Harlow took my hands and placed them on her tits. As I teased her nipples, she held onto my shoulders and rolled her hips. Taking her time, Harlow tried different rhythms. I watched her face, studying the way she learned to take charge. Despite her new confidence, she couldn’t find what her body hungered for until I stroked her clit.
“Yes.”
“Say please,” I demanded.
Harlow narrowed her eyes, refusing to give in. My fingers worked at her clit until her expression softened.
“Please.”
“Don’t worry, baby. I’ll let you make me beg later.”
Laughing, Harlow kissed me and moved her hips faster. She tugged at my hair, moving even faster. When I pinched her pink nipple hard, Harlow bucked.
“Oh, Bob,” she said, managing to mess with me even while coming hard. “Fucking perfect, Bob.”
Harlow rested her head in the crook of my neck, even as her hips never stopped moving. I wrapped her in my arms and thrust into her. She whimpered before latching onto my throat and sucking like a hungry vampire. Holding her tight, I came inside her while she left a big juicy hickey on my neck.
After catching our breath, we simply watched each other. I couldn’t believe how different my life would be if I hadn’t spooked this amazing woman in the woods. Would I have seen enough of her during the paintball matches to know what I was missing without her? Likely not.
God kept me from losing my humanity in prison and during the years when taking lives was my only pleasure. Now he brought me Harlow. She saw all of me and didn’t shrink away. She never even flinched.
We managed to get dressed and eat dinner on the front porch. The sun was nearly hidden behind the trees when the woods came alive with chirping. Soon the mosquitoes would descend upon us. Before then, we enjoyed the warm evening.
“I have a present,” I said after we’d eaten and slapped away too many bugs. “Head inside and I’ll get it from the car.”
Harlow didn’t like gifts. Her face made clear how presents made her nervous, but she said nothing before disappearing inside. I walked to the SUV, grabbed the box, and hurried into the cabin before I was eaten alive by a squad of very hungry gnats.
“It’s not a big deal,” I said, sitting next to her on the couch. “Just something I’d thought you’d like. No pressure if you hate it which I know you won’t.”
Harlow held the gift, wrapped in silver paper with a shiny white ribbon and bow. Looking better than I remembered, I owed Minka for going the extra mile.
“It’s beautiful,” she whispered, opening it carefully.
A long moment passed between Harlow understanding what the gift was and her reaction. I wrapped an arm around her shoulders and she rested against me.
“How?” she asked, opening the photo album.
“I sent my friends to pay your aunt a visit. They collected all the pictures she had and this DVD with a home video on it.”
Harlow stared up at me with wet eyes. “You love me.”
“More than you know.” I kissed Harlow’s lips gently then her damp cheeks. “You deserve everything.”
Smiling, she returned her gaze to the pictures. “I was so young. I always remembering being older when my dad died.”
“The mind plays tricks.”
Harlow nodded and flipped the page. I watched her take in the pictures of a family she barely remembered.
“I’m going to cry now, but it’s not because I’m unhappy. I just…”
When she didn’t finish, I caressed her forehead with my lips. “I know.”
Harlow struggled against her sobs until finally relaxing in my arms. She pointed to different pictures and told me about when they were taken. Harlow sounded so damn sad that my heart broke thinking I’d caused her pain. Yet she deserved to have these pictures even if they brought her pain.
“My mom was fragile,” she said, caressing a picture of her mother holding Harlow as a toddler. “She seemed really strong on the outside, but she wasn’t. When Dad died, she couldn’t cope. I know she tried, but life was too hard without him and she fell apart. The drugs made the pain go away.”
“Grief has destroyed even the strongest people.”
“It hollowed her out. Maybe it was the drugs, but she looked so different when she finally came back. That night she died, Mom looked old. Like my mom was trapped in someone else’s face. I didn’t recognize her at first. Of course, that might be because I was doped up too.”
My jaw twitched, but I kept my cool.
“I’m glad I don’t remember much from that night. I wish I remembered less. Mostly the blood. Also how my brother’s fingers remained curled around my hand even after he was dead.”
“The mind latches onto the worst things, doesn’t it?”
Nodding, she leaned her cheek against my arm. “Sometimes, I wish I could forget everything before I moved in with the Todds, but I’d have to forget my family. Like everyone else forgot them. They died and no one cared. The world didn’t even blink.”