Page 104 of Chaos

He watches avidly from across the room. “Panties, too. I want you naked, darling.” He prowls to the foot of the bed. “The R is weird. Or maybe the I-N-G.”

I lean forward, showing off how flexible I am as I untie the ribbons around my ankles. “I think you have to be British again.Daaahling.”

“Or southern?” he adds, watching me avidly.“Darrrlin?”

I throw off my heels. “You’d be the hottest pedantic cowboy.”

“We’ll save that for the Wild-west-verse.” The gleam in his eyes tells me he’s imagining me as a cowgirl or maybe a tavern wench. “Show me that pretty pussy.”

My eyes widen as a flash of rippling heat rockets through me. “Maybe I just like when you talk dirty.”

“Panties off.”

I wiggle them down my hips, down to my knees, using the tips of my toes to drag them all the way down, letting them dangle off the end of the bed.

“Spread your legs.”

I do.

“Wider.”

I do.

“More. I want to see your beautiful fucking insides.”

My skin blisteringly hot, I spread my legs open wide. Like all the way. Wide enough it almost hurts, and if we’re lucky enough to still be doing this when we’re sixty, I’ll probably break a hip and it will be worth it. We’ll limp into Sheila’s office and claim bodily injury by force of love.

He grunts, a primal, gritty, raw man grunt. Low and dirty, as he shoves his shirt off his shoulders, and comes back to the bed, wearing nothing but his dress pants, shadows dancing in the deep valleys under every muscle of his chest and abdomen, staring hotly down between my legs. “This is all for me?”

“Yes.”

“Jesus, look at you, all spread out for me. Have I told you how much I love your pussy?”

I shake my head, spreading my hair out on the pillows behind me, finding the magnolia blossom and throwing it onto the floor. “Not that I can remember?”

“I do. It’s beautiful.” He sets his knee on the bed, his eyes almost vicious in their intensity, as he palms the ridge pressing against the front of his pants. “I don’t know what they said to you, but you’re beautiful everywhere. So beautiful. Perfect. Everything I want. Right here. You understand?”

I nod.

“I see you sometimes smelling under your shirt when you think I’m not looking. That’s because of them.”

My cheeks go red hot as I nod.

“Is that why you wear my clothes? So you smell me instead?”

I nod woodenly.

“You don’t smell. You’re perfect. You hear me?”

I nod.

“So beautiful.” He leans over me, all the way up so he’s looking into my eyes as he says it, hand on my cheek, I lean into his palm. All of this is like a balm to my soul. Each semi-playful sentence healing over a scar left by the horror of a cellar that left me feeling defiled and grotesque.

“So good.” He thumbs my lower lip. “You’re so strong. I don’t think you see it, but you are. There are people who go through extensive training learning how to survive enemy incarceration and they don’t hold up like you did. And you’re not even a month out, and look at you, opening up for me, trusting me.”

My eyes burn. “It was because of you. The whole time I knew you were out there looking for me.”

His nostrils flare, and he nods soberly, like I just confirmed something for him. “You have no idea what you are to me.”

---