“No one, but how can I enjoy it?” I mutter, turning around to look at Ivy. “When my heart hurts this bad, how can I enjoy anything?”
“You need to relax, Kimmy. Don’t let him get to you, it’s a holiday after all.”
I wish I had the power to not let Noah Montreal get me, but just the annoying little fact that he exists in this universe is reason enough.
“I’m not going to survive the next four days, am I?”
“If it makes you feel better, pretend like you don’t care,” she says with a shrug. “That’s what I plan to do. I’m tired of giving him all the hints and being led on to nothing. Oh look, we even have our own bathroom!”
Hmm, pretend like I don’t care, huh?
“You know what? That sounds like a good idea,” I say, grabbing my bag as well. “I’m going to pretend like he doesn’t affect me. It’ll almost be like he’s not even here.”
“Uh, whatever floats your boat to get through this incident free.”
“See, that Einstein brain of yours and your amazing advice is why I love you so much, especially the fact that you keep that as a front to hide your devious ways.”
“I’m not devious.”
I deadpan, staring at her. I’ve seen this girl beat someone twice her size, making them howl in pain. She’s more than she seems, that much is clear. Why she tries to make herself seem small is beyond me.
“Girl, you have to let the real Ivy out once in a while.”
“Uh yeah, I’m going to make dinner. You’re a bad influence, you hussy.”
I laugh. “Not when you want to be a little hussy yourself with a certain god just down the hall.”
“Okay, bye bitch!”
“And she’s back to swearing!”
“Hardy, har, har, bitch!”
And she’s gone.
Deciding to take a shower so I can feel somewhat human, I unpack and grab my shower bag. Then I strip out of my clothes and grab a towel to cover myself up.
When I walk into the bathroom, I’m not even shocked at the splendor of it.
Every inch of this cabin screams wealth and luxury. And I’m still that girl from the trailer parks that can hardly believe I’m standing here, facing a large floor-length mirror which covers one wall, facing the large glass shower. There’s also a garden tub and then the armoire on the other wall.
“Damn,” I whisper. My sisters would love that tub. When was the last time they were in one? When I get home I need to find out if that bitch, the landlord’s wife can get us a replacement for our trailer like I asked her a long time ago.
In my frustration I don’t notice the other door on the opposite wall.
I walk over to the shower, turning the water on to hot. I untangle my hair, releasing it from the tight bun I had secured it in when I woke up.
I don’t even notice the door opening when I drop my towel and step in the hot shower.
I don’t notice the hooded figure now sitting down on the garden tub, watching me like a hawk as I lean my head on the wall, allowing the hot water to beat down on my skin, relaxing the tense muscles and the knots from the hard manual labor I do every single day just to stay alive and feed my sisters.
Reaching back for my shampoo, my hand smashes into soft wet material. With a frown, I look up and almost scream when I see Noah standing there, fully dressed, inside the shower with me.
“What the hell are you doing?” I gasp, my heart racing. “You almost gave me a fucking heart attack.”
He doesn’t say anything. He just watches me, that infuriating unreadable gaze raking me from head to toe, lingering on my heaving breath and then my pussy. He sees it all. Oh my God, he sees it all! Fuck!
With a little scream, I go to hide the scars and burns all over my body, but it’s a little too late. They’re big and so damn visible, the only option I have is to drop down and fold within myself, keeping my back to the shower wall so he doesn’t see the horror on my back. But that’s in vain, he’s already seen it all.
“What the fuck happened to you?” Noah’s voice is hard, terse, and so damn angry. I’m sure I’ve never heard it like that.
“What the fuck are you doing?” I demand hoarsely, and embarrassed. “Get the fuck out!”
“So that’s what you didn’t want me to see that night I fucked you in the dark?”
Oh God.
“Get out, Noah, I’m not messing around with you.”
To my horror, my voice is shaky, like I’m going to cry.
Don’t cry, bitch, this asshole doesn’t deserve to see you fall apart.
He doesn’t say anything though. If anything, he steps closer to where I’m crouched down, a position that triggers me to a point where I start trembling, fear slamming into me.
Suddenly, the hooded figure crouches down and I back away even more, my mind forgetting that it’s Noah and that I’m safe. Instead, my biggest enemy takes me to a dark place that’s all too real, I can’t breathe.
The hooded figure transforms into a mean face, dressed elegantly in a dark three-piece suit.
The devil is back.
“No, don’t touch me!” I croak, my throat refusing to work. “Don’t hurt me.”
“Kim,” the voice says but I move away, the hot water beating down hard on me, suffocating me.
He’s back.
He’s going to punish me like he said he will.
He’s going to burn me like the last time and mom is not going to do anything about it.
“I didn’t do anything. I didn’t make any trouble,” I cry.
“Jesus, Kim! Snap out of it!”
The next thing I know, I’m being hauled up but I start fighting even harder. “No, don’t hit me!”
“Baby, it’s me!”
It’s only when icy cold shards start pounding down on me that I snap out of it, my eyes adjusting to the here and now.
I see the glamorous large bathroom. I see that I’m not back there, in that trailer that reeked of sex, desperation, hunger, and the sound of my body being hit for hours.
“What the fuck was that?” Noah roars and I freeze, horror slamming into me. Did he hear that? Oh God, what did I do? “Answer me, goddamn it, Kimberly, what the hell was that?”
No, no, no. That didn’t just happen in front of him!
I groan, trying to push away from his embrace, but he holds me even tighter, refusing to let go.
“It’s nothing,” I whisper hoarsely, shame making my chest tighten in a vicious grip.
“You’re a goddamn liar if you think I’ll believe that!” he bellows. “What the fuck was that? I’d never hit you, why would you say that?”
Oh God, why fucking why did my trauma have to jump out at me like that? In front of Noah no less?
“I said it’s nothing,” I whisper. “Let it go.”
I back away from him, but my body is still trembling. Not because of the cold water which he definitely switched on, but because my mind still hasn’t recovered yet.
“Kim…”
I look up at him, my whole body shaking.
I have no idea what he sees on my face but Noah sighs, his eyes now soft and understanding, a bit of pity seeping through. I huddle even closer, hugging my frame as I back into the corner of the wall.
I hear him suck in a breath. Then the next thing I know, he’s moving around.
The water goes from cold to warm. I watch him strip out of his own clothes with reckless abandon, his movements tight and impatient but still somehow flawless and smooth, like he is. Then he’s grabbing my shampoo and squirts some in his palm.
He looks at me, approaching me step by step, measuring my reactions as he gets closer.
“Let me take care of you,” he mutters hoarsely.
When I don’t move away, he’s right there, lathering my hair.
I’m in a daze as I feel his fingers inexplicably massaging my scalp in a way I’ve never been cared for before.
He washes my hair and soon, the rest of my body too.
&
nbsp; Each time I look up at him, his jaw is clenched and ticking. He doesn’t say a word but his eyes, they’re gentle and warm as they hold my gaze.
I have no idea how it happens but soon, the ministrations of his large hands make my lower body tighten, heat pooling at my core.
My nipples harden like diamonds, advertising my almost embarrassing arousal, but Noah just smirks, washing them with measured tugs, twists, and pulls, drawing moans that I bite back.
He moves in closer, the suds of my body wash running down my wet body, but he never takes his eyes off of me.
The foggy darkness that had descended in my mind is soon forgotten by the time Noah’s calloused fingers reach my thighs with a singular intent.
Having Noah Montreal so focused on making me feel good is one hell of an aphrodisiac. I wish I could freeze this moment.
As soon as I feel his fingers there, right at my clenching core, I grow tense.
He’s on his knees, looking up at me. “It’s just me, Kimmy,” he mutters softly, his voice hoarse and rough with lust and something else, sounding close to anger that’s flashing in his eyes. Is he angry at me? At how fucked up I am? “I will never hurt you.”
The whimper that escapes me frightens even me, because I can see that he means it, believes it in fact, but my God, does he know he’s the only one who can hurt me more thoroughly than anyone else?
“You don’t have to,” I whisper.
“I want to,” he counters, lifting my left leg and slinging it over his shoulder. “You slapped the shit out of me, you drive me crazy but still I want to eat you out like you’re my last supper. Let me make you forget.”
“Noah…”
“Shhhh, baby, this I can give you, better than anyone ever,” he purrs softly. “No one but me, Kim.”
And with that, I feel his tongue on my clit and I jump.
He holds me down ignoring my cries, bringing me back to his waiting tongue that thrusts into my opening, and I swear I almost see stars.
Holy shit.
He eats me out like nothing else in the world.
Tounging and flicking my clit. Then he plunges two fingers into me, finding my G-spot with an ease that speaks of a man familiar with my body when he’s only ever fucked me once, a night of lapsed judgement and impossible sadness.
I’m panting, ready to orgasm but he stops and looks up at me. “This is all I can give you. Tell me you understand.”
“Noah, I…”
“Tell me you fucking understand, Kim Possible.”
Tears well up in my eyes. I don’t understand. I don’t get how he can make me feel this way, save me from the edge of unintentionally remembered trauma and still treat me like he’d never forgive me.
“I don’t want to come if I can’t have you, Noah, please,” I cry and he sighs, his gaze hooded.
“I can’t give you any more of me, baby. You’ve already taken enough and left me crumbs that I can barely mold into anything that makes sense, Kim, there’s nothing left to even function.”
“I can’t fuction too, I’m a mess, but you can’t punish me forever. I had no choice!”
“But you did,” he seethes. “I told you every fucked up thing in my life. I told you how lies have twisted me up, Kim, I fucking let you in and you still…”
The raw pain in his voice. The anger flashing in his eyes. The rage wrecking through his body. I did all of that. Me.
“We’re both a mess, you proved that when you slapped me, but, baby I can’t.”
This is just too much.
“But you said you won’t hurt me, did you lie?” I cry, pleading, desperate. He’s the only one I’ve ever cried in front of. No one else and he’s destroying me, casting me aside. Like he isn’t bothered.
“No but you did,” he mutters.
“Noah…”
“I can make you come a hundred different ways in a hundred different positions but Kim, you ruined me.”
The brazen hurt and pain in his eyes devastates me.
Tears run down my cheeks. It’s a pathetic image really. My pussy is exposed to him, with one leg over his shoulder. He’s on his knees in front of me, my body coiled tight ready for release but we’re breaking each other instead.
“Would you care if I tell you I ruined myself the moment I hurt you?” I whisper, with fat tears streaming down my face. “I’m so, so sorry.”
“Don’t fucking say that,” he growls and then the next thing I know, he’s licking my pussy and plunging three fingers in me, applying pressure to my clit. I come so hard, my vision darkens for a full minute.
He prolongs my orgasm, finger fucking me from one orgasm into another. He bites down on my clit and I come again, expertly navigating my body like a man who knows all about making a woman come.
“Noah,” I moan, but he pulls away just as quickly. Standing up, he pulls me into his wet body.
I feel his toned muscles hugging me to him, I can feel the difference in his body. He’s drinking sure, but something else is going on with him that I can’t place. “Noah?”
I feel him place a kiss on the crown of my head. “You’re the last person I thought would hurt me, Kim,” he whispers darkly in my ear, the rage in his voice making me tremble. “Stop apologizing. I don’t think I’ll ever forgive you either way.”
“Noah, please…” I whisper breathlessly, ignoring my nakedness.
“No,” he snarls, looking as hostile as the pain in my chest. “Don’t look at me like I’m the one who broke us.”
“I didn’t mean to…”
“Stop, you’re just embarrassing yourself. This is pathetic.”
Oh God.
“You don’t mean that,” I cry, trying to swallow the pain. He gives me a withering stare that’s so at odds with the one he had a few seconds ago when he made me come like he’s trying to atone for his sins.
“Careful, Kimmy, the moment you start begging me to give a damn is the moment your world explodes,” he purrs darkly, a cruel smile on his face and me, I can’t look away from it, committing it to memory.
I open my mouth to say something, to plead for him not to look at me like that. He cocks his perfectly shaped brow, a dark look in his eyes that breaks my heart. I snap my jaw shut, shame and pain blooming in my chest.
“So, for now, let’s try to stay out of each other’s business for the next few days and we might make it back to pretending like the other doesn’t exist without too much damage.”
“Noah…”
“No one will hurt you ever again, Kim.”
And with that, he’s gone.
By the time I step out of the shower in a rush, wrapping the towel around my wet body as I rush toward the door he used, it’s locked, leaving behind nothing but misery and sorrow.
Fuck. Me!
What the hell was that?
But most importantly, what the fuck happened to her?
Grabbing my clothes, I dress quickly just as I hear the door to the bathroom jingle. She’s trying to get in, but I can’t have that that’s why I locked that shit. If I look at her one more time, there’s no telling what I might do.
Quickly, I grab my shoes, some sweatpants, and I think Emmett’s shirt and hightail it out of there like my ass is on fire.
My head’s spinning, my fucking heart is pounding like hell and my dick? That traitorous bastard is still hard and painful, wanting in her deep, wet, hot pussy that clenched down on my fingers so tight like a vice, I almost came hard right there, imagining her clenching my cock.
But that look on her face… Jesus.
I only went in the bathroom we’re sharing to take a piss and wash my damn face, but there she was, looking every bit the dark, corrupted, sexy archangel she is. Deep in thought, sexy as hell.
It’s then that I caught a glimpse of the scars and burns on her body.
At first, I thought I was tripping, drunk or fucking high, but then I remembered the people I call family confiscated all my alcohol—they just don’t know I have other ways of putt
ing my head in the clouds but then what I was seeing was fucking real, triggering some fucked up memories.
I never planned to follow her into that shower.
I never planned to touch her, but when she sunk down to the floor, looking beaten and degraded, anger licked through my body like an inferno.
I’ve never seen her like that before, but the fucking familiarity of the situation, the bitter sadness that clung to her like an extension of me.
“Fuck!” I roar, bursting out of the damn house, ignoring the shocked looks on King and Em’s faces who look like they just joined a fucking book club, sitting there with fucking books in their laps. If this was another day, another time, I would’ve roasted them for it, but right now, I can’t think, can’t breathe, the scars on Kim’s beautiful body now tattooed behind my eyelids.
“You okay over there?” Emmett calls after me.
“Mind your damn business, Emmett!”
The door closes behind me with a bang. I keep going, heading nowhere without a fucking jacket on, but I don’t even feel the cold. My hair and body are still wet but fuck it.
Fuck it all to hell!
Why the hell did she look terrified of me like that? Like I’m about to hurt her in a way that’s messed with her mind.
What happened to her?
I’ve seen that look before. On my brother, Craig’s, face. I remember it all. There’s nothing about that hell that I tucked away.
All the days I had to go back to school just to find him locked up in some broom closet, or in his locker. The bullying, the harassment, and bigotry was so fucking ridiculous and got so bad that he refused to go to school. He was terrified.
And just now, Kim. MY Kim!
Why? We’re not in high school anymore. We’re grown and I doubt anyone is that big of a fool to go up against Kimberly. She’ll cut a bitch and can break jaws. I’ve seen it. God only knows what else she’s been through…but that look of terror, I’ll never get it off my mind now.
Let her go, Noah.
Fuck!
With what’s coming, letting her go and forgetting about her is the best thing I can do for her. I told her I’d never hurt her and I’m going to keep that vow. Even if she did hurt me, I’ll never hurt her, even if it kills me.
Frosty Blues: A Westbrook Blues Novella Page 14