“No.” She shakes her head against my side. “I just want to lie down here. With you, if it’s okay.”
“It’s okay.” I tug her closer to me, enjoying the feel of her soft body next to mine. I just wish we didn’t have these itchy clothes between us.
I mentally smack myself for being a creep. But to be fair, the clothes we wear so we don’t freeze to deathareitchy.
Her labored breathing slows down eventually, and I think she fell asleep when her quiet voice startles me.
“I haven’t kissed anyone in years, and I mean it—years.” She stresses the word as my breath hitches.Did I just hear her right?“I couldn’t. I didn’t want to.” I hear her rough swallow. “Do you think you could kiss me?”
My throat goes dry, and I can barely force out a single word. “Alicia” is all I can manage.
“Sorry! Gosh, I’m so sorry.” She scatters away from me, and I don’t stop her. “I’m sorry, Mark. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable, and yet here I am, draped all over you. You probably have a girlfriend, and I don’t even know.” She hides her face in her hands. “Gosh, it’s embarrassing.” She muffles into her palms.
I take a second to collect my thoughts. “Alicia,” I whisper gently, but when she doesn’t react, I speak a little firmer. “Alicia.”
“What?” She still hasn’t removed her hands from her face.
“Look at me.”
“No.” Her voice is muffled.
“Look at me.” It comes out as an order, and I’m surprised she listens. She lifts her guarded eyes toward me, her cheeks pink with embarrassment. “I don’t have a girlfriend.”
“No?”
“No.” I shake my head.
“Okay.”
“Okay.” I don’t know how to proceed. How do I tell her I want to kiss her more than anything in my life? But I’m afraid I won’t be able to stop at that. That I’ll want to touch her in places she’s probably not ready to be touched. What if I scare her, and she’ll never look at me again without being horrified? How do I tell her all of that?
She bites her thumbnail. “Then you don’t think I’m attractive?”
“What?” I bark out a laugh. “Why do you say that?”
“I mean you looked so repulsed at the idea of kissing me, I figured you don’t want anything to do with me.” She shrugs a shoulder like it’s no big deal, but I know better. I see the hurt in her eyes. She took my shock as something against her, when in reality, I am shocked no one snatched her up. Yes, she’s got an attitude on her, but it’s damn attractive. She isn’t some doormat and doesn’t let people walk all over her.
I used to date a lot. Well, not date, but hook up, and rich town girls liked to chase the high with a trash townie like myself, so they didn’t make me work for it either. I used to enjoy it, but not anymore.
At one point, one of them accused me of raping her when in reality she begged for my cock while her boyfriend was downstairs getting shitfaced. The encounter was a disaster, ending with me getting beaten to a pulp. I deserved it, so I didn’t throw a punch back. Not even one. I mean, the dude was in the navy, for fuck’s sake, while I was here fucking his girlfriend. I deserved to get my nose broken. But I didn’t appreciate being accused of rape. I’d never force myself on a woman. Never.
Throughout my life, living in the piece-of-shit place I used to live, I stopped rapes from happening a few times, nearly killing the motherfuckers. To this day, I regret not ending them, fearing they might go do it again.
And now all I can think is what if any of those fuckers were the ones who hurt Alicia, making me responsible for her horrors.
Alicia is beautiful as fuck and sexy as a siren, no matter what she wears. She’s like a mystery you want to solve, and you know the reward will be worth it all. But she’s been through hell. I don’t need to hear her story to know she’s never recovered. The last thing she needs is a beast like me coming at her, because once I unleash myself, it’s done.
It’s why those girls were all over me—their stuck-up boyfriends couldn’t deliver the wild I could. She needs the gentle, and I don’t know how to do that. For fuck’s sake, I’ve never once in my life had gentle sex. Even my first time was violent, with a woman older than me. I didn’t have a say in it, but honestly, I didn’t fight it much either. I guess it paved the road for my future escapades, and now I like it rough and dirty.
I’m exactly the opposite of what she needs, and I’m afraid I’d never be able to deliver it.
“See—that look on your face.” She flinches, thinking she’s the one who brought a sour grimace to my face.
“That’s not it—” I cut myself off before I spurt some more nonsense. “It’s just, are you sure? I mean look at me.” I spread my arms wide, and her eyes widen.
“What do you mean look at you?” She sounds confused. Just how I feel.
“Why would you be interested in kissing someone like me? After all that time.”
