She lightly brushed over each of his nipples which were now beaded from not only her touch, but the goosebumps that had broken out everywhere.
He’d never been touched like this.
Not once.
Not in his whole fucking life.
Like he was breakable.
Or valuable.
Or... just because.
With his muscles tense, he blinked up at the ceiling, afraid to turn his head. Afraid of going face to face with her while she was still touching him.
She settled her palm over his heart. “Your heart is strong.”
It’s only function had ever been to keep the blood pumping through his body. Nothing else. Nothing more.
An organ that kept him alive.
But it was the blood rushing from his heart and down to somewhere he couldn’t control, filling his cock, making it hard, lifting the sheet slightly.
He would need to stop her before she got that far.
“You have a lot of tattoos.”
He couldn’t answer her. He couldn’t push any words out at all. He had somehow lost that capability.
“Right now, I can’t see them in the dark, but maybe you can explain what each one means one day.”
One day.
One day he could do that.
Right now he was struggling just to take his next breath.
With her hand still over his racing heart, she said, “In the meantime, tell me about this one. The angel wings over your heart. When I first saw it, I thought someone close to you had died. But then I noticed the script between the wings said ‘die free.’”
He closed his eyes as she circled that tattoo lightly with her fingertips. The ink he’d gotten a few years ago during one of his longer prison terms.
“Shouldn’t it say ‘live free?’”
For anyone not fucked up, it probably would. He wasn’t sure if he should share the meaning with her, but it wasn’t exactly a secret. “The sayin’s ‘live free or die,’ but spent more time livin’ in a cage than livin’ free, so when I die, I’ll be forever free.”
“Death frees us all.”
What the fuck was she doing to him? She was digging up pieces of him he thought long buried.
And there was no way she was aware she was doing that.
She slid her palm down his sternum and to his stomach, letting it lay there as it rose and fell with each quick breath.
He would have to stop her if she tried to go lower. If she got closer to his throbbing dick which was screaming for her soft touch.
He blew out a relieved, but ragged, breath when her hand moved higher again, back to his chest, where it settled.
“Now me,” she whispered.
What?
He had to say something now. He had to force the words from his throat. “No, Red.”
“Yes, please.”
“I can’t.”
“Is it because of... what happened to me? Because I’m... because of what’s growing inside me?”
“Fuck no. It has nothin’ to do with that.” Unlike some other men, pregnancy had never been a turn off for him. He hadn’t searched it out but he hadn’t turned it away, either.
“Then what?”
“You would’ve kept goin’, Red, would’ve figured out why.”
She got quiet for a minute, then said, “I miss intimacy.”
“Not your man for that, Red. Told you that.”
“Intimacy doesn’t have to be sex.”
“Know sex, baby, not intimacy. Had the first, never the second, so I can’t give you what I don’t know.”
“How do you know unless you try?”
“You’re askin’ too much.”
“Does intimacy scare you?”
“Does sex scare you?” He squeezed his eyes shut at that stupid goddamn question. Stupid fuck.
“Not normally,” she answered, unbothered by him being a complete motherfucking asshole.
He finally turned his head, and though his eyes had adjusted to the darkness, he couldn’t read her face or her eyes.
Only the tone of her voice when she said, “What they did... what he did wasn’t sex.”
He turned to his side and her hand fell off his chest to the bed between them. He reached out to brush a lock of her hair off her cheek, then slipped his fingers into the thick of it by her ear.
He shifted enough to press his lips to her forehead. He kept them there for a few breaths, then as he began to pull away, she wrapped her fingers around his jaw and pulled him back, pressing her lips to his.
She didn’t open her mouth and he didn’t fucking dare open his because she was playing with fire right now.
And it seared his gut and burned hot in his chest.
He stayed still, letting her keep their mouths together for as long as she wanted. Which wasn’t nearly long enough when she pulled away just slightly.
“Pot and alcohol.”
He licked his lips hoping to taste her but tasted what she mentioned instead. “Yeah, baby. Nothin’ new.”
“Is it the only way?”
“Along with the other thing we talked about, yeah, it helps.”
She grabbed his hand, pulled it from her hair and pressed the back of it to her lips. Then she turned it around and using her fingers to guide his, she drew them around her face just like she had done to him.