“Mac, you don’t know—”
“I do know!” She cringes and drops her chin. “What I mean is I don’t claim to have all the answers. What I know is . . .” Her head tilts back and she looks at me. “I like you and everything we do together. I like you exactly how you are, and nothing you do or say can change that.”
I give her words a second to sink in and only then realize that the shit I felt earlier, the feeling of inadequacy and loathing, is gone. How does she do that? Make me go from semi-suicidal to downright . . . happy?
“Nod if you understand,” she says, using my own words from earlier to playfully remind me she’s thinking about our hookup.
I exhale and the ghost of a grin ticks my lips. “Yeah, I understand.” Taking her hand from my face, I kiss her knuckles and repeat it with the other.
“Guess you have to take me home now, huh?”
As much as I’d love to say no and drag her into my bed, my nerves are shot to shit. I’ve overcome more in one day than I have in years.
My mind cranks back to my session with Darren. Decoding the past so that I can make a better future. Maybe I don’t need the missing memories of a lost childhood to find a cure. Maybe all I need is someone who understands and likes me for who I am, and that includes the ugly and the depraved.
Could it be that my cure lies not in my past but in Mac?
*
It’s late by the time I get home after dropping Mac off. I walked her to the door and thought a good night kiss would be harmless enough.
I was wrong.
She seems so damn hungry every time we kiss, as if everything I have to offer would never fill her up. I groan and roll my sore lips between my teeth. She sucks at them so fucking hard I have to wonder what that suction would feel like in other places.
The roll in my gut combined with the painful pulse in my shorts injects me with a dose of adrenaline. I head into my condo and slide my shoes off at the door. The lingering scent of tropical fruit and suntan lotion hits me with a burst of arousal. Fuck.
A cold shower should work to clear my head. I need to get my schedule and go over my interviews for the week, but at this rate, I’ll be reliving the curves of Mac’s body all night.
Back in my room, I move to the bathroom, pulling off my shirt as I go and tossing it in the hamper. My mind is a cyclone of all things Mac. Holding her hand, wrapping my arms around her after the Skyjump, the simplest things have my chest warming.
I strip down and turn on the water. Looking down between my legs, I groan at the disgusting display that taunts me.
“Fuck.” I step in and cold water hits my heated skin. All day my dick has been a constant presence, half swollen and painfully aware of the gorgeous woman at my side. As much as I tried to ignore it, I couldn’t help but notice the way it rubbed against every fiber of my boxer briefs as if they were made of the softest silk. And then at the door, pressing it against her, giving in to what it begged for all day.
I drop my head beneath the stream. My eyes slide closed and she’s there, her full cherry lips that beg to be kissed, the memory of how they felt against my fingers today, silken pliable flesh, so damn soft. I pull my lip ring into my mouth, sucking the metal and moaning against the sting. Her tits, weighed heavy in my hand as I toyed with the nipples, and I imagine what they look like naked. I bet her nipples are the same dark cherry of her lips.
“Dammit, fuck.” My hand slides down the wet slope of my abdomen and I grip my dick. Humiliation and disgust do nothing to hold me back.
She doesn’t deserve this, to be the fantasy of a sick fucker who’s whacking off to her image. My mind takes off without permission to imagine all the things I’d do to her, increasing my shame. I pound myself hard, punishing my depravity with pain.
Dirty. Wrong. Bad.
The words run through my head on repeat, but it doesn’t stop me. I’m too far gone, wound too tight, lost in the sickness. The pain combines with the humiliation, and my thoughts of Mac turn into violent flashes of sexual domination.
I rock into the tile wall, my forehead pressed against it so hard it hurts. “Sick.” My fist tightens and the helplessness washes over me. My toes curl on the slick tile floor as my body readies. I don’t want it and try to force back the inevitable. “No.” Stop!
Two voices rage in my head. Body over mind. I’m helpless. Helpless.
A guttural whimper, which I recognize as my own, echoes around the shower stall. I bite down on my lip as my release reminds me I have no control. That’s what it is: a filthy cancer that eats away at my head, turning me into a monster of sexual depravity.