Fueled (Page 75)

As he consumes me. Pleasures me. Undoes me.

God, she’s fucking gorgeous. I can’t help but reach out and pull a curl off of her cheek. The feeling—that fucking foreign feeling that’s not so foreign any more—courses through me, grabs me by the balls and then hands them back to me on a platter.

Makes fear shiver at the base of my spine in a constant state of reverberation.

My fingers linger on her shoulder, touching her to make sure she’s real. There’s no possible way that she can be. She scares the fuck out of me. That not so foreign feeling scares the fuck out of me. But I can’t force myself to walk away. From that very first encounter I haven’t been able to. Shit, at first it was definitely the challenge. That smart mouth, those violet eyes, and the sway of that ass—what red-blooded male would have?

Christ. Tell me I can’t have something, I’m sure as fuck going to go after it until I get it. Game on. I’m in it until the motherfucking checkered flag.

But then, that first time I showed up at The House—that look in her eyes that told me to get the fuck out and to not mess with her Zander or she’d take me down herself—everything changed. Shifted. Became real. The challenge ceased to exist. All I saw in that moment was myself as a kid. Myself now. Knew that she loved the broken in us. Was okay with the darkness because she was so full of fucking light. Knew she’d understand so much more than I’d ever be able to say.

That selfless soul of hers and come-fuck-me body just pulled at me, twisted through parts inside of me that I thought had died and would never regenerate. Made me feel when I’ve been so content to live in the blur around me. I mean who really does the shit she does? Takes fucked up kids—lots of fucked up kids—and treats them as her own. Defends them. Loves them. Fights for them. Is willing to make a deal with the devil such as myself for their benefit.

That day in the conference room when I trapped her into my little deal, I could see the trepidation and the knowledge that I’d hurt her in those fucking bedroom eyes, and as much as she knew it, she agreed for the sake of the boys, regardless of the damage it’d cause to her personally. And of course I’m a fucking bastard for wondering the whole time how sweet her pussy would taste. I mean if her kiss was that fucking addictive, then I couldn’t even imagine how the rest of her body would drug me. She’s sacrificing herself for her boys, and there I was thinking of my end game.

And that in itself fucked me up, forced me to keep my guard up. I knew she was going to let me have her, but had no fucking clue that first time together—when she looked at me with such a definitive clarity afterward—that she’d be able to look right into my goddamn soul. It freaked me the fuck out, stirred things within me I never wanted churned up again. Things I had accepted living a lifetime without. No one knows the things I did—the things I allowed to be done to me. The poison living inside. How I loved and hated and did unimaginable things for reasons I didn’t understand at the time and still don’t understand now.

And I fear every minute of every fucking day that she’ll figure it out, learn about the truths inside of me and then leave me so much worse off than she found me. She’s unlocked things in me I’d never intended to allow to see the light of day again. She pushes the concept of vulnerability to a whole new level.

But I can’t push her away. I can’t stop wanting to for her sake. But every time I try—every time I crack and she sees a glimpse of my demons—I’m scared shitless. God, I try to make her leave—even if it’s only in my fucked up head—but I’m never successful. And I’m just not sure if it’s because she’s stubborn or because it’s a half-assed attempt on my part just so I can tell myself I actually tried.

I know what’s best for her is not me. Shit, last night…last night was…fuck. I handed myself to her. Told her I’d try when every part of me screamed in protest from the fear of being ripped to shreds by allowing myself to feel. I’ve always used pleasure to bury the pain. Not emotions. Not commitment. Pleasure. How else can I prove to myself that I’m not that kid I was forced to be? It’s the only way I know. The only way I can cope. Fuck the therapists who had no clue what happened to me. My parents wasted so much fucking money on people telling me how to overcome the issues they thought I had. That I could use hypnosis to regress and overcome. Fuck that. Give me a tight, wet, willing pussy to bury myself in momentarily and that’s all the proof I need.

Pleasure to bury the pain. So what do I do now? How do I cope with the one person that I fear can give me both? And she does, yet I still hurt her last night. I have a feeling I always will in some way or another. At some point she’s just going to stop forgiving or coming back. Then what, Donavan? What the fuck are you going to do then? If I’m broken now, I’ll be fucking shattered then.

I stare at her sleeping, so innocent and mine and fuck all why I can’t stay away from her. I’m scared shitless and she fucking did this to me. She fucking grabbed ahold, forced me to listen to the silent words she spoke, and really hear them. Now what the fuck am I supposed to do?

My God the way she looked at me last night with eyes filled with naivety and jaw set with obstinance, asking me if she was enough for me. First of all—fucking Tawny—and then secondly, enough? I’m the one that’s not enough. Not hardly. I’m fucking drowning in her, and I’m not even sure I want to come up for air. Enough? I shake my head at the irony. She stays despite, if not because of the darkness deep in my soul. A saint I’m not worthy of, shouldn’t taint.