Page 109 of Hopeless
“You told me I should offer it to you first.” She straightens with pride, staring at me through the mirror. “The next time I was planning on doing it.”
I stare back, hating myself for saying those words to her in a moment of weakness. Hating that I meant them, and she’s throwing them back at me when I’m already feeling so vulnerable around her.
“Listen, you can’t just maul me all night on the dance floor and expect me not to have needs. I’m not a robot like you, apparently.”
I keep staring, grappling for some semblance of control, but it’s slipping through my fingers like sand I have no hope of containing.
Bailey turns to look at me directly, forcing our gazes away from the reflective glass. Our eyes clash as the tension pulls taut between us. “I felt you hard against me, Beau. You gonna tell me that didn’t happen?” Her voice takes on a venomous tone, frustration humming at the back of her throat. “You got some big, mature, paternal words of wisdom for me about what I should and shouldn’t do with my body? Because so help me g—”
My hand shoots forward, fingers curling into her hair. Until I’m fisting it, tipping her face up to mine while I step up close, toe to toe with her, cutting her off. “Bailey, stop running your mouth or I’ll find another creative way to keep it busy.”
Her tongue darts out over her puffy rosebud lips. Her eyes are furious flames. “Good. Do it.”
My jaw pops as I squeeze a fistful of her thick, silky hair. I want to flip her over and take her hard and fast and wild. I know she’d rise to the challenge.
But I’d never forgive myself. It bothers me that what we’re doing here can be filed away as fake when it’s the most real thing I’ve felt in my life. And Bailey’s been picking up the scraps of what she can find for far too long.
No, when I take Bailey, there’s not going to be a singlefakething between us. She’s not going to need me to stay afloat to pay a bill—I won’t take advantage of her that way. I want her to need me for no other reason than she can’t stand the thought of not having me.
“Where’s that box of toys you’re always going on about?” I growl.
“Under my bed.” Her voice is breathier now, laced with nerves and anticipation.
“Good, now you’re going to show me.”
“Show you?”
I drop her hair, reach beneath her thighs, and hoist her into my arms. Her legs wrap around my waist as I march us out of the bathroom straight to her sprawling king-sized bed.
When I drop her down she steps back, the backs of her thighs butting up against the bed, breathing heavily, just like me.
“Who do you want to be?”
That question again. Like she can see straight into me through the confused haze.
Be selfish, she said. So I respond with the first thing that pops into my head. “The man who watches you come tonight.”
It’s true, but it’s also not enough. I want to be so much more than that.
Bailey’s eyes dance across my face, flitting from eye to eye as she rolls her lips together. Finally, she nods slowly as she lowers herself to sit on the edge of the mattress, the warm glow of the bedside lamp making her smooth skin shimmer.
“The box is under the bed, Beau.”
I crouch and reach, feeling the cool edge of a small plastic box. When I pull it out, it resembles something you might store old keepsakes in. I open it and find about ten different toys. Various colors, shapes, and sizes.
I swallow.
My fingers trail over the edge as my brain flips over into a place where I’m functioning only on instinct. Images of Bailey using these, squirming, moaning—in the room next to me or in her trailer just across the lawn—flash through my head.
I consider my options. Slender with a second arm. Hot pink. Another that looks like—
“Listen, if you’re going to back out, why don’t you just—”
My hand wraps around the one that looks like a real dick, thick and heavily veined. I push to stand and cup her cheek with my other hand, running my thumb over her plush lips. Pushing them to the side and watching them pop back into place. “Bailey, what did I tell you about running your mouth?”
A demure smile curves her lips as she says, “That you’d find something creative to do with it.”
Her smile may not be so demure after all.
