Page 34 of Never Broken

I was so fucked.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to. You’ll get in trouble again—because of—because of—“ She was still hiccupping. I wasn’t sureif whatever I was doing was making it worse or better, but I did know that despite her protests, she was making no attempt to move away. In fact, one of my hands was now officially touching one of those curls, the ones so long and thick and over-the-top they hadn’t even seemed real when I’d first seen them. Up close, she smelled exactly the same as her room always did: vases of fresh pink carnations; citrus perfume in tiny, jewel-like bottles; girly, expensive, precious things. More things I wasn’t allowed to touch; things they chained me up and threw me in cages to keep me from touching. Things like, for instance, her tits, which had the audacity to actually beheaving, along with the rest of her, as they pressed up against my chest. Well, that was Fantasy Number One of roughly 3,128 fulfilled. If we stayed like this much longer, I’d go for numbers two, three, and four. Guaranteed.

Fuck. I took another deep breath. For her sakeandmine, I had to get my dick under control, then I could decide what to do next. I’d never been so horny while still bloody from a whipping, but Louisa Wainwright-Phillips was really pushing my limits in more ways than one.

In the meantime, I should probably be doing something other than standing here marveling at the fact that this was even fucking happening. I spread my fingers and moved them gently a little down her spine and up again, careful not to make any sudden movements. Then, slowly, carefully, I eased them back so I could rest against the marble island, even though it sliced through my wounds like a butcher knife, and I made the mistake of making a little hiss of pain as the edge of the counter hit one of the lash marks.

“What are you doing? You’re hurt!” she exclaimed, loud enough to be heard down the hall if not upstairs.

“Shhh,” I whispered frantically into her hair, gently pressing her head down again. “Shouting isn’t going to make it any better.And anyway, it’s fine. Really. I’m fine.” At that, I could swear she burrowed a bit closer into my arms. “Hey. Listen to me. This is not your fault.”

“It’s not?” she squeaked.

“No. It’s not because of anything you said. Your dad told me that himself.” I paused. “Besides,” I remarked, “out of all the whippings I’ve had, this isn’t even in the top ten.”

A wail greeted me. Okay, wrong thing to say.

“You’re not fine,” she said. “You’re in terrible pain and it’s all because of me.”

I couldn’t help but laugh at her dramatics. “If that makes you feel better, sure.”

There was silence for a second, then I heard what sounded like either a hiccup or a giggle emerge from the nest of hair that concealed her face. I had to admit, when her puffy, red, tear-streaked, and gorgeously imperfect visage finally emerged to gaze up at me, the sight—despite all of that—was as good as cool water down my ruined back. She didn’t move her face, and now her glistening gray eyes were fixed on mine, her full lips glossy and rosy and impossible not to want to kiss, and—at least at that moment—eminently worth risking getting thrown into a mine for.

“Fuck it.” I couldn’t believe I was doing this, but I bent down, knowing exactly where my mouth was headed without registering at all what would happen when I got there.

A door abruptly opening and closing upstairs brought us both back to our senses. We broke apart, hearts pounding, and, just like that first meeting in her bathroom, we put as much empty space between each other as we could. We paused a minute before realizing nobody was coming.

She unfroze and grabbed the bottle of aloe, then pushed it toward me.

“Aloe grows all over the desert, you know. They make this at a natural store by the university. It’s good for everything—sunburn, cuts, bruises. It’s a natural antiseptic.”

She paused. The clock ticked. Here was her cue to offer to put it on me herself. Well?

Instead, she flushed and glanced up at the clock. “I’d better go.”

She paused, clearly hoping I’d reply. Maybe even ask her to stay. Of course if I asked her to stay, fuck the aloe. Fuck my back. If I had my way, I’d finish that goddamn kiss, first of all, and after that, rip that cutesy little crop top off, get her naked, and have her arching her back on the countertop and moaning in seconds flat.

Good thing for both of us that in this world, I didn’t have my way.

“So I’ll see you tomorrow?” she asked. “For studying?”

Studying? Hold on. Rewind.

As soon as it began, I had to end it. I turned away from her and threw open the cupboard. “I can’t.”

“What? What do you mean you can’t?”

I didn’t turn around. “Well, my English isn’t perfect, but if I remember correctly, ‘can’t’ is a contraction meaning ‘cannot’ or ‘unable to.’” Classic immature male behavior. In mere minutes, I’d gone from noble hero to snarky dick.

“You know that’s not what I meant. You don’t get to tell me what you can and can’t do.” The vulnerable, crying Louisa was gone. The old, haughty, petulant Louisa, the one from the intercom, was making a reappearance.

“Look, you know enough that you can do it without me now. You need to tell your dad you don’t need me anymore. That you figured it out.”

What was I doing? I’d held her and been seconds away from kissing her. We both knew it. I’d slept in her bed, for fuck’s sake.And now I was acting like I barely knew her. My only hope was that maybe eventually, she’d understand that it was for her own good as much as mine and wouldn’t hate me for the rest of her life.

“But…but…I need you! I thought we were—“ she cut herself off. “What are you doing?”

“Making you a macchiato. Ecuadorian roast,” I said flatly. “That’s the kind you like, yeah?”

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