Drawing in little sips of air through my nose, I let my fingers drag through the hair at the nape of Marcus’s neck, relaxing into the feeling of his chest crushed against mine, his cock still buried inside me.
The peace won’t last. I know that.
Just outside this bubble, reality is screaming at me, but for a few more moments, I’ll let myself ignore it.
My body is exhausted, pummeled and worn out by pleasure. When Marcus pulls out of me, I hiss a pained breath at the sting in my raw pussy, and he makes a noise low in his throat.
My eyelids drift shut, and I don’t move when I feel the mattress shift and hear his footsteps pad across the room. The mattress dips again a few moments later, and a warm, wet cloth moves gently over my core, wiping away the cum that seeps from me and soothing the ache in my flesh.
I’ve never had a man clean me up after sex before.
Not like this, anyway.
Not tenderly. Not carefully.
That thought calls up a sharp memory of a battered fifteen-year-old clutching a pair of shredded panties, and my body suddenly turns cold. I roll onto my side and curl in on myself, trying to protect myself from the visceral memories. From the hurt that lingers in my past, infecting my present and refusing to
die.
But a warm body settles behind mine, and when Marcus pulls me back toward him, draping his heavy arm over me as he tucks me into the cradle of his large frame, I don’t resist.
The heat radiating from him burns away some of the chill in my bones, and I find myself sinking toward sleep, my muscles relaxing in increments.
I don’t know how long we stay like that, and I don’t think I ever completely fall asleep. All I know is that by the time Marcus moves, my body has melted against his, and I’m warm all the way through, despite the fact that I’m still totally naked.
When he sits up, the loss of his skin pressed against mine makes me blink my eyes open.
The room has gotten darker now that the sun is completely down outside, but it floods with warm golden light as he flicks on the bedside lamp.
I feel the mattress shift again before he settles back down beside me—near me, but not touching me this time. I roll over onto my back and glance at him.
And my heart nearly stops.
He’s got the little cigarette case I use as a wallet open in his hands, flipping through the contents as if he’s got every fucking right to be going through my shit.
“What the fuck are you doing?”
I sit up so fast my head spins, grabbing for the small metal case.
He holds me off with one arm, moving his other hand quickly to keep the cigarette case out of my reach. My heart rate spikes, panic spreading through me like a shot of adrenaline, and I practically crawl over his body, ignoring the fact that we’re both still naked as I dive for the case again.
We wrestle over it, but he’s too big and his arms are too fucking long—not to mention, he’s got two of them and I only have one. I’m fully straddling him by the time I manage to get it back, and it doesn’t escape my notice that he’s semi-hard again, his cock pressing against my ass.
I snap the case shut with one hand and pin it to my chest, then scramble awkwardly off of him, almost face-planting on the mattress in my haste to put some distance between us.
My heart is pounding hard and fast, and if I needed a reminder that I shouldn’t trust this fucking guy, he just handed it to me on a goddamn silver platter.
This is mine. My life. My shit. He has no right to any of it.
I scoot to the edge of the bed, and I’m about to slip off the mattress and flee when Marcus’s deep voice stops me.
“Who is this?”
My head whips around. He’s holding the faded picture of the two little kids, staring at it with furrowed brows.
My stomach flips over, and I lunge toward him again. “Give that back. You can’t have it!”
Something in my harsh, desperate shriek must strike a chord in him, because instead of holding me off or playing keep-away, he reaches out to steady me when I almost lose my balance again. Then he hands the picture back to me, his enigmatic eyes watching me intently.