Page 90 of Anger

“No. That’s not how it works. I don’t pay for sex, remember?”

Pausing, he meets my stare, holds it, trapping me in place so that I listen and believe what he’s telling me.

“You don’t fuck for money either. I apologize for ever accusing you of that.”

Relaxing a little at his explanation, I try to turn off my mind to stop the surge of questions. My trust issues have always kept me from letting go around men, wary of all the horrible things my mother told me could happen.

The way she ran all the time … always attempting to save her children from some unknown danger. I never want to be hurt like her … or run scared. I never want to feel I have to run constantly to escape the inescapable.

Mom taught me never to let anyone close.

Especially men.

It’s a cage that wraps around my heart like barbed wire, never letting go.

“And I’m supposed to trust you on that? I don’t trust people. That’s not my thing. Most men just want to—“

He presses his thumb against my lips to shut me up.

“We all have our scars,” he says, repeating the words I said to him at the club, “And I’m not most men.”

My breath catches at that hard truth.

I do have scars, and my trust issues are a major part of them.

“Do you want me to stop?”

No.

Don’t you fucking dare.

Don’t leave it to me to make the choice and be left the one to blame for the consequences.

Struggling against all the worries and choices and the unshakable independence I’ve always demanded of myself, I take a deep breath and shove away those thoughts.

I want to feel this.

My bodywantsthis.

It’s just my mind that screams out in warning that I could get hurt.

With a shake of my head, I pull him to me because there was never a choice to begin with.

The universe shoved us together, and our scars entangled, making it impossible for us to pull apart.

Our fate is somehow written in the stars, the ghosts of our pasts locking hands the day we first spoke to each other, a bond that may never be broken.

My decision is made regardless of the consequences.

“Show me your tricks, Damon. Just shut up and show me.”

His eyes hold mine as he slowly moves his hands down my arms, his thumbs just barely brushing my nipples as he drops them lower to trace his fingers along my bare stomach.

Sparks burst across my skin where he touches me, my thighs clenching tight against his body.

Letting go to the sensation, I become distinctly aware of every stroke of his fingertips, every spot where his lips gently kiss me along my jaw and down my neck.

I move to touch him as well, but he catches my wrists again, his voice so deep and soft that I shiver at the sound of it.

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