Bait

The ravaged girl underneath me rolls over. She winces as she tries to rise to her knees.

She’s fucked.

Battered, bruised, exhausted.

Freezing cold.

She shivers without my body heat, her teeth chattering as she stares at me.

I tug my jeans back up and rise to my feet.

She rearranges her dress to cover her tits. I wish she wouldn’t.

She scrambles but falters. I see the pain in her eyes as she struggles for balance on sore legs.

It’s the easiest thing in the world to scoop her up off her feet.

She doesn’t say a word as I hold her, just wraps her arms around my shoulders and presses her face to my neck.

This is all kinds of fucked up.

The way my heart pangs is all fucking kinds of fucked up.

The way I carry her so carefully, defies every rule of crazy.

But I can’t let her go.EighteenWhen death, the great reconciler, has come, it is never our tenderness that we repent of, but our severity.

George EliotAbigailMy monster carries me so tenderly. Securely, even over rough ground.

His shoulders are firm, his breath even. His grip is strong and steady, his body heat divine.

I’m aching. Exhausted. Sated beyond anything I’ve ever known.

My feet hang limp all the way back to his truck, my face buried into his neck for the warmth.

I can still taste him. My throat is raw with the memory of his intrusion. My pussy, too.

I can’t bear the thought of another bumpy ride in the footwell, but he opens the front passenger door and drops me onto the seat before I even protest. I can barely rest my feet on the floor they’re so sore.

I buckle myself in as he heads around to the driver’s side. I have no idea what to say as he turns the key in the ignition.

I wonder if he meant it – taking what he wants whenever he wants it. I wonder if this is a thing now.

As fucked up as I am right now, I want nothing more than this to be a thing.

He turns on the heater and reverses up the lane. He turns at the top and we speed away.

I take the opportunity to look at him again in the darkness as we go. His features are so strong. So brutally rugged.

He’s the hottest thing I’ve ever seen. Being close to him makes my skin prickle.

I wonder what he looks like under his clothes. I wonder if I’ll ever find out.

I can feel the giddiness now, building up under the adrenaline. I’m as high as a kite, a few stupid jokes away from laughing until tears roll.

And yet I feel so lonely.

I’ve never wanted someone’s touch so badly as I want his right now.

He drives and I watch.

He stares out of the window and I stare right at him.

I’m sad when signs for Hereford appear in the road. My heart is pained when I recognise the streets passing by. We’re back in the city centre so quickly, parking up in a loading bay just down the street from my front door.

I wonder if he was here earlier. I look up at my living room window and the open curtains. He could have been spying on me for hours.

I feel like such a wimp as I contemplate having to put my feet back on solid ground. They’re freezing and sore. Grazed to all living shit from the feel of it.

I grit my teeth as I swing the car door open, bracing myself for the impact for dropping down onto the tarmac. But he blocks my exit before I can move.

The closeness of him takes my breath as he reaches past me to flick on the interior light.

I flinch as I see the state of myself in the glow.

I’m filthy. Caked in mud and bits of hedgerow.

I’ve torn a toenail. I’ve scratches all over my ankles. The soles of my feet look like they’ve spent an hour on an industrial sander.

I’m still staring at them as he reaches into the glovebox. The packet of wipes rustles in his fingers as he pulls one free. He props his foot on the sill and lifts mine up over his knee. I stare dumb as he works the wipe over my skin.

I flinch as it stings, but he doesn’t stop.

“I didn’t expect you to run so fast,” he says. “I’d have let you wear shoes.”

I shrug. “Guess I surprised you.”

His eyes meet mine. “Guess you did.”

He’s surprising me too, but I don’t tell him that.

I watch him wipe my foot until the wipe is filthy and he pulls out another. I love the way his fingers can be so tender after being so rough.

I love the way the ink patterns look on his skin.

He switches my clean foot for my dirty one. I should point out that they’ll be filthy again before I reach my apartment, but I don’t want him to stop.