Page 64 of Corrupted Lies

While he suckled and flicked at her bud with his tongue, the tip of a finger teased her entrance. Needing more than what he was giving her, Alannah tried to shift to take his finger deeper, and Jake chuckled again, pressing his free hand down on her stomach to hold her in place.

“Stay still for me, sunshine,” he ordered, then his mouth was back on her, licking, sucking, and driving her wild.

Bit by bit, he slid a finger inside her, then lazily pumped it in and out. A second finger joined it, stretching her deliciously, and by the time a third was added, she was whimpering, thrashing, and pleading, begging for everything he had to give her.

Hooking his fingers so they grazed the spot inside her that she had been utterly convinced did not in fact exist, Alannah felt something brewing inside her. Much like the storms that had ravaged them in the ocean and last night in the shelter, it grew into something all-consuming.

No longer could she think, all she could do was feel.

Pressure built low in her belly as Jake continued to lavish attention on her willing and receptive body, then as it began to send out tendrils of pleasure to the rest of her, it just fizzled out and died.

Tears of frustration replaced her moans of delight, and her body went completely still. Jake had tried his best, but just like she’d told him, something was wrong with her.

She’d wanted to come.

So badly.

But she couldn’t.

Because she was broken.

Chapter

Fifteen

October 19th

8:56 A.M.

“I told you,” Alannah whispered in such a broken voice that it gutted him.

Jake had been so sure it was working. He could feel pleasure building inside her, it was plain to see on her flushed face and hear in her breathy moans, then all of a sudden it had vanished.

What her parents had done to her had messed with Alannah’s head in more ways than he’d realized.

And he wasn't sure he could help her find a way to undo it.

There was nothing he wouldn't do to help her, but in the end, she had to be the one to finally shrug off the way her parents had seen her and truly see herself.

That was her problem. When Alannah looked at herself, she didn't see the strong, vibrant, resilient, sunshiny woman who would go out of her way to help a person in need. Instead, she saw a baby not wanted by its parents, one they were constantly putting up against her sister, and then criticizing all the ways they didn't think she measured up. She saw the girl who couldnever do anything right, who never got any time or affection, who lived in old second-hand clothes discarded by their golden child. She saw the girl who was made to do all the chores around the house, who was punished for any imperfect grade at school, who wasn't allowed to have hobbies because they cost money that should go to the child they loved.

She saw a failure because even her own parents didn't want to love her.

How did he help her see herself as the woman she really was?

The woman he saw her to be.

“Don’t give up, sunshine,” he told her, holding her in place by gripping her hips with both of his hands when she tried to move out from underneath him. One of his hands shimmered with the evidence of how close she’d been to letting go and allowing herself to have the pleasure she so badly deserved.

“We tried, it failed.Ifailed,” she added as though that was how she truly saw it. Alannah had never been allowed to have time for fun as a child unless she was able to get away from her parents. Their cruel words and heartless attitudes to their second daughter had damaged her deeply, and he so badly wanted to help her heal those wounds.

“We didn't fail,” he corrected. “We had a little bump in the road, but that’s okay, we can just try again.” As far as he was concerned, he’d spend the rest of the day if that was what it took touching her until she finally let go of the barriers she’d built and let pleasure flood in. Those barriers were built with every nasty word her parents had ever said to her, every time they’d denied her comfort when she was hurt, scared, or sad, every time they’d told her she would never live up to her sister and that she would never amount to anything.

Dismantling those thick walls would take time, but right now they had oodles of it.

“Try again?” Alannah gave a derisive laugh that was nothing like her normal, beautiful, light-giving one.

“Why not?”

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