AllFreeNovel
Share Us
‘No, of course not,’ I said, confused by the edge in his voice.
‘Are you sure?’ he said. ‘I just took you like a...’ The remark was cut off, but I could hear what he hadn’t said.
Like a whore.
But the edge
in his voice was aimed at him, not me, I realised. I remembered the way he had talked about his mother, the bitterness and anger in his voice when he had told me she was a prostitute. But all I could hear now was regret. Then I remembered the way he had jumped to my defence earlier in the evening. And what he had said.
You’re not your mother. And no one gets to judge you or insult you because of the mistakes she made. You’re worth so much more than that. Do you understand?
And I wondered again why he had defended me so passionately. Was it just me he was trying to defend, or himself?
I lifted up on my elbow, to see his face in the darkness—and the wariness and tension I saw had the emotion flooding back which I had been trying so hard to qualify, and control.
‘I love it when you take me like that,’ I said, desperate to reassure him. With such need, such urgency.
I wanted to add the words but held back, scared to burden him with my feelings—when I could see he was struggling with his own.
‘Okay, good,’ he murmured, then swept his hand down my hair. ‘Go to sleep,’ he said, pressing me down until my head rested against his shoulder.
I kissed his chest, grinning at his huff of breath.
‘Don’t do that or I’m going to want you again,’ he said, his voice strained. ‘And then neither of us is going to get any sleep.’
His appetite for me sent a thrill through my body, but the feeling of closeness thrilled me more.
‘Dante, can I ask you a question?’ I said, the darkness, the intimacy making me bolder than I had ever been.
‘Sure,’ he grunted, stroking my hair. ‘As long as you promise to go to sleep afterwards.’
‘What did your mother do that made you hate her so?’
His breathing stilled as he tensed and I regretted the probing question, knowing I had no right to ask it. But before I could take it back he answered me.
‘I told you. She was a prostitute,’ he murmured, but he didn’t sound bitter now, or angry; he simply sounded guarded.
‘I know,’ I said. ‘And that must have been terrible for both of you,’ I continued, wanting to understand; the life he had described to me sounded traumatic. ‘But...’
‘Why would it be terrible for her?’ he interrupted me. ‘She chose that life.’
‘How do you know that?’ I asked. ‘Surely very few people choose to be prostitutes,’ I added when he remained silent. ‘They do it out of desperation or addiction or coercion. Are you sure she wasn’t forced to make that choice?’ I said, wanting to ease his pain, because, beneath the harsh words, I could hear the ripple of insecurity.
He had given me so much in the past five days, by showing faith in me, by making me feel special and valued and important. And I wanted to do the same for him. Obviously his feelings for his mother were complex and their circumstances when he was growing up something I knew very little about. I couldn’t right the wrongs she may have done him. But being a prostitute, being forced to sell yourself for money didn’t make you a bad person; it didn’t mean his mother hadn’t loved him, any more than my mother’s search for love in all the wrong places meant she hadn’t loved me. People were complex, they could be weak and fickle, foolish and selfish, but there was almost always goodness in them too. And I had the strangest feeling when he spoke about his mother, he was also speaking about himself. I couldn’t tell him how I felt about him. It was too soon. Too much. But I wanted him to know how special he was, regardless.
‘How about we stop talking about her?’ he said at last, his open palm stroking my hair in an absent caress—but I could hear the edge in his voice again, and knew I’d gone too far, I’d overstepped the mark. ‘It’s a real buzzkill,’ he added. ‘And the truth is, I don’t hate her; I don’t even remember her that well.’
‘Okay,’ I said.
‘Hey?’ He shifted, his knuckle nudging my chin up. ‘Don’t look so sad. What happened to me as a kid is so long ago it doesn’t matter now.’ But I could hear the hollow tone, and the deafening thunder of his heartbeat beneath my ear, and I wondered if he was lying.
But then he rolled on top of me and the stiff weight of his erection brushed my thigh. The inevitable surge of blood rushed to my core.
‘And I’ve got something much more important to discuss,’ he said, his tone husky and assured again.
He was distracting me with sex, putting emotional distance between us, the way he had done right from the start. But as his lips captured mine in a demanding kiss and he angled my hips to slide the thick erection home, I gave myself up to the physical pleasure to stem the foolish wave of sadness.
My feelings were my own to handle and control—and, however much it might hurt in the long run, I would always be grateful for these brief, beautiful moments of connection. I had the vague realisation my mother had made the same brutal bargain—to trade sex for intimacy—but, before the disturbing thought could take root, he rocked his hips and surged deep. I cried out as the muscles of my sex clamped around his thick length, milking him in the throes of another earth-shattering orgasm.
