Total pages in book: 47
Estimated words: 45045 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 225(@200wpm)___ 180(@250wpm)___ 150(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 45045 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 225(@200wpm)___ 180(@250wpm)___ 150(@300wpm)
My snort of laughter cut him off, and he let my boob go long enough to attack my side with a vicious tickle. I screamed, arching under him and begging for mercy. He laughed but let his hand go back to my breast while kissing the side of my neck at the same time. That sent a fresh wave of tingles rushing through me. My hips lifted, my right leg bending and falling to the side.
“So, like I said, they all thought I was some kind of victim, and they treated me that way. Drove me fucking crazy,” Eli murmured. “Because I was strong. I’d kept myself and my mom alive. For years. And then suddenly I was supposed to turn into a kid again. It was bullshit. All of it. But there was one person who saw through it. You. I was your enemy, and you were out to get me because you knew I was dangerous. Not only that, you saw that being younger was an advantage you could use. Anytime you wanted to, you could’ve screamed for help, and we both knew people would’ve taken your word over mine. But you never did.”
“Of course not,” I said, feeling slightly offended. “That was our only rule. Remember?”
Eli lifted his head, studying my face carefully. I had no idea what he was trying to see—maybe some trace of the little girl I’d been?
“That was the rule, all right. And you never broke it. Not once. That’s how I knew I could trust you.”
“You trusted me too much,” I told him. His fingers let my breast go, only to find it again after sliding his hand up and under my shirt. “I still wish I’d broken it, at least that once. I should’ve talked to the cops.”
“You’re really not going to let that go, are you?” he asked, shifting his pelvis so the hard ridge in his jeans could rub back and forth across my hip bone.
“No,” I said, determined. Eli started grinding against me, slowly swiveling his hips. Shit. I couldn’t think when he did that. Simply wasn’t possible. “Let’s compromise. We can talk about it after. I don’t know how long I can take this. At some point, you’re gonna have to fuck me. Sooner rather than later, please.”
“I love it when you’re all horny,” he told me, his voice registering slightly lower than before. At least I wasn’t the only one slowly going crazy. “It used to be that I’d get frustrated when I looked back on those years. I needed to learn how to read, for fuck’s sake. I didn’t have time to be a victim. But now, it’s our games that I think about the most. They were the only part of my life that made sense.”
“Those were fights,” I reminded him gently. His fingers found my nipple, holding it lightly. “I never played with you. You broke my teacup.”
“Peaches, those were definitely games,” he said, and I saw the laughter in his eyes. “My mom and me, we lived on the streets. Sometimes, we’d find an apartment somewhere, but one thing was always the same. There were always predators. Some of them tried to kill us, but a few of them went out of their way to give me the skills I needed to survive in that world. Do you really think that a little girl with a pink foam princess sword could’ve won against me? I fought other kids for food while our moms got high together.”
I shivered, trying to imagine what that might’ve felt like, but I couldn’t. The idea that a child had to fight for food…that was beyond my comprehension. And I’d known he and his mom had been homeless, but that hadn’t really meant anything to me back then. To me, suffering meant sharing my bedroom. He was right, I’d been naïve as hell.
Too naïve to pity him.
I swallowed, wanting to cry or apologize or do something. Anything. Except refusing to pity him was the one thing I’d gotten right as a kid. I’d be damned if I’d go weak and fuck it up now, just because I could finally understand the truth.
“What about Lemur?” I asked, trying to lighten the mood. “Was taking him one of those games, too?”
“No.” Eli grinned, lifting his hips to reposition himself slightly. “That was something else. That was about the fucking snakes you kept putting in my bed.”
I took advantage of his repositioning to slide my hand down between us. Eli was hard as granite, and I felt every inch of his thick, heavy length, despite the fabric separating us.
My fingers tightened around him, and he groaned. Perfect. I wanted to guide the conversation away from the snakes. Talking about them wouldn’t end well, for either of us.
“I’ve never forgotten how much I wanted you that night,” I told him softly. “Or how amazing it felt when you touched me.”