Page 105 of Corrupted Deception

He looked at me, not speaking.

Well, it was too late to put the cat back in the bag now.

“I don’t know if I fell really fast—that is the way I tend to do things.” I scoffed, rolling my eyes. “Or if I just never stopped. And I know this is more than sex for you too… which is why it can’t work. I’ll end up hurting you.”

He cocked an eyebrow at me while the corners of his lips twitched. “You’re strong,tempesta. And skilled—I’ll give you that. But you don’t really think—”

“That’s not what I mean,” I cut in, then shook off his loose hold on me and sidestepped to the coffeemaker. “Bruises heal. Other shit… doesn’t. It stays with you,” I tried to explain.

He came up behind me, but he was silent, giving me room to breathe, to think, to be. He’d always been good at that. He’d always been this quiet place where I could just be. No worrying about misreading social cues, no rushing out my thoughts before they were fully formed or cringing when the wrong ones fell out. He just accepted… me.

“Of all the shitty things my mom did,” I began when I’d wrangled my thoughts into something that resembled coherence, “it’s the betrayal that stuck. My dad forced her into… ‘Declan-approved rehab’, but even after she was clean, I refused to see her. By the time I did…”

I shook my head, remembering my first visit to the long-term care facility after her stroke.

“It’s because of her that I left, and I should be grateful for it. She sent me running to my dad who made a huge difference in my life.”

Thoughts of my dad made a lump form at the back of my throat, and I had to swallow it back as I finally turned to face Cielo.

“But part of me still hates her,” I admitted quietly. “I don’t want you to end up hating me like that.”

His brow furrowed. “I was angry when you left, but I neverhatedyou, and I understand—”

I held up a hand and shook my head. “No, you don’t.”

I hopped my ass up onto the counter, putting distance between us, but he kept coming, parting my thighs and stepping between them. His boxers did little to hide the erection beneath them, making my mouth water and my pussy clench in glee. He was so close.

Just fuck him. It would be so much easier… feel so good.

“You don’t understand,” I said, feeling like I had to physically shove the words out, grappling for a way to make him understand. Fortunately, my therapist had explained it once in a way that made sense.

“That quiet voice everyone has in their head that tells them to give in, to seek out immediate gratification?” I said, forcing my eyes upward. “That voice in my head is louder. It screams instead of whispers, making it more difficult to ignore, sometimes drowning out the other, more rational parts of my brain. And while I’ve learned all kinds of tips and tricks to keep it fairly under control most of the time, I… slip. I give in to impulsive things, like skydiving, like BASE jumping and racing… like sex.”

He went perfectly still, his eyes boring into me. “That’s what you’re worried about?—that you’ll cheat on me?” he said, his brow furrowed like the puzzle that had just come together was some fucked up Picasso.

I scoffed. “Why do you think I stick to fucking strangers?” I rolled my eyes, more at myself than him. “Even then, I’ve been known to make some pretty bad decisions.” I said, thinking of that one completely screwed up night with Aiden after he’d brought my dad back to the village in Africa.

Cielo kept looking at me. His gaze was intense, but it felt like he was looking inward, not outward.

“You won’t,” he said, but I could feel the way the words came as a surprise even to him.

“You can’t know that.”

He shook his head and leaned in closer. While he was still sporting a full-fledged hard-on and I was wet enough to promise the smoothest glide of a lifetime, this didn’t feel sexual. Or maybe it did, but… more—whatever that meant.

“I thought I couldn’t know that—that I couldn’t trust you,” he admitted. “I can’t read you, and that’s a problem for me. Then last night, I trusted you with my life. I just… did it. And after, I realized I didn’t need to be able to read you. ‘Trust’ isn’t knowing all the answers. It’s not knowing them, and trusting anyway.”

“But I’m giving you the answer, Cielo. Iwillhurt you.”

He sighed, then leaned back far enough to grab his phone from the breakfast bar. He swiped across the screen and held it out to me.

“I understand your difficulty with impulse control,” he said as a page all about FASD appeared on the screen. Still holding the phone out to me, he flipped from one page to the next, to the next, a few of them about understanding fetal alcohol spectrum disorder and the rest about supporting someone with FASD.

My heart clenched harder.

“How did you know?” I asked, feeling like maybe I’d done a piss-poor job of containing it if it had been that obvious.

He shook his head as he set his phone back down and stepped back between my thighs.

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