Not as often as I used to, far less actually, but they do occasionally pop up and I’m not sure that will ever go away either.
That’s not really what Leo is asking me, though.
At least, I don’t think it is.
So, I tell her how I got over certain aspects of that kind of trauma. “Pete.”
Leonor’s nose scrunches and her brow furrows and my god, I have never been happier to see that confused expression in my entire life. “Pete?”
I nod. “I hadn’t had sex from the time I got out until I did with Pete, and it started because he found my toy.” Her expression intensifies and I match her look with one of my own. “He didn’t tell you?”
“No.” Leo shakes her head. “I mean, we knew you guys had sex but he didn’t say how it happened.”
Huh.
I’m a little surprised by that.
Then again, he was so sweet with me, and that was so fucking meaningful, I guess I wasn’t expecting it to go both ways. Which is silly now that I’ve seen that side of Peter Lagrave.
And after I tell Leo about that day of fixing guitars that turned into mending so many pieces of who I am, I can’t help but smile over the way it moves her. “I didn’t mean to make you cry, sweets.”
She shakes here head and sniffles. “I needed to hear that, too, Norm. You have no idea how badly.”
“We can’t let things like that define us, as hard as that is. I did that for such a long time. My feelings were so conflicting, I made everything worse for myself by letting something out of my control, control me. It’s not fucking easy at all and telling you any of this is probably so goddamn hypocritical but it’s all true.” I lean forward and press a kiss to her forehead. “And whenever you’re ready to take back control, you know we’ll be here just as ready to do whatever you need us to so you can make that happen.”
“Make love to me, Norman.”
My head jerks back as I blink wide eyes at Leo. “What?”
She nods. “Please. I don’t want to feel this way anymore.”
“Leonor… I’m not sure now is?—”
“Please, Norm. I don’t want to feel this way anymore. I feel like that bastard took everything from me,” my girl pleads as her eyes well with tears. “I was just starting to get my life together, to get back on track the way I needed, on the path I was always meant to take and that son of a bitch, he took away my confidence, he took away my control. He took away my ability to feel safe in my own skin, to feel connected to the men I’m going to spend the rest of my life with. I need to feel something other than fear, Norman. Something other than ruined. Please.”
My gaze moves over her face, analyzing every beautiful inch, the way those dark as night eyes are swimming with the truth of every word she’s spoken. Being this vulnerable, essentially stripped raw and bare, it’s not easy for Leo and I know that, and if she were anyone else I’d question whether or not she was in her right mind. The thing is, I can see that she is. And I know exactly how she fucking feels because until Peter showed me again how sex can be, I was feeling the same way Leo is.
I don’t want that for her.
I don’t want her to feel any of those things and I sure as hell don’t want her to think for one goddamn second that she’s ruined.
“You’re sure?” Leonor nods as I catch a tear that breaks free from her lashes. “Then I would be fucking honored to show you how perfect you are, how strong and beautiful you are, and how no one has the power to take any goddamn thing from you if you don’t let them.”
Dipping my chin, I softly kiss her, Leonor’s eyes fluttering closed as my lips gently move against hers.
“I’m going to touch you, sweets,” I whisper, thinking back to how important it was to me that I was able to give Pete consent, and how much it meant that he told me everything he was going to do. “I’m going to slip my hand under your shirt and I want you to tell me if you want more or need me to stop.”
Moving slowly, I watch Leonor’s face as I do exactly that, sliding my hand under her shirt, over her hip and up her side. I ghost it along the curve of her breast after she nods her permission, smoothing my fingers up her spine and between her shoulder blades. Leo lifts her hand to my cheek, pushing my hair behind my ear as she meets my kiss.
There’s definitely a level of hesitation, an uncertainty almost coming from my girl and while that breaks my heart because she’s never been like this with any of us over anything, letting her go at her pace and even taking the reins is going to be critical for her.
Talking the entire time isn’t necessarily new for us, not really, but this scenario is.
There’s no aggression, no primitive urge or feral need like usual. The wild edge to having sex with Leonor is nonexistent right now but the amount of love I can feel emanating from her, the gratitude I see in her eyes, that I hear in her voice? It guts me.
Even when she gives me consent to remove all of her clothes and kiss away every horrible memory that’s trying to take up space in her mind and on her body.
Rolling so she’s on her back, I begin kissing and licking every inch of skin I can. Her eyelids that were black and blue, where her lips were swollen and split. I drag them across her neck, kissing a path where that fucking rope left her porcelain skin burned. I circle her nipples with my tongue, tracing the curve of her breasts, peppering a path between them until I get to her new scars.
