Page 154 of Swallow Your Sorries

Elle.

My Elle.

Last night’s memories come flooding back to me.

So she wasn’t a hallucination.

She was real, and she’d spent the night in my arms.

I should shove her away for that reckless shit she said to piss me off about Zedd and Hale’s dicks, but I can’t waste this opportunity to be near her. I love it when she fights, curses, and runs, but I can’t help the comfort that overcomes me at just having her warm naked body relaxed and pressed against mine.

I stroke her hair away from both of our faces, revealing her peaceful expression. She’s so fucking beautiful. Painfully so and she doesn’t even know it. She has no clue about the amount of power she wields over me in her tiny little palm. The power to piss me off so badly my eyes bleed red. The power to make my cock so hard, I can cum without touching myself. The power to relax and calm me, syncing our hearts and breaths and grounding me back to earth when it feels like my spirit is ready to flee with my mother’s.

I tuck a strand behind her ear and she stirs, burrowing her head deeper into my chest.

How much of my breakdown did she see exactly? How much of it was internal? How much of it had I reenacted in my dreams?

How bad was it?

Sometimes it was bad enough to disturb Étienne, and that said enough in and of itself. Had I frightened her? If I had, it clearly hadn’t been enough for her to leave, not that I would’ve let her. Not if I was manic enough. I’d fought Étienne and Bae before. I’d given them black eyes and knots on their foreheads.

For a second I begin to panic at the thought, but as I gaze down at my baby, she looks perfect as always. Untouched.

I cradle her closer, knowing that as soon as she rises, she’ll want nothing to do with me. So I watch her, counting every sparse freckle on her cheeks, every eyelash, every twitch of her lips until she stirs and blinks, her eyes adjusting to the light, then to me.

Immediately she shoves at my chest, but I keep a firm lock around her waist. I should let her go, but I won’t.

“What…what’s going on?” She looks around the greenhouse frantically, then at me again. In seconds I can see the realisation blooming in her eyes before they squeeze shut. “I’m so fucked.We’reso fucked. Ms. Trix—” She tries to get up, but I pin her to me like my little doll she said she was. My safety blanket I’d held all night. Rolling over, I pin her hips with my cock and use her tits as a pillow.

“Let me go! I bet half the school’s looking for us!”

“Bae and Étienne will cover for me. Aria will do the same for you,” I say calmly.

“How are you so sure? I don’t have any besties here like you,” she huffs. “You made sure of it.Let go of me.I have to get back.”

“Stop bucking against me or I’ll return the favour,” I say, pressing forward so her sweet pussy kisses my head. Immediately she stops squirming, growing as frigid as a board. “What’s done is done.”

After a long minute, she asks, “What happened to you last night?”

So she hadn’t witnessedthatmuch.

“I saw a ghost,” I murmur, and it isn’t too far from the truth, but she pinches my ass.

“Your mother?” she asks tentatively.

I nod, jiggling her tit beneath my head. Without thinking, I lick her right nipple that’s even with my mouth and suck on it. With her holding me in the cradle of her thighs, her pussy soaking my head and her hard nipple pacifying my tongue, I’ve never felt calmer.

Elle is my calm, my peace, and my torment.

“Does she haunt your dreams regularly?”

I release her nipple with a pop, burying my head in the crease that separates her breasts. It’s so warm.

“It depends.”

I don’t elaborate. In fact, I’m surprised I’m sharing this much at all.

The last thing I ever wanted was to talk about my mother with Elle. I wanted to make her pay. I wanted to transfer my pain to her entirely. I didn’t want to share it.

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