Page 53 of The Girl and the Cobra

I slowly reach for his hand, and the moment my hand slips inside his I hear Tristan breathe out a sigh of relief, like the mere act of touching me puts him at ease. I don’t say a single word, butI do pull him along with me, right into my room, where I then close the door.

I lead him to my bedside, and only then do I let go of his hand. I turn to face him as I set both hands on his chest and lightly run them up to his face. The action makes his tall frame bend down to me somewhat, like we’re two magnets that belong to each other.

The nerves in me almost make me tremble, but Tristan gives me a sense of peace I haven’t known in forever. It’s the only reason my voice doesn’t shake when I tell him, “I want you to stay with me tonight. I’m ready.”

My words cause him to shudder, and in the next moment his mouth is finding mine and he’s lifting me up onto the bed.

It’s strange. For so long I felt like I was holding my breath, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Waiting for death to decide it finally wants me. A girl can only escape it for so long, right? But this—this is the exhale I’ve been waiting for. This is the relief, the curtain call, the end of the play, and instead of death taking me, it’s Tristan.

I guess, in a way, Tristan is a certain kind of death, both an ending to a chapter of my life I want closed and a new beginning to a sequel. In such a short time, he’s become everything to me.

I think I’m in love.

Chapter Twenty-Three – Tristan

When I’m outside of her room, I feel more like a watchdog than anything else. Like I’m guarding her—though I don’t know from what. Maybe I do it so I can be closer to her, even if she doesn’t know it. Mabel calms the storm inside me like no one else, and I cling to that calmness as hard as I possibly can.

I should be happy to no longer have the collar around my neck. The oddest thing is, I don’t even think of running. I can’t. Not when Mabel is here, not when she wants to stay here. If she stays, I stay. It’s as simple as that.

But… Mabel is going to start leaving the house. She got a job. I can’t help but worry that, eventually, someone better than me will stumble into that coffee shop and make her fall in love with them.

Stupid, I know. Even stupider because I don’t think I could ever let her go.

Imagine my surprise when Mabel comes out, finds me, and asks me what I’m doing. And then she takes my hand and leads me into her room… where she tells me she wants me to stay with her tonight. That she’s ready.

I’d be lying if I said I haven’t thought a lot about it. Of course I have. I’ve wanted to make Mabel mine in every way from damn near the beginning; it’s taken great restraint on my part not to overwhelm her with the urgency nesting inside of me. But when she says she’s ready, well…

Our mouths meet, and I pick her up and set her on the bed. With just the touch of her lips on mine, everything in my body comes alive, breaking free of their shackles with a singular purpose: to drown myself in Mabel and her body.

Fuck, yes. I need her. I want her. I… I don’t think I can describe just how badly.

I lean over the side of the bed, my mouth still devouring hers as my fingers toy with the bottom hem of her shirt. I’m dying to lift it up and over her head, but a thought rises in my head, and it causes me to pull back and gaze down at her through the darkness.

Let’s be real: if I make her mine, there’s no way in hell I can be cognizant enough to pull out of her. If I’m inside, by fuck, that’s exactly where I’m going to stay. To ask me to pull out of her would be to ask a dying man to keep breathing.

Mabel must sense where my mind is at, because she whispers, “I have, um, condoms on the nightstand, if that’s what you’re—”

Condoms? Where the hell did she get condoms? I’m seconds from asking her when it comes to me on its own: Wolf got them. We made a stop before the coffee shop. At the time, I was too busy paying attention to Mabel in the backseat to give a shit about whatever it was he bought and had tucked away in a plastic bag.

I’m suspicious; I don’t trust Wolf at all. This has to be some trick. At the same time, however, I’m also not strong enough to resist Mabel’s lure, not while knowing I don’t have to worry about pulling out of her before I come or anything like that.

Ideally, I’d come inside of her with no barriers between us, but at this point, I’ll take what I can get.

My hands leave her sides. I take her face in them as I ask, “Are you sure?” The monster in me is chomping at the bit to get to her, to have her finally, after all this time, to breathe her in in a way no other man ever has.

I took her first kiss. I’ll take all of her other firsts, too—and her seconds, and thirds, and… well, you get the idea.

Mabel nods in my hands. “The most sure I’ve been about anything in my life.”

A low, hungry sound escapes me when she says that, and I respond by helping her out of her clothes as quickly as humanly possible. I need to get this girl naked so I can memorize every smooth curve of her body.

Her shirt comes off first, then her bra. Last is her pants and the panties underneath. Then, just like that, she’s sitting on the edge of the bed, completely naked. My eyes are well-adjusted to the darkness, so I’m able to see the smooth plains of her body, the dips and the curves, the way her round, perky tits rise and fall with heavy, shuddering breaths. Honestly, the only thing that would make this better is seeing her with the light on—but for our first time, the darkness is welcome.

The darkness was my home for so long. The darkness and that mask. I clung to them both like lifelines; without them, I surely wouldn’t be here today.

And if I learned anything, it’s that I’m right where I was always meant to be, here with Mabel.

I help her up to her pillow, and the moment she lays her head down I crawl on top of her and meet those sweet lips of hers again. I kiss her hard and fast as my hands roam up and down her naked body, causing her to shudder along with them. When my hands move to her chest and my fingers tweak her nipples, she moans into the kiss. If I wasn’t already raring to go, her moaning would get me there.

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