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My dick grew fat and hard as lust kicked up a path through my veins.
I needed more. I needed all of her.
I licked at the seam of her lips. She gasped as she opened, and I stroked my tongue into the hot well of her mouth.
I inhaled, and fuck, she was the sweetest thing. Soft against allmy hard. I pressed myself closer, needing to disappear into the goodness of who she was.
Wanting to forget for a little while, too.
Who I was and why I could never really have her.
Except she suddenly froze beneath me.
Brittle, shattered stone.
Then she started fucking shaking.
Shaking and shaking.
Getting slammed by some kind of panic attack. Her terror was palpable as it zipped across her flesh.
I ripped myself back, and I pressed my hands to the door on either side of her head as I searched her face. She squeezed her eyes closed in an effort to keep me from seeing.
From seeing the tears and the grief.
“Charleigh.”
That violence hit me anew, but I tried to keep it tapped, to keep from scaring her more, though I couldn’t keep my voice from cutting like razors as I set my cheek against hers. My words were panted into the straining air. “Need you to tell me one thing…are you afraid of me or are you afraid of being touched?”
I edged back so I could see whatever was written in her expression.
And this sweet fuckin’ girl blinked up at me through bleary eyes and whispered, “I’m afraid that I want you to touch me.”
Fuck. I wanted to go on a rampage. Start a fucking war. Destroy the bastard who’d put that look on her face.
Because I knew.
I fuckin’ knew.
I stepped back enough that I could take her by the left hand and raise her arm above her head. The willowy fabric of her shirt gave, and the sleeve slipped down and revealed the nearly healed tattoo that she’d kept concealed there the entire afternoon.
I brushed my lips along the line of words, like I might be able to carry a little of what they meant.
Then I stepped back and murmured, “Go inside and lock the door, Charleigh.”
She stared at me for one long beat of indecision before she turned away from me, her body trembling as she finally found her keys in her purse, metal clanging as she fitted it into the lock.
She didn’t look back when she slipped inside, and I didn’t move until I heard the metal click back into place.
SIXTEEN
CHARLEIGH
Trembling,I pressed my back to the interior side of my door, my breaths rasping from my aching lungs as I tried to orient myself. To steady the fear that continued to pump through my bloodstream.
My fingertips found my lips that felt seared.
Branded by his kiss.
