Page 76 of Our Secrets and Scars

I wash out the shampoo and repeat the same process with the conditioner. All the while, she keeps making these little whispery sounds, and my cock twitches uncontrollably every single time. By some miracle, I’m able to finish the task without blowing my load or even thrusting against her to feel just a fraction of the friction I’m desperate for.

But when I’m done, she doesn’t turn around.

Her head bows, her hands come up to her face, and her body starts convulsing with enormous, wracking sobs. And my heart fucking shatters. Because there’s nothing in this world worse than Kinsley crying. Her pain hurts me. I feel it in every beat of my heart as she weeps with her back to me.

“Talk to me, baby. What’s going on?” I whisper, resting my forehead on her shoulder because I can’t stop myself from touching her.

“I’m scared.”

Her voice is the weakest I’ve ever heard it. And I know that things must be bad for her to admit the way she’s feeling right now.

“You’re a lioness, remember?”

She sniffs, but I’m pretty sure she’s smiling. The sobs still come, but they’re slower now and less violent. I press myself against her back, hoping that the steady beat of my heart against her will help to calm her somehow. That she’ll be able to sync her breaths with mine.

And after a while, it works.

Her crying stops, and her breathing evens out. She drops her hands from her face and rolls her shoulders back, standing taller.

“Turn around.”

She inhales deeply one last time, and as if in slow motion, begins to turn herself around to look at me. But If I thought I was prepared to see her for the first time, I wasn’t. And not because I’m disappointed or disgusted or in any way negatively affected by the sight of her scars, but because I could never have anticipated such surpassing beauty.

One half of her face is covered in scattered patches of scarlet, and unlike other burn victims I’ve known, the shape of her features hasn’t been distorted at all. Her scars, instead, are like a patchwork of shapes and glorious color. She is flawless in all her flaws and imperfect in the most perfect of ways. Beautiful in a sense that no one else could ever be. And for an artist like me, she’s a muse that exists only in wistful dreams.

“Little one.” I breathe, reaching out to touch her face before I can stop myself.

Tears fall from her eyes once again, but I brush them away, tracing her burns with soft strokes of my thumb against her cheek.

The way she’s looking at me right now, so vulnerable, sotrusting,makes me do something that I can’t remember doing since I was a child.

I cry.

I meet her teardrops with tears of my own.

I cry for her beauty and her blemishes. For her courage and her fear. For her insecurities, her bravery, her self-loathing, and the progress she’s making every day. But most of all, I cry because I’m in awe of her. She has no idea how extraordinary she is or the effect she would have on the world if only she let it see her.

“You are my very favorite piece of art,” I whisper. “The most magnificent masterpiece I have ever seen.”

“Holden.”

That’s all she’s able to say before my lips descend on hers. She opens instantly, moaning as I slip my tongue into her mouth and pull her tighter into me. I hold the back of her head, my hands gripping the wet strands of her hair as I tilt her head back. With every flick of my tongue and caress of my fingers, I show her how much I mean every word I said.

My hands go to her ass, and I lift her, pressing her up against the cold tile wall. Our mouths break apart as she laughs in shock, but the moment is only broken for the shortest of seconds. Because as soon as the surprise passes, her legs are wrapping around my waist, and she’s dragging her fingernails down my back.

“God, you’re so beautiful,” I rasp against her lips, “so fucking beautiful.”

She responds by reaching between us to align my still-stiff cock with her center. And then she’s lowering herself onto me, taking me in as much as she can in this position without my interference. She whines when she’s sunk as far down as she can, her legs tightening around me in a silent plea to spear the rest of the way inside of her.

I do. Of course, I do.

To resist would be impossible. I need her like the air I breathe. I need to feel her around me and have her body as close to mine as physically possible.

So, I give her the rest of me, and we sigh together in relief.

I don’t draw it out. I don’t make slow, sweet love to her the way I probably should. My thrusts are wild and furious as I fuck her against the wall. The noises I’m making are savage and untamed, and hers are just as bad.

Water pours over us like we’ve been caught in a rainstorm, but we hardly notice. We’re too caught up in the monumentality of the moment to pay it any mind at all.

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