My jaw clenches.
Break up?
There’s no breaking up. Not now. Not ever.
I’ll find a way to make her see it. To show her that I’m not the jokester. That I’m the boy who’s loved her since the very first moment I met her. “Of course I will.”
I don’t know what I expected to happen next, but it’s not Lilac lifting my shirt without warning.
I let her, and it’s a miracle that I don’t fall to my knees and beg her to keep touching me.
She slides it up over my head, her fingers ghosting across my ribs, my chest. I suck in a sharp breath, stomach tight with need for her. The scars on my back are visible now. They’re angry, red, ruined patches of skin from when I was just a boy. When my father used me as an ashtray. I know she can see them in the huge mirror behind me. There’s no big story that goes along with it. He was just an evil man doing evil things.
She looks. Really looks, and she doesn’t flinch.
Her fingers trace them gently, and for the first time in my life, I don’t want to hide.
Her hands slide up my chest and she whispers, "Shower with me."
My jaw tightens. My whole body tightens.
I cup her face, make her look at me. "You don’t know what you’re asking. You’re in shock, and you’re not prepared for what I’ll do if you’re naked and wet and pressed up against me."
She blushes, and fuck if that doesn’t make my cock throb.
She bites her lip, looking away. “Please? I wouldn’t ask anyone else, and…”
That hits me like a punch.
I step closer, tipping her chin back up. "I don’t want to hurt you, bambi."
She must understand the implication because her eyes widen.
I reach up and run my fingers through her hair, brushing it gently out of her face. I stroke her hair again, softer this time. I lean down, my forehead pressing gently against her.
Lilac sucks in a sharp breath. "What are you going to tell Dad when he asks you why you’re doing all of this for me?"
I hesitate, searching her face. Unsure how much of my cards to show. Afraid of scaring her off with the depth of it. Because I don’t feel like I deserve her. But I whisper anyway—raw, honest. "That you’re the only person I’ve ever wanted to protect in my entire life. And nothing, literally no one, will change that."
She tilts her head, eyes glassy. "You’re different than I thought. You’re serious. You’ve barely made any jokes since all of this started."
My hand slides up her thigh, slow and absolutely reverent. “There’s nothing to joke about when your safety’s in question.”
Her breath catches, her thighs part slightly under my hand.
"I know we can’t keep the charade up forever," she says softly. "Eventually we have to break off the engagement. Eventually my parents will get their way. Maybe not with Vincent, but with someone, and I don’t want my first time to be with someone like that."
I trace her jaw with my thumb, voice low. "I will kill every last person who tries to force you to do anything you don’t want to. You don’t have to do this with me to prevent that."
She gives me a soft smile. "I just realized that I’ve imagined what my first time might be like, and I always pictured it with you. Even when I thought you only saw me as Adam’s little sister. I trust you."
I swear my heart caves in. I lean down and kiss her so gently, it should be considered a vow.
"I’ll make you a deal," I say against her lips. "I’ll shower with you if you sleep in my bed tonight."
She lifts her hand and hooks her pinky with mine. "Deal."
LILAC
