Pieces of Me

“Stop,” he said. Earlier, his voice had been level and easy, no anger showing. Now he practically shook with it. “Don’t say shit like that about yourself, okay?”

“What, that I’m crazy?” I leaned back, desperate to get some room between us. I could feel the heat of him on my skin and it went licking through me, a teasing, taunting torment of all the things I’d never feel again.

In the dead of night, the silvery moonlight shining down on us, I couldn’t see him well. His eyes were like bottomless pools of pure velvet and I could just fall in and lose myself. Part of me wanted to do just that.

“Yes.” He lifted one hand, placed it on my breastbone. The heat of it was a shock and until that moment, I hadn’t realized I was cold. Now, I couldn’t stop shivering.

“Why not?” I stared at him. “It’s the truth. After what he did to me, it’s a miracle I’m not crazier than I am.”

“Stop.” He shook his head.

I laughed softly. “You know, if anybody should be upset by the fact that my sanity is somewhat questionable, it’s me. But it’s nothing more than the truth. I have PTSD, I suffer from panic attacks that almost incapacitate me, and I deal with OCD now—things I never had before he got hold of me. My fear of him still runs my life, and I know it. If that doesn’t certify me as mental, then what does it make me?”

“A survivor.” The words were delivered in a flat, hard voice. “I don’t need to know what he did to you, unless you’re ready to tell me. But I know a survivor when I see one.”

I stilled, caught off guard.

His eyes held me captive as he leaned in, his breath a soft, warm caress on my cheek. “A survivor…damaged, determined. And so damn brave. The last woman on earth I should want. But fuck it all. I still want you.”

I blinked, my lashes drooping low as I watched him through them. That concealing veil wasn’t enough to hide behind, though. His hand slid higher, curved around my neck and tangled in my hair, tugging my head back.

He stared down at me. “Tell me to stop.”

Simple words.

Easy words.

And if I thought about it for even a minute, maybe that’s just what I’d do.

Tell him to stop.

Instead, I dropped my gaze and stared at his mouth.

I knew that mouth, almost intimately.

I say almost, because you can’t really know a person’s body intimately until you’ve touched that body, studied it, learned it with your hands…maybe even with your mouth. Tasted it with your own, felt it against your own.

A harsh groan ripped out of him and then his mouth covered mine and the world faded away.

For a few brief moments, nothing else existed. Not even fear.

It was just him and me, and that incredible kiss.

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