“It’s never been safe for me, Blue. Except when I’m with you.”
My words seem to unlock something within him. They unleash him. He comes at my mouth like he’s going to consume me—teeth and tongue, harsh and relentless. Strong hands lift me onto the counter, and I hold on to him for balance.
He kisses his way down my jaw and over my collarbone. He touches me all over, his hands mapping every inch. It’s a claiming, with his mouth as the brand and his body holding me in place.
He reaches between us, and I brace myself for his fingers. They’ll be blunt now. They’ll hurt.
Instead I hear a zipper as he opens himself up.
My dress rides up easy, and he shoves aside my panties. His cock lines up, and I tense. I know how it feels going in dry, but I don’t try to stop him. He needs this from me, and I need him to take it.
I’m slicker than I thought. He slides in quick, but it still stretches me out.
My mouth opens on a gasp, and he takes the opportunity to kiss me hard. He fucks me from both sides, his tongue thrusting, his cock deep inside. He doesn’t relent until I’m fighting him, struggling for breath and for relief, the ache in my sex so strong I’m clenching around him, milking him while he moans into my mouth.
He speeds up fast enough that I can’t keep up, I can only stay open to him, battered by him, shoved over the edge by him. It’s like falling, and he’s the only thing holding me up. Only his cock keeps me grounded while I climax around it, breaking into pieces, coming back together in his arms.
*
He puts me in the shower—literally strips me down completely and lifts me into the shower. I’m not a doll, because he checks the temperature before pushing me gently under the spray. I’m not a child, because he washes me slowly, sensually, lingering on my breasts and between my thighs.
My legs shake as he plays with my folds, fingers slick with water and soap and arousal.
He holds me against him, my back to his chest, supporting me. I’m not standing anymore, not holding on to the walls of the shower. There’s only his arms holding me up, his fingers inside me. There’s only the low murmur of his voice in my ear, reassuring me, soothing me. “Let go, gorgeous. Let go.”
I think he means more than this shower, more than my body.
He wants me to let go of everything I’ve been fighting to keep—control and security. This wall I’ve been building around myself, each brick made from scarlet lipstick or high heels, paved with a fuck-me smile. It’s the only way I know how to be safe.
Even that it’s never actually made me safe.
Safety is a dream, the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. If I smile enough and dance enough and take off my clothes enough, maybe one day I’ll reach it. Except it doesn’t exist.
I whimper, and Blue murmurs to me, “Shhh.”
My eyes fall shut, letting him pull me from the shower, trusting him completely as he guides me onto a plush mat. He dries my body with a towel, lifting my arms and kneeling at my feet. It’s a form of service, what he’s doing, the way he’s caring for me—an apology and promise all at once.
“I know you’ve been worried about me,” he says, breath warm against my temple. “I know you’ve been protecting me all this time. Let me protect you.”
The words strip me bare.
When you really think about protection, what it means, it’s a cruel thing to accept. If he is my shelter in the storm, then he is the one battered by wind and lightning. He is the one taking away my pain. I’ve never wanted to let him do that.
It hurts him that I don’t let him do that.
He lifts me up, and I wrap my arms around his neck. I curl myself up in him, knowing that if any harm will come to us, it will come to him first. I let him give me what my mother never had—a man who cared more about her than himself, someone who would fight for her, someone who would stay.
His lips are soft against my forehead, a gentle kiss before he lays me down on his bed.
The sheets are white, the walls bare. I’ve been in this room before, been fucked here and used. Being cherished is almost harder to take, more foreign. More of a risk, because if I lose this now, if I lose him now, it will break me. I will be as lost as my mother, like I swore to myself I’d never be.
“Did you take the watch?” My voice sounds loud in the dark room.
He pauses in the act of getting into bed beside me, sheet raised. Then he slides in, the hair on his legs a lovely friction against mine. His arms wrap around me, underneath and above, a cocoon of cotton and man, a dark space for just us two.
I drop my voice to a whisper. “Did you kill him?”
“I’m not going to lie to you,” he says softly. “I thought about it. I’m still thinking about it.”
At this I can breathe a sigh of relief. “Thank God.”