Beautiful Villain

When Neil was locked away, I wasn’t exactly pining after him. I wasn’t celibate. Not really. I also didn’t have a huge amount of prospects. I had a couple of boyfriends and a couple of girlfriends, but nothing wildly serious, and none of them ever came close to making me feel the way he’s making me feel right now.

He’s scaring me a little bit, if I’m honest. Heat is burning inside of me and threatening to escape from my skin. All I really want is him.

All of him.

I want him naked and I want to climb all over him. I want to lick him and touch him and tease him, and I want, more than anything else, for him to feel good when he’s with me. Neil hasn’t exactly had an easy go of things. His life has been rough. He’s had things stolen from him: his hope, his reputation, his future. He had five years of his damn life taken away, but he’s still here standing.

And I kind of want, just for a little bit, to help him forget about all of that.

So tonight is the night I’m going to decide to be brave. I’m going to be a little wild. I’m going to be everything he needs because tomorrow is a long way away. Tomorrow we can worry about everything else that’s bothering us. Right now, I just want to be with him.

“Neil,” I murmur, and then his lips come crashing onto mine. I’ve never been the kind of person to rush into anything, but right now, I can’t imagine anywhere else I’d rather be. I’m going to rush my heart out if it means we can keep kissing like this, and touching, and being together.

This is wonderful to me, perfect, and suddenly, I feel like my entire world is spinning.

He pulls me into his arms and kisses me over and over again. He kisses me with a thirst, with a hunger that I’ve never felt before. Maybe it’s because it’s been awhile for him or maybe it’s because he’s really, really into me. I don’t know.

All I know is that right now, everything feels incredible.

Right now, everything feels like it’s going to be just fine.

“Wait a minute,” he says suddenly, and pulls away. He moves over to the kitchen stove and turns off the burners and shuts off the oven. Then he comes back. “Safety first,” he grins, and then he lifts me into his arms.

Somehow, when I’m in Neil’s arms, I feel like I’m so light that I could be a damn butterfly. He carries me out of the kitchen and to the staircase. Then we move up, up, up. He brings me into the guest room.

“Not my room?” I ask, surprised.

“The light is better in this room,” he says.

The light?

So he wants to see me?

That makes me feel incredible, actually. It makes me feel really wonderful and fantastic and honestly, kind of damn sexy. He wants to see me.

He wants to touch me and look at me and feel me and oh, that’s really the best feeling in the world.

Neil lays me down on the bed and looks down at me. Then he slowly – painfully slowly – starts undressing himself. It’s the most erotic, incredible thing I’ve ever experienced before in my life.

I want more of this.

I want more of him.

Somehow, I get the feeling that being with Neil is going to be unlike anything I’ve ever experienced before in my life.

He pulls his shirt off and tosses it to the floor. His pants follow, and then he’s in his boxers in front of me.

“Yes or no, Finley?” He asks, looking at me. “Should I take the boxers off? It’s all up to you. I want you, cupcake, but if you aren’t ready, I’ll go back downstairs and finish cooking and we can cool off. No hard feelings.”

He looks at me calmly, matter-of-factly. This isn’t his first rodeo, and he’s no stranger to hardship or pain, but he’s not pressuring me. I kind of totally, completely respect that. He’s not giving me a hard time and he’s not trying to hurt me or make me feel unwanted in any way.

He just wants me to know that no matter what I’m feeling, those emotions are valid, and everything is going to be okay.

No matter what.

“Yes,” I whisper.

It’s not a hard question.