Page 75 of Beneath the Surface

He said to keep it a secret. To be a good girl. That people wouldn’tget it. He said all the things I was too young to understand but desperate to feel. My chest pulls tight, the thought threatening to tear into the present. But that son of a bitch has taken enough of my happy moments, so I’ll try like hell to make it so he can’t take this one too.

Debris crumbles off the walls I’ve built, knocked down by the stampede of emotion coursing through my veins. There are a thousand different things to feel, and I don’t know which one to grasp onto, so I surrender to all of them instead.

Alex loves me.

I dive into his mouth, hoping to show him everything I don’t know how to say. Like always, thoughts creep in the back of my mind, but I let the echo of his words bat them away, sinking into the moment, desperate to feel his skin on mine. To prove to me that my worries were unfounded.

I’m choosing to believe him.

I’m choosing totrust.

We’re both soaking wet, our bodies sticking together, slippery from the water that’s coating our skin. But it doesn’t matter. All I care about is losing myself in him.

Because the truth is, I think I love him too.

My tongue skims along the inside of his lips, his taste flooding through every sense until I’m delirious with need. His fingers dig into the sides of my face, a rumble vibrating through my body as he groans into my mouth. He moves, stepping up until he’s level with me, twisting us until my back slams into the metal railing of the staircase, a twinge shooting up my spine.

He pushes his hips into me, his hard cock grinding into my stomach. Arousal spears through my center, my insides clenching around nothing, craving for him to fill all my empty space—for him to show me through action what he said with his words.

Because I need to know what it’ssupposedto feel like.

My hands cup the sides of Alex’s face, relishing in the feel of his stubble as it scratches against my fingers. Letting his stature wrap me in its strength and ground me in the present.

“Fuck,Lily,” he moans. “I was so worried you—”

“Ssh.” I cut him off with my lips, not wanting to hear him speak, needing for him to fuck away the nightmares that come along with tender touches.

His palms leave my cheeks, working their way down my body until he grips underneath my ass, hoisting me up, my legs wrapping around his waist. My core clenches when I feel his thick erection settle between my legs. My arms wrap around his neck and I lean back as he thrusts against me, the rain beating down on our bodies the same way his love beats down on my soul.

“Let me take you inside,” he rasps.

My legs squeeze against him tighter as I start to grind my clothed pussy on his cock. He groans, his hand cupping the back of my head and pulling me into him.

“Take me, then,” I say, my tongue licking along the seam of his lips.

“JesusChrist, Lily.”

And then he’s moving, jumping the stairs two at a time and rushing down the hallway. I giggle into his neck when we reach my door, and he fumbles, trying to maneuver my body to grab the keys from my back pocket. He pulls them free, the lock clicking just as I take his mouth with mine, our tongues tangling, a balloon ofwantexpanding deep in my stomach. His fingers curl into the cheeks of my ass as he stumbles through the door, kicking it closed behind him, and walking us through the living room.

He breaks away from our kiss and throws me onto the couch, my body bouncing off the cushions. Wasting no time, he rips his soaking wet shirt over his head, his tatted muscles rippling from the movement.

My eyes glaze over, warmth spreading through my chest.

Maybe after the passion has died down and I come back to my senses, I’ll feel embarrassed at the fact that we’re relegated to trysts in living rooms or in his motel. That I don’t even have a mattress for us to sleep on.

But that’s the thing about Alex. Heseesme for what I am, and here he is loving me anyway.

He wraps his arms around me, my stomach somersaulting as he picks me up and lays me on the floor, his hands making quick work of my clothes. Once he has me stripped to my panties, he leans down, hovering over me. Chills dance across my stomach as the rainwater dries off my skin.

His mouth presses against mine, desire spreading through me like a heatwave. He moves, his lips and tongue making pathways down my body. Lust swims in my veins, my chest heaving, and my head growing foggy. And then I make the mistake of looking down. The vision of his head between my legs flipping a switch, my mind retreating so I don’t have to remember the past. Of a time whereanotherdark head of hair was dipping between my thighs, back when I was too young to know what it meant.

Numbness coasts over my body, and I float just outside of it, watching things happening but notfeelingit. A bystander to my own experience, everything muted from where I’m watching behind my darkened shield.

A sharp sting on my inner thigh slices up my insides, sling shotting to the forefront of my brain, bringing me back. I let out a squeak of pain, my eyes lasering in on where Alex nipped the skin with his teeth. It pulses and throbs, blood rushing to welt under the surface, my eyes watering, but my pussy spasms from the pain.

“Eyes on me, baby,” Alex says, his palms rubbing the inside of my legs. He presses a kiss to where his teeth left a mark, soothing the ache. “It’s just you and me, yeah? I need you to stay with me.”

I nod, emotion swelling in my throat because he’s asking for something that I don’t know if I can give. “Alex, I don’t think I can—”

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