This time his silence is much, much longer.
During which the muscle in his cheek beats like my own heart. It beats like it will rip out of his skin like my heart will rip out of my chest.
“Why?” he asks after a while, somehow with his finger still on my lip, still as tender as ever, so in contrast to his harsh demeanor.
“Because my heart doesn’t hurt anymore,” I whisper, staring into his pretty eyes. “Because ever since you broke it, my heart, two years ago, I’ve been in pain. I’ve been in so much pain, and that’s why I stole your car, to stop it. That’s why I asked you for closure the night when… when we had sex. For the last two years, all I’ve wanted was for the pain to stop. I just wanted my heart to stop hurting and it has. I don’t feel it anymore. The pain. It’s gone.”
“Why?” he asks again. “Why is it gone?”
I go up on my tiptoes to reach him because he looks so far away right now. “Because you took it away. You made it go away. I asked you to do it and you did.”
Isn’t it ironic though?
That the guy who gave me this pain is also the one who took it away. He’s the one who soothed it.
But it only seems to push him further away.
So much so that he breaks out of my hold. He takes his touch away from me and steps back.
The touch that he’d given after weeks, he takes it back in a matter of seconds and my knees feel weak without it.
My body goes cold. My legs tremble.
He stares at me with angry eyes, his stubbled jaw ticking. “And I’m assuming all this forgiveness is because of what I’m doing, is that correct? For driving you around, for bringing you groceries, for taking you to that useless fucking doctor. You think I’m doing this for your forgiveness?”
I don’t know how I can be so calm when he’s like this. Agitated and angry. Callous.
Old Callie would be freaking out. She’d be trembling and maybe even crying at his cold behavior. But I’m not that Callie anymore.
Because of him.
Because I’ve met the villain once and I’ve survived.
That’s what Tempest said and she was right.
I survived him. And I’m stronger now, a lot better for it.
“No,” I say, shaking my head. “I know you’re doing all this because you want to. You’re doing this because of her.” I cradle my belly and say something that I know in my heart. “Because you love her.”
That throws him.
That makes him take another step back. The word ‘love.’
So along with ‘protect’ and ‘save,’ love is another one of his triggers.
“Don’t you?” I prod, digging my fingers in my bump. “You love her.”
His features ripple with surprise as if this is such news. When it has been apparent to me, to my brothers even, since day one.
That he wants her. Genuinely.
He loves her — as much as I do — and he doesn’t even know if it’s a her yet.
I know he thinks that he doesn’t love anything, that he has no space for love, but he loves her.
His chest is not barren after all. There’s at least one flower in it. For her.
For our baby.
He stares at my belly really hard before looking up. “Yes, I do.”
“I know.”
“She’s mine.”
My eyes sting with happy tears. “She is.”
See? How can I be mad at him anymore for what he did two years ago?
How can I be mad that he never loved me when he loves her?
When he loves our baby.
I can’t. I’m done.
I thought that nothing he could do would make me forgive him. But turns out, all he had to do was love her.
Love this accidental, wonderful gift he’s given me.
I’m done living in the past and thinking of him as my villain. The predator who fed on my heart and left me to die. When he’s also a hero. Her hero, her protector.
He’s both, a gorgeous villain and a haunted hero.
“But that doesn’t mean anything,” he snaps, plowing his fingers through his dark overgrown hair. “That doesn’t mean I want your forgiveness. I don’t. You can fucking keep it. Throw it out the window for all I care.”
I don’t even flinch when he says that.
In fact, I take a step closer to him as I ask, “Why?”
“What?”
I take another step closer. “Why don’t you want it?”
He watches my feet with a thick frown. “What the fuck are you doing?”
“Tell me why you don’t want it.”
He watches me take another step toward him and his fists clench. “Are you trying to scare me, Fae? Because I’m not in a mood to laugh.”
I reach him and tilt my head back to look at his beautiful face. “No. I’m asking a question. Tell me.”
His chest moves up and down with his sweet but agitated breath. His nostrils flare as he glances around the room. And it looks like I’ve cornered him. Which is so crazy, because there’s no way I can hold him here or overpower him.
Not him.
The one who’s as tall and broad as the mountains. As wild as a mustang.
“Because I didn’t protect you, all right,” he bursts out. “I couldn’t protect you two years ago and I couldn’t protect you now. Do you understand that? Do you understand what I did to you? I didn’t only break your heart, you had to be caged because of me. Caged. Because I made you steal my car. In a shithole school. When you should’ve been out there, free, dancing like you were born to do. But that’s not all, is it? I stole from you. I stole your virginity. I took it from you. I tore it out of your body until you bled. You fucking bled on my dick and I was too fucked in the head to understand that. I was too fucked and blind and jealous to figure out that the pussy I was plowing into was untouched. And then, I got you pregnant. You’re having my baby, Fae. And it’s so brutal on you and I can’t do anything about it. The fucking doctor can’t do anything about it.”
“But I’m fine now,” I say in a determined voice.
“Yeah. But you weren’t, were you? You couldn’t keep anything down. Not even fucking water.”
Oh yeah, that night was brutal.
I think my stomach was all upset and even the water was making me throw up. And he was up with me all night. But he was tired too, I remember. He had a meeting at work the next day and I remember him not getting a wink of sleep, same as me.
I know I was going through a hard time but he went through it too.
But he doesn’t let me speak as he continues, “So I don’t want your fucking forgiveness. Because there isn’t any. For what I did. For breaking my fairy. For putting her in a cage, for taking her dream away from her. For hurting her body, making her bleed, and I wasn’t even there to make it better. I —”
“Do it, then.”
“What?”
Yeah. What?
What did I just say?
But I take a moment to study him then. His messy hair, his stubble. His wrinkled shirt. The fierce expression on his face. The regret that is apparent in his every gesture, his closed fists, his wildly breathing chest.
And I realize I had to say it. I had to.
Not because I need him to make it better. Because he already did it.
But because he needs to.
He needs to make it better and I can’t not give it to him, what he wants.
I swallow. “You said, back at the bar, that you’d… you’d make it better. You’d apologize. To her. To my… pussy. Because you made her bleed. Because you’re so big and I’m so small. So…” I swallow again, clutching the hem of his hoodie. “So do it then. Make it better.”
By the time I finish, a throb has started up between my legs.
A throb that I’ve been feeling for days now. But I always pushed it aside. First, it was my sickness and then it was the fact that I shouldn’t have been
feeling it in the first place.
But now there’s nothing stopping me.
I don’t want anything to stop me. From feeling it. From feeling him, inside of me. Even though he’s only been there once, I remember it so well.
I remember all the dirty, intimate things he did. All the dirty, intimate things he said to me.
His eyes glint, his high cheekbones going flushed and I know he remembers them as well.
I think he shudders too, licking his ruby red lips, and I have to press my thighs against each other.
“Are you fucking with me, Fae?” he growls. “Because I told you I’m not in the mood for it.”
“No, I’m not.”
In fact, I reach out and take his hand. And I put it where I know he wants to touch me but hasn’t because he’s been keeping himself away. I put his hand on my slightly swollen stomach as I go on. “I don’t want you to apologize anymore. I’m done, Reed and I mean it. But if you need to do it anyway, if you need to apologize or make it better, then I want you to. I want you to apologize and take my hurt away.”
And then I let his hand go but his fingers latch on.
His long strong fingers latch onto my baby bump and I know, for sure this time, that he shudders. His chest vibrates, his fingers too, on my belly.
And his gaze drops down to where he’s touching me.
I look down as well and my own breaths shake when I see how his big hand covers it all. My tiny bump. How he’s cradling it and how his fingers sport a slight tremble.
“I wanted to…” he rasps with a slight crease between his eyebrows.
I reach up to smooth it. “I know. You wanted to touch it but you never did.”
He swallows. “For a long time.”
“You can touch it. Whenever you want. I want you to.”
He looks up, the color of his eyes one that I’ve never seen on him before.
All melting and liquid. Molten mercury.
“It’s warm,” he says.
My eyes become wide in excitement as I bring my hands to grab the sleeves of his shirt. “Isn’t it? I feel it too.”
“Yeah.”
“I thought I was crazy,” I tell him. “I haven’t read this in any of the books yet but I —”
“Books can go fuck themselves.”
I bite my lip to stop my smile. I can’t stop my blush though and his wolf eyes sparkle at that. There’s my predator. My gorgeous villain.
“You shouldn’t curse, Reed,” I whisper, looking up at him with smiling eyes.
His fingers on my belly tighten. “Yeah? Maybe I should apologize for that then.”
“You should.” I fist his sleeves even tighter. “I’m a good girl and all you ever do is talk filthy to me.”
“What a fucking asshole am I, yeah?”
“And you make me hurt.”
His nostrils flare again on a long breath. “Tell me where I hurt you.”
I have to open my mouth as well because breathing is getting harder. “In my pussy.”
“My fucking dick is an asshole too.”
My channel pulses, waking up, remembering everything from that night. “And also here.”
This I can’t say.
But I will show him.
I will show him all the places that hurt so he can do whatever he wants to them. So he can make it better and lose all his regret.
So he can see that I’ve already forgiven him.
I take his hand again, the one that’s clutching my swollen belly, and drag it up.
Up and up.
Until his hand is right there. On my breast.
I know my cheeks are all pink now. Red and burning. But still I peek at him from under my eyelashes. “This. It hurts here too. Sometimes.”
His fingers twitch on the fabric and like he grabbed hold of my pregnant belly, he palms my breast too and my toes inch up.
Because God, I’ve never known my breasts to be so sensitive.
I’ve never known them to be so soft and tender. So heavy.
And it’s all getting worse because he’s watching them.
Even through his soft, thick hoodie, I can feel his gaze on them, on my bare skin. Not to mention his hand covers all of it, like it did my belly, and that makes me so breathless that I squeeze his wrist tightly, making him look up.
“They hurt,” he whispers thickly.
“Yes,” I whisper back.
“Tell me how.”
“They’re all sensitive and tender and… and big. Bigger than before, and my nipples…”
“What about them?”
“They ache sometimes. They throb. I-I think it’s because I’m changing. My body is.”
His jaw clenches, making the peaks of his face harsher, painted with a deep flush. “Your body is changing. Because of what I did.”
“Because of the baby.”
His fingers squeeze my breast, just one squeeze but it’s enough to make me moan slightly and he watches it all. With his heated eyes.
“My baby,” he whispers as if correcting me.
“Yours.”
“And it’s only going to get worse, isn’t it? Your tits,” he says, squeezing my breast again.
This time the force is harder and I have to arch my back and he’s right there. To give me support.
To let me use his body, all big and muscled and strong, to lean against, and when I do, my relief is complete. My breaths are easier, far, far easier than they’ve been in a long time.
Since two years ago.
But he doesn’t let me stay that way, all relaxed and loosened up.
He decides to keep me on my toes when he squeezes my breast again, his thumb swiping over my tender nipple. “I can’t stop picturing it.”
“What?”
“I can’t stop picturing you. Every time we go for a doctor’s appointment and she makes you lie down. She puts that gel on your stomach, I think about it. Every time I see you wearing your schoolgirl uniform or my hoodie, I fucking think about it.”
“Think about what?”
Finally, he looks up and answers. “You, pregnant with my baby. Your belly swelling up, getting bigger. Your tits.” His palm has grown bolder now and he starts to knead my tender flesh, making me moan and gasp. “Getting all soft and creamy. Ripe. I picture you walking around, barefoot and pregnant. In those daisy dresses, your belly all swollen up, your tits squished together, jiggling with every step you take. And every five seconds you’ll cradle it, your pregnant belly, like it’s the most precious treasure in the world and it is, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“Yeah, she is. She fucking is. She’s the only right thing in all this. In every fucked-up thing that I’ve done.”
“Reed —”
“So there you are, lying on the exam table, grabbing onto my arm because it’s uncomfortable and scary and all I do is stand there like a useless bastard. A horny bastard, picturing all this. I get hard thinking about this like a motherfucking perv. Like a proud motherfucking perv though. Because this is the only good thing I’ve done, blowing my load inside your fairy pussy. But I made her hurt, didn’t I? And now your tits hurt too. Because your body’s changing for my baby. Your body is preparing and I have to apologize. I have to apologize for doing this to you, for putting a baby in you like the villain I am and I will, you understand?
“I will spend all my days apologizing, on my knees, with my mouth on your sweet snatch. And when I’m not apologizing to your cunt, I’ll put my mouth on these.” He squeezes my breast again, rhythmically, driving me crazy. “On your creamy tits. And I’ll say sorry to them with my tongue and my mouth. For making them all sore and heavy. For stretching them out. And then lusting after them like an asshole. And you, Fae. I’ll apologize to you too. For making you go through all this. Because I didn’t protect you enough. I didn’t think clearly enough. But I want you to know something, okay?”
His fierce eyes make me ask,
“What?”
“That I’ll protect you now. I will. I will do anything and everything in my power, beyond my power even, to protect you and her. No one will touch you. Or her. Not now. Not ever. I promise, and I’ll die before I break this promise to you. Tell me you believe me.”
My heart is spinning and spinning in my chest and my toes, which are carrying all my weight, tremble.
At the gravity of his tone and words.
“Yes, I do,” I whisper because I do.
I do believe him.
He studies me for a second with those fierce eyes and when he realizes the truth in my words, a small breath escapes him. Before he does what he told me he would.
He apologizes.
With his lips.
He captures my mouth in a hot kiss, bending down over me. So that I don’t have to stretch up to get to him. So my legs don’t have to shake to carry my weight.
He’ll do it all for me, make it easier to breathe, to kiss and be kissed.
And I’m dying and aching. In pain once again.
But this is a different kind of pain.
A restless kind.
And it only grows with every suck of his mouth and every flick of his thumb on my nipple. Every time I rub myself against him, his hard body, I hurt.
It’s as if someone has made a fist and is pressing down on my stomach, pressing down on my pussy.
In my tits.
All swollen and creamy because he got me pregnant.
And then he breaks our kiss, making it even worse, taking away my lifeline, and my hands on his shoulders grow insistent. They want to pull him back but he doesn’t come to me.
Instead, he brings me to him.
He picks me up and puts my thighs around his hips. I’m so gone over his lips, with the need for his lips, that all I remember to do is hold on when he starts walking.
All I remember to do is press my mouth to his when he cradles the back of my head and pulls me to him.
I bury my fingers in his thick rich hair as he takes me places. I don’t even care where, really. As long as he keeps kissing me like that.
Although again, he breaks the kiss, and this time I’m all ready to claw at his skin and bring him back.
A Gorgeous Villain Page 41