.
At first, all we did was kiss, which was fuckin’ amazing, but eventually, she unlocked her legs from around me and pushed me back.
“I need to take off my clothes.” Her words were authoritative, but her tone hinted at her slight reservation. I wasn’t gonna ask her again if she wanted to go ahead with this, but I would take things slowly in case she changed her mind at the last second.
“How about I take off your clothes for you?” I hopped off the bed and urged her to join me, reaching out to help her up. I turned her around and unzipped her dress, moving her hair to the side as I kissed her neck, sliding the straps off her shoulders. I unhooked her bra, removing both articles of clothing together. Several healing bruises littered her skin, but she looked much better than when she first came here. Forcing a calming breath through my nose, I focused on her and not the evidence of what was done to her. It was hard, but I needed to stay in the moment, more so for her than for me.
Maddie stood before me in nothing but her black cotton panties, the bottoms of her cheeks peeking out from beneath the fabric. Before I could ask her to turn around, she faced me. My eyes drifted down her body, my mouth watering at the sight of her tits. They were small but perfect. “You’re gorgeous.” Her face tinged pink, and I didn’t think I’d ever seen anything so beautiful in all my twenty-one years.
She took a single step closer and raised her arms to link them behind my neck, pulling me down for a soul-searing kiss. All I wanted to do was toss her on the bed and have my way with her. Fast. Hard. All-consuming. But I couldn’t. I had to be careful, gentle even, especially for the first time. She wasn’t a virgin, but I had to treat her as such because even though she appeared resolute and strong, her emotional status was fragile.
“Can you take these off?” she asked, her fingers fumbling with the button of my jeans.
I extended my hands at my sides. “Have at it, babe.” Her eyes lit up when I said babe, and I made a mental note to use the endearment more often.