AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“You sound absolutely perfect.”
I had never felt love before. I had just never had it in my life.
If someone were to ask me, I couldn’t tell them what it felt like. Its smell, its taste, the feeling and warmth was all new to me, and it was now tied to the man currently making me breakfast as I showered in his bathroom.
I had always imagined love to be in the little things. Your favorite cake baking in the oven when you come home from school. A soothing hug of comfort when you’re feeling down. The smell of bacon and eggs someone was cooking you for breakfast. The warmth and security of knowing you are accepted and wanted because someone who loved you did those things for you out of love.
I had never had that.
Affection was never an emotion my father harvested towards me. There was only deception and disdain in his eyes. I learned to see myself as he did.
He blamed me for my mother’s death, and in a way, I did, too. He never found it in his heart to forgive me even though I was nothing but a helpless baby.
There was always someone else taking care of me. How he paid those bills was still a mystery to this day. But somehow those women never stuck around for long. They stopped showing up as soon as I learned how to make my own cereal when I was six.
I did everything I could to keep out of his way. I avoided being in the same space as him like the plague. He never had a kind word to say, and that was on a good day. Being locked up in a closet for the whole night, or even for the entire weekend, was a kind reprieve from the basement of the drug store he worked at.
His words of unworthiness still haunted me as I hadn’t learned how to free myself from measuring my worth by his standards. They still affected me. They tore me to pieces and made me wish every day that I had a different life. Or none at all.
So being here today, accepting the fact that maybe I deserve happiness, was an enormous step. I felt wanted and accepted, safe in Liam’s arms, even after the stupid shit I did last night.
I locked all those feelings in their little box, drying off before sauntering into the living room, watching Liam as he finished up breakfast. He was humming and swaying to the sound of the music playing on his speaker, and again, I was stuck staring and feeling. Feeling so, so much.
Liam met me with a smile as soon as he sensed my presence. It illuminated his face, his eyes shining brighter than stars.
“I like my clothes a lot better on you.” He teased, his eyes raking over my body from head to toe, stepping closer towards me as he took my figure in. Hooking an arm around my waist, Liam pulled me into his grasp, swaying me along with him to the uplifting tune.
How this was my life was beyond me. Happiness that didn’t fit in my little body wasn’t something I was used to.
I let my lips find his, our kiss immediately deepening as Liam’s hands roamed freely down my body, a palm squeezing my ass while pushing my hips firmly against his groin. My body’s reaction to him was instant, the heat of his touch setting me ablaze.
“Are you that hungry?” Liam pulled back after my stomach growled in contempt, the emptiness and the smell of breakfast pausing his advances.
“The smell of burning bacon always gets me going.” I chuckled, watching as Liam ran to the oven, trying to save it. His laughter filled the space while he turned towards me with a plate filled with charcoaled pieces of bacon.
“Bacon a la Vesuvio. My specialty.” He said, laughing harder, and I couldn’t help but join. “Take a seat while I fix us some bacon we can actually digest.”
We sat in a comfortable silence, having breakfast together, with a familiarity that made it seem we had been doing this forever.
It was strange seeing Liam so carefree as if last night had unlocked something in him. But it was a side of him I was enjoying seeing.
I watched him munch on his food, my eyes permanently locked on him, studying his tattoo. The woman and the skull with the butterfly over their mouths, wondering what on Earth it meant. I noticed one more running the length of his arm. A phrase scribbled in cursive handwriting that I couldn't figure out.
“Checking me out again, Miss Harden?” Liam’s eyes held amusement, that sly grin back on his perfect face, the one that made me blush for being caught again. There was no denying it, though.
“It’s hard not to when you’re walking around like that!” I gestured to the lack of a shirt.
“Should I throw something on?”
“Don’t bother on my account. I’m pretty pleased with the view as it is.” I confessed before hiding behind my coffee cup, taking a slow sip. “I was actually admiring your tattoos. They’re beautiful. What does it say?”
“Perdonare sì dimenticare mai. It means ‘Forgive yes, forget never.”
“Is there a story behind it?”
“Something like that,” Liam said, his eyes displaying something like discomfort.
“Who is she?” I dared to ask the question I feared the answer to. I was hoping it didn’t represent anyone real, anyone important enough to have marked on your skin for life. What other parts of him had that woman scarred, too?
