Page 50 of The Devil and His Ghost

The air thickened with a new presence. I didn’t need to look to see who now stood beside the bed. I’d recognize his spicy yet calming scent and the awareness he conjured anywhere.

“Still awake?” Xander asked. He perched on the edge of the bed, one leg bent while the other draped off the side.

Catsper, being the perceptive feline that he was, must’ve sensed the loaded, near-bursting tension filling the room, because with a final meow, he leapt through the air and disappeared. Maybe he wanted to give Xander and I privacy to unpack whatever was between us.

“Yeah. You’d think I’d be exhausted after such a busy day, but I just can’t seem to fall asleep,” I confessed. I accidentally looked sideways at him. I didn’t want or mean to catch his eye, yet our gazes caught and held. The golden eyes with their vertical slit held me prisoner, and the intensity flaring to life within them loosened my tongue until I stammered, “I—I’m sorry about earlier. I don’t … I mean, I want … It’s just—”

“You don’t need to explain, Kendyll.” Xander reached out to thread his clawed fingers through mine. “We don’t have to do anything you’re not ready for.”

“It’s not that I’m not ready or that I don’t want it. I do. I just …”

I stared at our woven hands. Two sets of pale fingers with black nails overlapping, only mine was nail polish whereas his were very real claws. Yet I’d never been afraid of those sharp talons. I’d never feared him or his touch. It was always the opposite with him. He’d always been soothing. His presence was peace. I wanted his touch. I craved it. But I was terrified of giving into that voice of desire and ruining my one form of safety.

I squeezed my fingers tighter around his. I couldn’t manage to form actual words, so my desperate warring thoughts came out in that one gesture.

“Do you trust me?” Xander asked.

I looked up at him. An immediate response formed in my head, but instead of giving voice to those words, I simply nodded.

“Do you ever explore sex on your own?”

“What do you mean?” I asked stupidly.

“Do you ever explore your own body? Touch it, learn it, love it?”

I swallowed hard, the questions equally shameful and repulsive. “No.”

I held my breath in anticipation for the follow up questions that I assumed would trail my answer. I braced myself for the probing into my fears and my thinking, a scenario that would take me back to Dr. Roberts office and the worn fabric of the smelly chair that sat across from his. I cringed while waiting for the questions that would only set me back further rather than pull me toward Xander and where we wanted to go.

Xander studied me. I wasn’t sure if he saw my mounting unease over his inevitable queries. Whether it was because he knew that look on my face too well or something else, he didn’t pry.

Instead, he brought my hand up to his face. The fingers that had been woven through mine moved to cup the back of my hand while his other held my wrist. He gently kissed the heel of my hand, causing a warm shiver to skate down my back. His light kiss moved to the center of my palm. Warm breath fanned the sensitive flesh between his parted lips. I bit down on my own lip while watching him with rapt attention. His kiss moved higher along my hand so that he slowly peppered kisses to each of my slender fingers, which twitched after each pass of his mouth.

With his lips still dancing along my fingers, his gaze lifted to meet mine. “Would you like to?”

My heart beat dangerously fast, and my hand burned as though exposed to the bright sun. That heat funneled from where he held and kissed me to cascade down my arm and through the rest of my body. It settled like a heavy cinder right at my center, but that feeling quickly mingled with trepidation.

My mouth opened and closed uselessly for many moments before I managed to whisper, “I’m scared.”

“Of?”

My lips pressed firmly together. I couldn’t put my fears into words. Not right now. Not yet.

After countless moments of my silence, he instead asked, “Does this feel okay?” He gestured to where he kissed the tips of my fingers.

I took a moment to think about the question, though I didn’t really need to. I nodded.

“Does it feel good?”

I swallowed the sand filling my mouth and nodded once more.

“Anything you do will feel just like that. Better, even. Pleasure can be whatever you want it to be, and the experiences will be your choice. Exploring yourself lets you control everything. How little or big. How deep or shallow. How hard or light. Self-pleasure is a gift to yourself, and the more you do it, the smaller that fear will become.”

I licked my dry lips and hugged my free arm around my bent knees. “Do you touch yourself?”

“I do,” he answered earnestly.

I’d never experienced true sexual urges. I didn’t know what that was like or how it would make me feel. Did I want to kiss Xander? Yes. Was I attracted to him? Without a doubt. I wasn’t sure what went beyond that.