Burn (Virtues & Lies 1)

I have no idea what comes over me, but I throw myself at him even though I can’t move my arms to stop myself from falling, let alone grab hold of him.

“You are.”

Leo catches me just as my feet touch the floor awkwardly. Pushing the jacket to the ground he presses a kiss to my forehead, pulling the sleeves of my dress off my arms.

Finally, able to move, my hands claw at him as I try to push his own clothes off.

“You’re making it impossible.” He growls between clenched teeth, like he’s fighting with himself. “I want to lick every square inch of you. I want to mark you. I want to fuck you. I want to keep you.”

I’m startled for a moment and then something kicks into gear inside me and I’m impatiently unbuttoning his shirt as quick as I can and pushing it down his arms so that all that’s left is his blood-soaked T-shirt.

Swallowing the acid that bubbles up my throat as I recall how the blood got there, I have to still my panic at what almost happened to me today.

Imagining all those scenarios I refused to think of earlier, the ones where I am violated…where my skull is shattered, and my brain pulped. The ones where I die alone.

My throat tightens and my head spins as I go down that rabbit hole I didn’t want to. And before I can stop it, my body is locking in all the wrong ways even though it’s trying to keep me up. I don’t remember ever being this cold. Or this scared.

I don’t know when it happens, but Leo’s got me huddled in the corner of the shower, and he’s backing away. His T-shirt is all wet and although the spatters have run down on the fabric there’s a bloody pink tinge across one of his shoulders where my head had rested. My eyes drift down his body to his jeans that are stuck to his legs and then to the stone floor where his boots are squelching.

Widening at the same time as my heart races, my eyes follow the bloodstained water at our feet. The returning panic scolds my lungs and although the top of my dress is bunched around my waist and the only thing up top is my strapless bra, I’m clawing at my neck and chest desperately, like I’m being choked.

Everything is blurring. The pink tinged water. Leo…

“Hey, hey, hey…” Grasping my jaw with his hands, his thumbs stroke my cheeks so roughly that they tug at my skin. “You’re okay, baby. You’re safe. I promise. I swear no one’s going to hurt you again.”

I want to believe him, but something keeps reminding me that I can’t. That it isn’t fair to put that burden on him. But I like the idea of him as my protector. I like the idea of him as my anything.

Taking me right under the hot spray, he starts massaging my scalp and then gently unknotting my hair with his fingers until all I can smell is hot water and him. All I can see when I look down is clear, clean water.

“There, Buttercup, it’s all gone. Done.” Painfully soft and wistful, his smile fills me with real, tangible affection and I can breathe again.

My eyes rove down from his face and become glued to his torso. The tattoos and the muscles all too visible under the wet cotton.

“No,” I manage to murmur when he begins backing away.

My hands grab a hold of his wrists, barely circling them, with his hands on his hips. And my eyes are on that fucking cross and the heavy flock of small birds that fade into three bigger ones on his upper arm.

I struggle to see all of the detail under his short, wet sleeves, but there’s something about the ink under his skin that stirs inside me. It’s not a lust driven feel, but intrigue, because I want to know more. See, know, and feel it all.

Pulling at the wet T-shirt, trying to move it up his body, it’s like it has shrunk a couple of sizes and is glued to his body.

“Don’t,” Leo says sternly, his hands now circling my wrists, pinning them to my sides.

I don’t know what I’m asking for, but I do anyway, “Please.”

Moving flush to my body, he holds both of my wrists securely behind my back in a tight, one-handed grasp. Heat blazing in my chest, my legs are shaking and no matter how hard I try to steel them, I can’t, as he runs his rough, stubbled jaw across mine.

Panting, I can’t suck in enough air to clear my head. My emotions are going from simmering to boiling point and tears prick the back of my eyes.

“Do you want to burn, Cassandra?” He rasps into my ear, stepping so close that our bodies aren’t just flush, they’re pressin

g to one another like when we danced. “That’s all that will come of this. I’ll scorch you.”

I don’t care. I yell at him in my head and then hoarsely whisper, “You already have, little boy.”

I tease him, hoping that it’ll rouse another reaction from him. All it does is unleash my tears and when I try to pull my hand from his hold to wipe them, he tightens his grip on me.

“Leave them,” breathing harshly, his gaze narrows on mine, and he lowers himself so we’re face to face. “You don’t dry your tears, ever. You don’t wipe them, Cass, you wipe out the people who put them there instead.”