Page 51 of The Withering Dawn
“Is it always rough? Do they always beg?”
She watched me, eager to know, but I could not help wanting to keep some things to myself. Her eyes looked so innocent though I knew she had seen enough to drive a person mad. Enough that she had talked about death in more than one conversation like it was the ultimate escape from the horrors she’d faced.
“Most of the time,” I answered. “Not always.”
She nodded and still, she didn’t seem upset by what I was saying and for some ungodly reason, it made my desire grow.
“Aeris, I hunger for you,” I confessed. “But if you see a good man in me, you are mistaken. You only see the surface. When I am with a woman, there is a wall there. I built it very high. But with you? I cannot…” I trailed off, watching her expression go unchanged as if she’d mastered hiding everything she felt from prying eyes.
She had walls, too.
She lowered her eyes and shifted onto her knees, sitting back on her ankles in front of me. Her hand extended, taking mine so she could run her thumb gently over my scarred knuckles, touching me with care like she always did.
“If this means you don’t want to touch me again, I understand.”
“What? No. You misunderstand. I want you. I have wanted you for days. I… cannot even say everything that goes through my thoughts. It may frighten you.”
She cocked her head, her brows drawing together again. “I may be scared of many things, but never of you. I want to hear your darkest truth.”
I scoffed, rubbing the tension from my forehead. How on Earth did this small, seemingly frail woman disarm me?
“Perhaps it is not my darkest truth, but it is my truth,” I said, turning to meet her eyes. “And perhaps I am twisted for wanting it, but you are untouched. I want to be your first, Aeris. I want to be youronly. I will never take what is not given, but that is what I want. I wantyou. I don’t care what you are. To me, you are beautiful and broken and every wound and scar makes you even more stunning. I want your tears. Your smiles. All of it. I want it all to be mine.”
Her face fell flat again like she could not settle on an expression. Or perhaps she was hiding again. I was beginning to get frustrated at how skilled she was with pretending not to feel when she wanted to. I wanted her to feel. I wanted to affect her the way she affected me. My cock began to stir at the thought of cutting through her defenses the way she had burrowed past mine.
“Aeris, what you’ve been through will be with you forever. I know—”
“Yes.”
“What?”
“Yes. I want all those things. I want you to be the first. The only. I want to stay with you.”
The serenity that washed across her face when she said that filled me with warmth. God, I wanted her. I wanted her so badly that my body physically ached. My heart throbbed.
Taking another deep breath, I decided that she deserved all of me. And more than that, she deserved to know I was completely under her spell, even if she had not tried to cast one on me. There was a part of me that could be what she needed, and I wanted to show it to her.
I climbed to my feet, lightly pulling on her hand so she would stand, too.
“Come with me,” I said. “I will be a far more dangerous man tomorrow. Tonight, I will be what you need me to be.”
I led Aeris toward my quarters, my heart thrumming loudly in my chest in a way she could likely hear. It beat out of eagerness, but there was also an air of nervous anticipation because Aeris was not some whore who was going to walk away with my coin afterwards. She was a woman I knew and respected and I desperately wanted to be the start of her good memories. She had never known anyone to show her mercy. She did not know a trustworthy hand or an honest face. She had never known someone to protect her. Someone to make sure she was eating. Someone to ask if she was alright.
I wanted to be all of those things to her and I wanted her to be my reason to be tender. The reason for me to give instead of take. To heal instead of shatter.
I could not pretend the sick darkness that swelled in my soul, always clamoring to get to the surface, did not still exist. The sickness that wanted tears. Pleading cries. Desperate moans. The dark part of me that wanted to be the punishing hand just to hide the memories of being the one under it. That was not the version of me that I wanted Aeris to know, though, and I prayed I could give her the part of me that I’d never shown another soul.
I closed and locked the door behind us, still clutching Aeris’s petite hand in mine. Once in the dim candlelight, I turned to her, taking a few deep breaths before releasing her and shrugging off my coat.
Aeris turned to look at me, innocence and curiosity brightening her features. I released her hand, stepping into her space to admire it all for a moment before I spoke.
“Touch me,” I said.
She blinked, her lips parting with wonder. “How?”
“However you want. Learn me the way I want to learn you. I am yours to explore.”
After a few moments of thought, her gaze began to move down my body. She glimpsed my lips, lingering there for a moment, and then descended along my neck to my chest, her eyes paying special attention to the way my shirt was unlaced and plunged low, showing plenty of skin. She slowly stepped toward me, focusing on that visible bit of chest. Nervous as she might have been, she was also fearless. She raised her hand, her fingers tracing down the divot between my pectorals so lightly it almost tickled. Her eyes flitted upward as if quietly asking if she could go on and inside, I was begging her to.
