Slowly, I lead Addie to her impractical bathroom, where the hot and cold water are so variable and tempestuous that you’d have more luck casting chicken bones than trusting the temperature knobs and, after a lot of fussing, I draw her a passable bath.
Then I help her into the tub.
She settles into the water, knees clutched to her chest, grimacing only slightly at the heat, and looks at me with eyes so wide they swallow my world.
“Do you ever not see it? The blood, I mean.”
I take a bar of soap in one hand and her arm in the other. Gently, I scrub, washing the blood from her tanned skin. It comes off in thick, foamy rivers.
“No,” I say. “It’s there. Every day. But some days are better than others. Some days, an entire morning and even an afternoon passes and I realize I haven’t thought about it. Sometimes I even make it to sleep before my dreams remind me of what I’m trying to forget. And they do it in such terrifying, vivid ways. Those are the good days. The bad days? It’s always there. It’s all I see. All I think about. And I hate it so much.”
The words flow from me as I wash her, cleaning her skin of the blood and the gore, spilling the confessions of my war-haunted heart. Addie watches. Ears open, eyes wide, heart — wounded, confused, afraid — shining at me from her transcendent brown eyes.
I clear my throat.
She doesn’t need to hear that from me right now.
Doesn’t need to hear my pain. Though it feels so inexcusably good to talk about it to her. To feel like I can finally speak to someone who only cares to listen, who only cares to care, and doesn’t even think about judging me for the monster I am.
Except she needs me to care for her.
She needs me to give her hope.
In this moment, I stop washing her. I look into her eyes. Speak from a place deep inside that I have spent years running from.
“Addie, I won’t lie to you, won’t try to deny that you’ve seen something horrible. But, if you can find something or someone to hold on to, it gets better. Day by day. That someone can make the pain fade to nothing, can make the hurt become a foggy memory, can make your days so much brighter you don’t even see the dark. Whether they know it or not, whether you tell them or not, they can make all the difference. Trust me. I know.”
With a smile on her face, she squeezes me back.
With her other hand, she flips the switch on the drain.
Then she stands in front of me. Washed clean. Naked. Eyes so full of pure emotion and expectation staring back at me.
She kisses me.
And then brings her lips to my ear.
“Snake, you’re the one I want to hold on to. I want you to take me to bed.”
Chapter Eleven
Adella
Shaking, naked, hurt, vulnerable, wanting to feel this protective and powerful man as close as I can, I lean forward and kiss him. Kiss him and speak the words I’ve had waiting on my lips from the second I met him: “Take me to bed.”
A moment passes where I stand in front of him, naked, watching a struggle play out behind his eyes. Duty against desire.
And the side I want to win, wins.
The man I want, wants me.
His lips return to mine with a vengeance. Devour me. His hands roam my body with naked hunger, caressing my tits, my back, my ass, and I moan to finally have him touching me in the way I’ve wanted for so long.
Then he lifts me, scooping me into his arms.
Turning, he carries me to my bed and hurls me upon it.
I land on my back, smiling, watching as he stares down at me.
“Fuck, I can’t tell you for how long I’ve wanted this. Ever since you started to grow up, I couldn’t keep my eyes off you,” he says, looking down at me as he strips off his shirt, revealing a body hardened by his life as a soldier and a member of the MC. Abs and shoulders and chest muscles and biceps, scars and ink, including a large tattoo of his namesake snake on his arm, all bare, all mine.
I’ve thought about this moment for so long and, now that it’s finally here, I feel about ready to faint, my heart is palpitating so wildly in my chest.
“I want you so bad, Snake. I’ve always wanted you to be mine. My first,” I say.
He doesn’t startle as much as I expect to hear that I’m a virgin; he has to have known my father would’ve intimidated most every man who thought to even get close to me.
“Your first?”
I nod.
He smiles.
“Then let me show you what you’ve been missing, Addie.”
Then he’s on top of me. Arms at my sides, lips on mine, tongue meeting mine, drawing moans from my throat with his passion while my hands caress his hardened body. Beneath him, I forget about everything but kissing him, touching him, wanting him to take me and use me, to be the first that I’ve waited for.
When he pulls back, looking down at me with one of those smiles that I so scarcely see but cherish above anything else, I’m shaking. Shaking with desire. With anticipation. Shaking so much my breath comes in gasps and moans.
“I’m going to taste you now,” he says. There’s
