Page 28 of Hero: Claimed

Brinley

Things don’t make sense this morning. I roll those words around in my head over and over “Things’ll make sense in the morning.” But no, I can’t get them to. Levi holds me close, wrapped around me like I matter.

I look over to the half-drunk bottle of bourbon setting next to the television, then back down at Levi. That was a lot of alcohol consumed last night andshoot, I gave him my virginity last night. How different would the evening have gone if sans alcohol? He’d have taken one look at my lumpy body and laughed his fool head off.

The best night of my life would never have happened if he hadn’t been drinking. My heaven was his drunken roll in the sheets. As far as I know, he hadn’t gotten laid in a while—not since the night before he shoved naked woman from the room that first day I came to stay. Destini tried to get it on, but I’m sure he turned her down. The man’s hero complex is as strong as ever, meaning he wants this to work between us, but is he really going to run out to buy bourbon anytime he’s horny?Ugh!Insecurities suck.I want to know how he feels about me but I’m too scared to find out the answer. After last night, I couldn’t take the rejection if it turns out he regrets being with me. What I need to do is get out of here, to clear my head a little.

Levi shifts, moving his arm enough for me to slip out from the covers and off the bed. He shifts back, hugging the pillow I had my head on minutes ago. Still, he doesn’t wake up, allowing me to tiptoe into the bathroom to take a shower.

I start the water, turning the hot until it’s scalding. Only then, do I add the cold in, but just enough for my skin not to blister. I need to clean him from my skin. When I smell him, I remember every intimate way he touched my body and the ache sets in. I despise the ache. That reminder of how ridiculous it is for me to want things, in this case, it’s a chance at something special with Levi. Because the part of me that saysmaybe he really does like you, Brinleygets lost in the mire of a lifetime of cruel words and crueler behaviors. A lifetime of being judged for my outward appearance. A lifetime of being let down by the people who were supposed to love me. As the start of tears prickle the backs of my eyes, I scrub harder.

After re-sudsing the washcloth with the small, complimentary bar of soap, a certain intimate area of my body gets the cleaning to end all cleanings. Horrifyingly, there’s dried blood smeared on the inside of my thighs.Oh, holy God.Didn’t he clean there? Leave it to me to bleed more than other women. Who needs scalding hot water when you’ve got the embarrassment of virginal blood near your crotch to heat your skin? I scrub and scrub, so focused on my task that I don’t hear him enter the bathroom. I only know he’s here when his body slips in the shower behind me, his arms wrap around my waist, trapping both my arms and I startle, dropping the soapy washcloth.

“Don’t drop the soap, baby…” he whispers, then he kisses my shoulder before he absolutely goes there. “Never know where you’ll get stuck.”

Where I’ll get stuck? Does he like that? He’s a man, of course he likes it, but the question is, do I? Would I allow him to go there?

And how does he know where my mind’s gone? Am I that transparent? Because he absolutely knows what I’m thinking about when he nips the skin of my neck, then right away pecks a kiss to the spot and lays it out for me. “Calm down, bird. Just took you for the first-time last night. We’ve gotta get you used to that before I take on other holes. Plenty of time for ass-play. We have to prepare or I could hurt you. It’s not a spontaneous type of play. Say—how do you feel?”

My mind is whirling. Ass-play? Spontaneous? “Um… what?”

“How do you feel…” His hand drops from my waist to cup my sex. “Here?”

Oh. Right.

“I feel good.” And I honestly do. “I think you prepared me enough.”

“Good.” That’s all he says. Good because he’s busy tapping my feet apart with one of his and pressing my hands flat against the tile, bent slightly at the waist, my butt sticking out. Then I feel him there, ready to glide in and I don’t understand why.

“Did you drink the rest of that bourbon?” I ask.

“No. Don’t drink before ten as a rule.” He chuckles and pushes with a forward thrust. I gasp at the feel of him in this position. It’s different from last night, lying down. Levi threads his fingers through mine on the wall and uses his chin to brush my hair out of the way for him to suck the skin of my shoulder where it meets my neck. I’ve never had a hickey before, but I’m pretty sure I’m going to have one now. “Come on, bird, give it to me….”

I open and close my mouth several times, water filling up my mouth, but I don’t even have it in me to cough because coughing will take me from the moment and at the moment Levi fills me, but I need more, I need it—“harder,” I beg.

“Don’t wanna hurt you.”

Fuck that. “Harder,” I demand this time.

“Fine, you want harder, baby…” he says, and I hear the promise in his voice. My mind can’t keep up with what’s happening. First, he was fucking me against the wall. The next thing I know, he’s pulled out, dragged me from the shower—without turning the water off—to lay me down on a fluffy bath towel he’s pulled from the bar above the commode, where he gives me all the harder I could ask for, bracing his foot against the tub for traction. He’s got my knees braced with his body way up by my waist. It’s not the most comfortable position at first. That is, until the sensation takes over and I forget about everything but what he’s doing to me.

I’m gearing up for a mega orgasm when he throws this twist in at the end of his thrust and mega blows sky high, all the way to cosmic. I think I might literally die from my heart giving out. I go momentarily blind, or maybe my eyes are closed, I don’t know. I can’t think, only feel. Though I lose feeling in my legs.

Coming down from his orgasm, Levi rests his head on my breasts and exhales. “Shit, Brin—you undo me. Come hard before… but never knew a man could comethathard… Thank you, baby… Thank you for letting me be the man to come that hard.”

Did he really just say that? There’s a beautiful afterglow, which is a fancy-schmacy way to describe a feeling you get after mind-blowing sex. I’d heard about it, but obviously before Levi, I never experienced it. And dammit if I’m unable to enjoy that feeling because like a punch to the gut, I realize I’m lying underneath him, completely naked. My fat jiggled while he was getting off and he saw every bit of it. How is he not disgusted, shoving off me, horrified?

It appears even world-shifting orgasms aren’t enough to set me free. I guess it’s time to pull up my big girl panties and get this over with. I mean, if last night and today was a test to see if he could handle being with someone who looks like me, or, if what we shared is supposed to remain a secret between the two of us, I need to know in order to put myself in the correct mindset.

“Baby?” He breaks into my thoughts. “I hurt you? Not supposed to wear that face after sexthatgood.”

To answer his question, I shake my head. “The light’s on.” I tell him something he can clearly see.

“Yeah, sort of hard to shower in the dark.”

“The shower is still running,” I say. “We’re wasting water.”

“I’ll get it in a sec.”

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