“Yes.”
“How long did it go on?”
“It stopped when I was eight. A few years before he died.”
Kevin wipes at his hair, letting his hand hover at the back of his neck.
“Five years? Five fucking years?” He stands and paces. “And then your father is an entirely other piece of shit?”
Kevin scoops me up in his arms and sits on the side of the bed. He pulls me into him until I almost feel like I’m suffocating. He holds me as if he’s the one who needs the comfort, even though I was the one who lived it. I was the one beneath the man. I was ripped apart until I was nothing but a hollow shell. Kevin holds me as if he’s trying to absorb my pain—to take it all and bury it in his head.
I advise against that.
“I can’t imagine it,” he whispers against my forehead.
I advise against that, too.
“All the hurt I’ve been through can’t compare to what you’ve endured.” He shakes his head.
“It’s not a competition,” I say. “Your pain is just as valid.”
“How are you eighteen?” He brushes my hair away from my face.
“Now you know why I get pissed off when you call me too young.”
He looks at me with rounded eyes, his hand hot against my cheek. I worry he’s looking at me with pity. Am I more broken than he imagined? What if he’s too afraid to touch me? To fuck me? I deserve to feel free, the way only he can make me feel.
I lift my mouth to his and kiss him. He wraps his hand around the back of my neck and hesitates for a moment before kissing me back. He pulls away from me, and my heart stumbles over each beat. The weight of my biggest secret is off my chest, but now it's floating in the room between us.
Please don’t, Kevin. I’m the same Skye I was last night. Actually, I’m a better version of Skye than I was last night.
His lips find mine again, and he kisses me like I’m made of glass. I’m not fragile. My trauma doesn’t make me frail. If anything, it hardened me like the scar tissue on my hips.
I climb off him and lift my sweater over my head. Kevin stares at me, but he’s gnawing at his lower lip. I’m not wearing a bra beneath the thin fabric of the cami. He watches as I unbutton my jeans and push the fabric down my thighs, letting them fall to the floor. He shakes his head, dropping his gaze from me. I grab his chin and lift it.
“Please don’t look at me like I’m damaged, Kevin.”
“You—”
“I’m the same person. You just know more about me now.”
“How can I do that when I can’t stop thinking about what happened to you?”
“Just stop thinking.”
I lean into him and kiss him. I reach down and grab his hands, placing one on my hip and the other on my chest. The heat of his skin radiates through me and warms my bones. Seeing him care so much about what happened to me makes me . . . turned on?
That’s fucking weird.
Kevin hesitates before letting his fingers move along my hip. His other hand reaches beneath my shirt and glides toward my breasts. His touch excites me as his fingers race along my chest.
“I want you.” I swallow hard. “I want this.”
I push him back, making him lie down. I straddle his lap as I work down his jeans. He doesn’t fight me, though his usual confidence is difficult to find. Regardless, I’ll find it.
I pull his cock from his boxers, rubbing my hand along the length of him. I’m not scared of him anymore. He feels up my thighs as he lifts me until my mouth meets his. He kisses me deeply, letting his tongue explore mine.
His hand reaches between my legs and pulls my panties aside. His warmth slides against my wetness. He grips himself and rubs it against me, making me bite my lip.
“If we're going to do this, let me warm you up,” he says as he lifts his hip to try to flip me over.
I push my weight into my knees and keep him from turning me.
“Skye, I don’t want to hurt you.”
He groans in frustration. He wants it, even though he’s fighting me. I know him enough to know he wouldn’t let me do anything he didn’t want to do. He’s too strong. He could easily throw me onto my back, no matter how hard I fought to remain over him.
His fingers move between us, and he rubs me. They slip inside me, and his moan is low as he tries to hide it. The gravelly sound makes me bite my lip again.
He grabs his cock and pushes himself inside me. I gasp at his size and wonder if I should have let him work me up to it. His hands land on my hips as his groan makes my heart flutter. I lower myself onto him—as much as I can take. He fills me in ways I can’t explain. The pain washes over me and buries itself in the small of my back. I lean forward and press my chest against his, taking a moment to adjust to him. He grips my hips and moves me in a slow and gentle way, inching more and more of himself inside me. I moan as he lifts his hips and pushes what he can into me. He holds me in place as he lowers and raises his hips again.
When he lets go, I sit up, and he rubs between my legs again. I move with him as his hand glides side to side against me. The pain I felt is forgotten as pleasure rises in my pelvis, filling the space where the ache once resided.
Kevin pulls me in for a kiss, continuing to rub me as his lips find mine. I moan against his mouth, grinding into him.
“Come,” he whispers.
My body tenses and tightens as his hand squeezes my hip. I moan into the air as I come, where nothing remains but our sounds of pleasure—not even the memory of my secret hanging above us.