Page 34 of The Love You Fight For
“This was my grandfather’s cabin. The coordinates lead to here.”
It’s beautiful. So serene and inviting. The longer I look at it, the more I find myself wanting to reach out and run my fingers over it. To close my eyes and imagine myself there. Away from everything and everyone.
“And the needle,” I ask. “Why is it pointing east?”
“That’s where my home is. My family. It’s my true north.”
His statement makes my eyes prickle with tears, and I have to look away.
Home. Family.
Fuck, what would it feel like to have that? To have those things and cherish them. Tobecherished by them. The reality that I’ll never know breaks my heart. It makes me angry that my heart could break so easily. I shouldn’t care so much, but I do.
Do I even have a true north? What would it be? My hatred for my father? My soul-deep desire to ruin him? It wouldn’t be a home or a family, that’s for certain. Not for me.
Maybe it would be Lennon. Maybe. But she has Macon, and even she doesn’t know it all recently. I’m even keeping secrets from her now.
I squeeze my eyes shut and breathe through my nose. My heart aches with loneliness and shame. My stomach swirls with the familiar sense of self-loathing. It’s been getting stronger. It’s been getting harder and harder to ignore.
I need to feel something else. I need a distraction.
“Favorite sexual position,” I say quickly, and I can tell by the way Chris freezes in my periphery that I’ve shocked him.
I drag my eyes to his face and give him a taunting grin.
“Cat got your tongue,Christopher?”
TEN
I sit backon the couch across from Sam and take her in.
It’s like a switch flipped. One breath, she seemed emotional, vulnerable, on the verge of tears. And the next? She’s wearing that cold, unfeeling mask again. The one that says she’d chew me up and spit me out, and I’d love every second of it.
I can’t help but feel like she’s playing a game with me. She’s the cat and I’m the mouse. But do I want to play along? Do I want to let her catch me?
When she raises a brow in challenge, I know my answer to both ishell yes.
“Missionary,” I say after a minute, and she snorts out a mocking laugh. I knew she would. I shake my head slowly. “I guarantee it’s not what you’re thinking.”
She leans back on the couch and crosses her legs, every bit that cold, regal royal who is deigning to interact with a peasant. She takes a dainty sip of her drink, and I want to shake her composure. I want that mask to slip again.
“Enlighten me.” Her lips curve into a challenging smirk.
She’s not wearing her signature blood-red lipstick, but she doesn’t need it. She’s just as cruel and sexy without it. I drag my eyesdown her body for the first time since she climbed out of my shower. I’ve behaved. I’ve been a gentleman. It seems she’s grown bored with that. I let my gaze linger on her exposed collarbone long enough to see her breath hitch, and then I look back at her plump pink lips.
“I like to be in control. If I’m on top, I can move you where I want you. Angle you how I want you. See and touch as much of you as I want. If I want your hands pinned above your head, I can do that. If I want your ankles on my shoulders, I can do that. I can suck on your nipples. I can play with your clit. I control the pace. I control the contact. Missionary means you’re at my mercy.”
Her next inhale and exhale are shaky, but she forces out a breathy laugh.
“Me?” she says incredulously, and I shake my head slowly.
“No. Not you. You wouldn’t like it.”
Her jaw drops and she blinks, and I have to bite back a laugh. She’s stuck between shocked and offended, but she doesn’t want me to know that.
I lean forward and prop my elbows on my knees. I lock my eyes with hers, and then I lower my voice like we’re trading secrets. I speak low and slow, and I watch her pupils dilate with every word.
“See, princess, you wouldn’t like it how I like it because I like my missionaryfilthy. I like fuckingsloppysex. Sweaty and sticky and gasping for breath. Hoarse voice and teary eyes. Bite me. Scratch up my back. Leave me bleeding. I like to fuck so hard that your muscles ache for days when I’m done with you. That you’ve been stretched in so many directions that your limbs feel like jelly afterward. I like my missionary fucking messy. And you? Well, I don’t think you like messy very much.”
