It was the strangest of feelings.
All anyone ever saw when they looked at me was the white trash ex-gang member from the Heighter-famed trailer park across town.
But not her.
Fuck knows why, but Pix only ever saw more. Even after everything I put her through.
“Austin… thank you…” she murmured, and once again that embarrassed flush engulfed her face.
“No, thank you,” I replied and, leaning down, pressed one more chaste kiss to her lips, then, gripping her hand, pressed another to the back of her fingers.
“Stay with me tonight, Pix. No sex,” I said and smiled. She slapped my chest in playful admonishment with all the strength of a gnat. “Just stay with me. Sleep next to me. Be beside me.”
“Okay.” She agreed and, taking her hand, I pulled her to the bed, and we resumed the same positions as before. But our hands never let go of one another’s. We’d moved on to a different place.
That thought had me reeling. Maybe we were now together; maybe we weren’t. I didn’t care what we labeled it. She could talk to me and I could talk to her. Boyfriend/girlfriend titles had no place among the truly fucked up. Just that there was someone else like you, someone to understand. Some of our buried secrets had been brought out into the open, and it felt as though a huge weight had been lifted off my chest.
“Austin?” Lexi asked and licked along her bottom lip.
“Mmm?” I replied, watching that circling tongue, my dick twitching painfully in response.
“Could you kiss me again?”
My fists clenched at my sides. I really wanted to do more than kiss her—suck on her tits, taste her clit on my tongue, take her virginity—but I knew that wasn’t gonna happen.
“Get on over here,” I told her and jerked on her hand. She came closer still. I reached out to wrap my hands around her back when she stilled.
I moved my head back. “What did I do?”
Lexi lifted her hand and timidly brought it to lie on my cheek. “I have trigger areas.”
“Oh-kay,” I said slowly, not knowing what a “trigger area” was.
Sitting upright, she looked down at me and lowered her chin. “My back. My entire back is my trigger.”
My eyebrows rose in surprise, and Lexi cleared her throat. “I can’t have my vertebrae or the ribs on my back touched.”
The pain in her voice when she talked about herself this way cut me.
“It’s the place I hate most. It… causes me a lot of stress.” Lexi’s embarrassed eyes regarded me warily, and I pulled her down to lie against my bare chest.
“But I can touch you anywhere else? Everywhere else is free rein?” I asked and ran a finger down Lexi’s slim neck.
“Within reason,” she replied breathlessly.
“Explain further, Pix. I’m kinda desperate to fuckin’ touch you like I want,” I pushed as my finger began skirting down the material of her sleeve.
“I don’t… I don’t know,” she said as my finger closed in on the hem of her black dress and her eyes closed in pleasure, a red flush warming her pixie face.
“Don’t know what?” This time my voice sounded off. The way she was lying too close to my cock was making me lose my mind. Stopping my finger, I waited for her response.
“I don’t know. I’ve never been with a guy before. Not even close. I don’t know what will trigger me, apart from my back. Don’t know if I’ll freak out on you.”
I cupped her chin and Lexi nuzzled her face in my palm. But then her head stilled and she said, “I do know that I will never be able to be naked with a guy. I’ll never be a normal sexual partner. Will never just be free and unrestrained. I just think I’ll never be in a place to be that comfortable with myself.” She sighed and added, “Run now, Austin. Run far, far away from the girl with too much baggage.”
Lexi’s head was still turned into my hand, away from my face, so I said, “And I’m dirt poor, still tied to a gang that deals drugs for cash, and have a brother that will do anything to protect his crew’s turf. I got a mamma who’s dying and a dean that wants me out of the school. I’m scarred head to toe, and, believe it or not, I have only ever been with three girls in my life. None of them knew the real me.”
Lexi’s head turned in my direction in interest. “None of them were your girlfriend?”
I shrugged and my thumb ran up and down her cheek. “I suppose Louisa Tripodi was my girlfriend, for about a week. We lived three trailers down from each other our whole lives. Her folks were Sicilian immigrants like my dad.”
“And what happened?”
“Got high and ended up fuckin’ on her bathroom floor. I lost my virginity that night. Louisa lost hers long before then.”
“How old were you?”
This time it was my turn to be embarrassed. “Thirteen.”
Lexi’s eyes widened. “And what happened to her? This Louisa… Louisa…”
“Tripodi,” I finished.
“Yeah, Louisa Tripodi.”
“OD’d three years ago. Heroin.”