Wild Tendy (IceCats 2)

I squeeze my eyes shut as our lips move together. When he pulls away, he cups my face and runs his thumbs along my jaw. He straddles my hips as he sits up before moving his hands up my arms to my shoulders. His fingers play with the string that holds my halter together, and I can feel every inch of him growing harder by the second. As he slowly unties the top of my halter, his eyes never leave mine. There is something in the way he looks at me and stares into my eyes. It feels as if he is looking into my soul. No one has ever looked at me like that or made me feel like this. As he slowly drags my halter down, I want to stop him, but something keeps me from doing so. I don’t know if it’s the kindness in his eyes, his sweet words, or my horniness. I’m not sure, but I am sure I want this.

I want to live.

I hold my breath as he reveals my chest. I watch his face, waiting for the repulsion as he uncovers my taped-on rubber boobs. I take a deep breath when he reaches for one of them, pulling it off with ease. I watch as he holds it in his hand, squeezing it before a smirk comes across his face. Is he laughing at me?

“Can I borrow this?”

I scrunch up my face. “What?”

“I want to beam Chandler in the face with it. It would be so funny.”

If this was his way of breaking the tension, he succeeded. Within mere seconds, I’m laughing from the gut. He grins down at me before pulling off the other one and tossing them to the side of the bed.

“If they go missing, it wasn’t me,” he says, and I grin. That is, until he touches my scars. I’m holding my breath again as he runs his fingers along the scars. They’re faded and only little white lines, but that isn’t what embarrasses me. It’s the sunken-in part of my chest where my breasts should be. He moves his gaze to mine as he whispers, “You’re so strong, Aviva.”

I shake my head, feeling the rush of shame. “I’m not. I was just scared. I didn’t want to go through what my mom did. I didn’t want Callie to live through two deaths from the same disease.”

“I feel that makes you strong.”

I shake my head once more, ignoring the sensation of his finger along my scar. No one, and I mean no one, has ever touched me like this. I feel so vulnerable but, at the same time, so safe. “No. If anything, I’m a coward because I didn’t try to fight.”

“You are not a coward, not even in the slightest,” he says with such disdain on his face and in his voice. I’ve waited for the disgust, but it wasn’t from how I looked; it was from what I said. “You are a fighter, Aviva. You went through this to protect yourself and your sister. I don’t see that as cowardly.”

He’s got me feeling a certain kind of way, but I won’t ignore the truth. “But I disfigured myself, made it so I can never breastfeed a baby, and then hid behind these scars for years to keep myself invisible to men. Because I’m a coward.”

He narrows his eyes into slits, and I don’t know why. He doesn’t even really know me, but he cares so much. “Because no one was ever there to tell you that you are perfect just the way you are,” he says with such ease, as if it was what he was born to say.

His words shake me to the core. No man has ever spoken to me like this, with such honesty. I’ve been lied to, cheated on, and stabbed in the back, but there is something about Nico that makes me feel as if he would never do any of that. What you see is what you get with him, and I admire that. He throws off his shirt before slowly lowering himself on top of me. His warm chest feels absolutely perfect against mine. I want to feel insecure that his pecs are bigger than my nonexistent chest, but it’s hard when he is looking at me like this.

Like I’m beautiful.

Nico presses his nose against mine as his eyes burn into mine. I stroke my fingers along his back to his neck, wrapping them around it. “You say what you’re thinking, huh?”

“Completely and with no control or cares.” He looks down at my chin as my fingers dance along his neck. “Does it bother you?”

“Not at all.”

“You don’t think I’m weird?”

I smile. “No. Not at all. I wish I could be like that.”

He pauses for a second, and his eyes…something flashes in them. It’s as if he wants to say something, but he’s holding back. “I’ve always been like this.”