The scars …
My fingers drop down, tracing a ridged line of pink flesh. Beast follows the motion, but he doesn’t acknowledge it. Instead, he moves forward on the bed, reaching out to take my knees and pushing them apart.
“I spent a lot of time figuring how this might go,” he admits, staring at the white lace thong I’m wearing, the one with a simple split down the center for easy access. “I waited not so patiently. I watched you fuck other men.” His blue eyes lift to mine, the light catching on his septum piercing and his dirty blond hair as he takes me in. “I touched myself every night thinkin’ o’ you, sugar.”
He runs his fingers down the thigh-highs tucked into my white motorcycle boots. Ironically, they cover the best parts of my legs and leave the scarred parts bare. I figure that’s okay though, right? Now my thighs match the shape and texture of my heart.
“You’re a sadistic bastard,” I whisper as Beast turns his head, rubbing his stubbled cheek against the softness of the thigh-highs. The whispering sound of his roughness against that gentle lace, it gives me chills. “You organized that gang bang in the living room.”
My voice is almost accusatory, and Beast picks up on it, smiling more to himself than he is to me. With the curtains and blinds shut on both windows, it’d be near pitch-black in here if it weren’t for the almost disturbingly lovely pair of lamps on either side of the bed.
They’ve got glass shades, Tiffany style or something. Guess not all of Crown’s taste is bad.
As carefully as he did that night on the sofa in my grandmother’s living room, Beast removes first one of my boots, and then the other. I’m glad now that I put them on, just so he could take them off. It’s the sense of anticipation in all of this that makes it fun.
“I want you to choose me,” Beast says, and not in the past tense, like it’s already done, but like it has yet to happen. He crawls forward so that his hands are on either side of me and I’m sliding down the mountain of pillows to lie flat on my back.
My heart is on fucking fire. My chest burns. Old Gidget is breaking into pieces, and someone new is emerging from the ash. Not yet. But I’m clawing my way out of the grit, one desperate handhold at a time.
“Choose you …” I start, trailing off, studying him. It’s hard to think clearly with him hovering over me the way he is, his bare chest within reach, the rest of his gorgeous body swathed in denim. My only complaint right now is that there isn’t a cheap, seedy mirror on the ceiling so I could watch his ass while he fucks me. “I do choose you, Catcher,” I say, thinking about how he said he was going to take me to Tennessee and show me off. “I married you.”
He gives a shake of his head, still watching me from a ruggedly handsome face. I keep joking about how all the boys are old and shit, but this is timeless beauty. I rest my hands on either of his cheeks, teasing my fingers up and into his hair. It’s styled the way it always is, a very particular sort of way for someone who doesn’t seem all that concerned with his appearance.
A slight smile curves my lips as I purposefully muss up that perfect hair, but it slips right off when I realize that Beast hasn’t actually replied to me. He’s still thinking, staying quiet the way he does sometimes.
“What if I told you that this was it?” he asks me, and the question is like a stake to the heart.
I start to feel sick; I start to panic.
“You and me?” I query back, and he licks his lower lip.
“You and me, wife. Just us.”
I look away for a moment because I can’t possibly think clearly with him staring at me like that.
“That’s a hard pill to swallow,” I admit, and even though he tries to hide it from me, I can feel him tensing. His emotions are written into every line of his body, whether he wants to admit it or not. I let myself have a minute before turning back. Both of my hands come up to slide over Beast’s muscular shoulders, tracing one of his tattoos with a fingernail. “Because that would mean it was just me, vulnerable and open in front of you with nobody else around. That terrifies me. I’m not sure I can handle that.”
“Which part of it?” he grumbles, lowering himself onto me. His mouth finds mine, and then his tongue is just there, and it’s hot, and I’m having trouble remembering what we’re even talking about. “Gidge.”
