Love Me For Me

by Lauren Hawkeye

  “Why are you calling, Serena?” She finally asked. “It’s Saturday night. I was under the impression that you were at least trying to live a normal life now that you’re in college.”

  My teeth ground together, and frustration was the tightest of knots in my chest, keeping me from fully inhaling.

  “I want to talk about something.” The pillows that had just seconds earlier been a safe haven now felt as though they were suffocating me. I shoved them off of the bed and sat up, shoving the flaxen strands of my hair out of the way.

  “Do you need money?” There was a smugness in Felicity’s tone that made me want to throw something.

  “No.” I ground the word out from between my clenched teeth. “I have scholarships. You know that.”

  When I’d told her what school I was going for, and how I planned to pay for it, she hadn’t believed me. Not with the ferocity with which she’d doubted my other, more important tale, but still, she’d needed some convincing, as if she couldn’t believe that I was capable of obtaining a full ride to a good school.

  “Well, it can’t be that much money. It’s not like you’re an athlete.”

  This, I knew, was a thinly veiled reference to the extra weight I’d once carried. “The scholarship is plenty, plus I teach yoga on campus for spending money.” I didn’t need to explain this to her, but said it anyway. Maybe I just for once, wanted to win an argument.

  Not that this was an argument—it was just a typical conversation between the woman who’d given me life and myself.

  “You do yoga?”

  The surprise in Felicity’s voice made me stifle a scream. I’d started practicing yoga when I still lived with her and Bob. I couldn’t count the number of times I’d run through the kitchen to the backdoor, telling her I was off to the yoga studio.

  But that was Felicity—head buried under six feet of sand. She didn’t absorb anything that she didn’t want to, anything that might disrupt her perfect little world.

  “I want to talk about Bob.” A great shudder racked my body as soon as the words left my mouth. The sudden silence on the other end of the line told me that I’d managed to shock my mom.

  I never wanted to talk about Bob—never wanted to see him, or hear him, or listen to anyone else talk about him. Because of that, she knew exactly what I was referring to, and I knew it.

  “Felicity?” The silence stretched on, thick and tense even through the phone line. A tiny sprout of hope began to unfurl inside of me.

  Was it possible... would she maybe listen this time?

  “I hope you’re not referring to what I think you are.” When she finally spoke her voice was covered with a thin layer of ice. That ice was clear, had no scent or taste, but stood between us as it had for so long, an impenetrable barrier.

  The sharp cold pounced on that tender little bud of hope. I watched helplessly as it withered and died.

  “What else would I be talking about?” I noted with a start that my voice didn’t sound so different from hers—bitter and angry.

  I’d fight like hell before I wind up like her, though.

  “You need to stop.” Felicity’s voice was angrier than I’d ever heard it before. Sibilant, pitched low and full of hate. Though I’d told myself that she couldn’t hurt me anymore, I felt a great choking sob well up in the depths of my chest.

  “Stop what? What have I ever done?” I hated the anguish that I could hear in my words, hated showing that weakness when I’d spent years trying to become strong.

  I hated that, five years later, it still felt like my fault—just the way he’d told me it was.

  “I’ve never understood why you made up this story, Serena Jane, and I never will. But you’re an adult now, and you need to get over it. Whatever warped little reasons you had for trying to destroy this family, it’s gone on too long. I won’t take it anymore.” Felicity’s voice shifted from low to shrill. I pounded my fist onto my bedspread, the frustration filling me until I felt as though I might split in two.

  It is not my fault.

  It is not my fault.

  For the first time since I was seventeen, I opened my mouth, and the sound that came out was a scream.

  “Just because you refuse to believe me, doesn’t mean it didn’t happen!” Mashing my finger down on the screen to end the call, I threw the phone as hard as I could at the wall. I heard the sharp crack of the screen as it splintered, but didn’t care.

  I stood in the middle of the room, my hands fisting then unclenching mechanically, over and over again. I couldn’t move, felt frozen in place, with so much emotion inside of me that I was paralyzed.

  I needed to get some of it out.

  There was only one way that had ever worked, but I’d sworn never to do that again.

  I took one halting step towards my makeup bag, then another. Then I lunged for it, collapsing on my knees as I frantically scrambled at the zipper.

  My hand closed around the slender pink handle of the simple Bic razor, and a dark pleasure slithered through me. It was almost sensual, calling out my name, promising to relieve my pain.

  The insides of my body were a solid block of ice. My movements jerky, I yanked my T-shirt up and over my head, then crossed my left arm in front of my torso.

  The razor was bright pink and cheerful in my right hand, a splash of color in a world that had suddenly faded to shades of grey. I lowered it until it hovered just over its target.

  The skin of my arm was pale, threaded through with lush amethyst veins. Raised lines of silver striped the limb, a map to the release of my pain.

  It would be so easy, so simple. Use the razor to part the skin, watch the crimson blood flow out, and with it, the pain that was consuming me.

  So easy to let the blood keep flowing.

  I don’t know how long I crouched on the floor, the blade a whisper from its goal. I crouched until my muscles burned and cramped from staying still.

  No. This wasn’t who I was anymore. And no one, not Bob, not Felicity, no one could make me.

  Slowly I replaced the razor in my makeup bag, then did up the zipper. I fell to my knees, and crawled to the bed.

  The throw against the wall had cracked the screen of my phone down the middle, but it still worked. With trembling fingers I opened a text conversation that hadn’t been touched in days.

  What are you doing right now?

  I stayed as I was, kneeling against the bed, phone in hand, until the reply came in.

  Just got home from practice. What’s up?

  No wondering why I hadn’t been in touch, no guilt. My body sagged with relief.

  Can I come over?

  I bit my lip and watched the dots on the screen that told me he was typing a response. Our relationship was so new that normally I wouldn’t have been so forward.

  But Alex made me forget. He was the one who could wash the bitter taste away.

  My phone vibrated, displaying his reply.

  Can’t wait to see you.

  That was when I finally cried. I had never wanted to get close to someone in the way that I was getting to know Alex.

  But when someone like him wanted me, how was I ever supposed to say no?

  Chapter Six

  I knocked on Alex’s front door, then hugged my arms to myself as I waited for him to answer. I was cold, had been cold ever since I’d replaced the razor in my makeup bag.

  I knew just how I was going to warm myself up.

  “Hey.” I almost swallowed my tongue when he opened the door. His hair was wet, grey sweatpants hung low on his hips... and his chest was bare, still beaded with water from his shower.

  His entire torso, the long, lean muscles of it, was bared to my view. I could see his tattoos, the intricate swirling arcs of them, and if I squinted, could make out the tiny puckers that were his scars.

  “Serena?” His face showed no judgment, though I knew I looked a little bit wild. My ponytail had nearly fallen out, the loose strands snarled around my face. I was wearing the t
orn blue jeans I’d had on for a Saturday night in. My T-shirt was old and bore the faded logo of the yoga studio back home.

  I could feel the intensity in my eyes as I looked him up and down.

  “Hey. Are you okay?” His brow furrowed with concern. Slowly, silently, I stepped into his apartment. Deliberately I shut the door behind me, then toed off my sneakers.

  “I am now.” Rising onto my tiptoes, I clasped his upper arms in my hands. He jolted at their chill, but other than that remained still, watching me steadily.

  “Kiss me.” I wouldn’t have asked, but I couldn’t reach him unless he dipped his head.

  Though he looked like he wanted to ask me what was going on, he did as I asked. Bending, he brushed his warm, moist mouth over my cold, dry one.

  The connection was electric, sparking to life inside of me and making everything bright.

  “Yes.” I hissed the word, twining my arms around his shoulders. He inhaled sharply when I pressed my body against his, and I felt his erection harden against the soft skin of my belly.

  “More.” I pushed my mouth on his, demanding a harder kiss. His hands splayed over my back, tracing my shoulder blades as his tongue licked over the seam of my lips, then dipped inside to sweep over my teeth.

  When the kiss ended, our combined breath was ragged and quick.

  “Tell me what’s wrong.” His hands never stopped moving, tracing the ribbon of my spine as I moved restlessly in his arms. Though I felt his body stiffen whenever I brushed against his erection, he made no move to press it into me.

  Made no move to take advantage of me when I was feeling vulnerable.

  I buried my face in his chest and shook my head.

  “Please.” My voice was a whisper, my fingers pressing into the solid muscles of his biceps. “Please. I need you to wash it away.”

  Frustration filled me as he slid his hands from my back to my arms, pulling me back far enough that he could look down into my face. His eyes roamed over me for a long, restless minute, as if he was trying to reach inside of me, find out what made me tick.

  “Serena. I can’t do this when you’re so obviously upset.” His expression was firm.

  My stomach rolled. I’d come to him for comfort, just like I’d gone to all those boys in high school. But he was more to me than a faceless body.

  He deserved an explanation. Or at least part of one.

  “I... I just talked to my mother.” I couldn’t hide the distaste that colored my words. “I—we really don’t get along.”

  “Lots of people don’t get along with their parents.” He placed a finger under my chin, lifted my face towards him so that I couldn’t hide.

  He wasn’t going to let me get off that easily, a fact for which I both thanked and cursed him.

  “I’ll never go back there.” My words were flat, and tasted stale on my tongue.

  “Why?” He asked. I sank my teeth deeply into my tongue to stop the flood of words that wanted to come. I looked up at him, eyes wide, mouth firmly closed.

  “All right.” He said finally, and I saw the wary acceptance in his eyes. I’d given him something, at least, and though he couldn’t possibly have known it, it was more than I’d ever given anyone.

  I shivered and waited. He had to make the next move. I had to know that he really wanted me.

  “No sex.” He growled. I blinked, startled, as he spoke. His face was fierce and resolute.

  “I—don’t you want me?” I appreciated what he was trying to do, but I couldn’t help being a bit hurt.

  He laughed then, a great roar of sound that took me off guard. He looked down, and I followed his stare, sucking in a breath when I saw what he was gesturing to.

  His cock was fully hard, clearly visible beneath the fabric of his sweats.

  “Wanting you isn’t the problem, Serena.”

  That, I thought, was quite obvious.

  “Then what is?” If I admitted it to myself, I was a bit relieved at the boundary he’d set. I was no virgin, that was for sure, but Alex...

  Alex was different.

  “You’re not ready.” He bent, and the kiss was whisper light, a tease more than anything.

  I sighed, reaching up to run my fingers through his hair.

  Then my mouth was crushed under his, and my legs were around his waist. I moaned as he lifted me right off of my feet, his hands cupping my ass through the torn denim.

  I twined my arms around his shoulders as he carried me down the hall of his little apartment.

  The room he brought me into was dark, full of undulating shadows cast by the artificial lights outside. I sighed when he lowered me onto a bed, turning my cheek to press it into a pillow that smelled like him.

  “Can I turn on a light?” His voice was husky, and I shifted restlessly as he scraped rough palms over the band of skin between my T-shirt and jeans. “I want to see you.”

  “No. Please.” I was feeling vulnerable enough. I couldn’t, just couldn’t deal with explaining my scars, not after what I’d almost done tonight.

  There was a pause, a silence, and his hands stopped moving. I shifted restlessly, needing to feel his touch on me, burning the pain away.

  “All right.” He replied, slowly. I cried out when he pulled me to the edge of the bed, bending my knees so that my feet were digging into the border of the mattress.

  Bending over me, he lowered his mouth onto mine in a slow, drugging kiss. He traced a path down the line of my jaw and into the hollow of my collarbone.

  When his hand slid up beneath the worn cotton of my T-shirt I shivered. He paused, his lips moving to my ear, where he nipped at the lobe.

  “Do you want the shirt to stay on?”

  Wordlessly I nodded, but instead of removing his hand as I thought he would, he continued his exploration, but kept the shirt as a barrier between his eyes and my skin.

  “Oh.” I sighed. Reaching behind my back, he unhooked my bra, then filled his palms with my breasts. A wave of heat liquefied me from the inside out as he toyed with the distended flesh of my nipples.

  My hands scrabbled on the soft fabric of his quilt, finally finding purchase in the elastic waistband of his sweats. His hissed out a breath when my fingers stroked over the flat planes of his stomach, his hipbones.

  His hands stroked down my torso, finding my waistband as well. My breath caught in my throat when he toyed with the button of my jeans.

  “Is this okay?”

  Nerves were a million tiny needles jabbing at my skin, waking up my every nerve ending. Slowly I nodded, then realized that he couldn’t see me in the dark. “Yes.” My voice sounded rusty, as if I hadn’t used it for days. “Yes. That’s okay.”

  I realized with a start that I wasn’t lying. I wanted this. I wanted him to take me as far as he would, even if that didn’t involve full sex.

  I flattened my hands over my stomach as he pulled the button through the hole. The zipper moving through its tracks was a metallic rasp, and one of the most painfully erotic sounds I’d ever heard.

  Wordlessly, I lifted my hips as he pulled the snug denim down my legs and off.

  Then he knelt between my legs, one of my feet on each side of his shoulders. He pressed a soft kiss to the inside of one of my thighs, and I almost rocketed off the bed at the sensation.

  “I have to taste you.” He growled against my skin. Chill bumps rose on my flesh, then disappeared in a feverish heat. “Will you let me?”

  Oh God. Oh God.

  “Yes.”

  I cried out when he pressed a kiss between my legs, through the cotton of my panties. And then my world went bright, sensation my only reality as he used his mouth on me, pulling my underwear to the side.

  “I want to hear you come.” His voice was raspy, the fingers of his free hand digging into the soft skin of my thigh. “I want it so bad.”

  His words cut through the hot haze in which I was floating. The pleasure that had coiled tightly inside of me loosened, and I tensed around his lips.


  “I—I don’t think I can.” I could hear the shame in my voice. I shook my head from side to side on the bed, trying to dislodge the memory of another voice.

  I’m going to make you like it.

  “I’m sorry.” Tears thickened my throat as, slowly, Alex removed his lips from the space between my legs and smoothed my panties back into place. “I—I want to, I just—”

  I was a fucking cock tease.

  “It’s okay.” He pressed another of those soft kisses to the inside of my thigh, then one to my belly as he moved back up my body. My bent legs pressed into his sides as he moved me backwards on the bed, ranging himself over top of me. I felt the coarseness of his pants abrading my sensitive, naked skin.

  “Do you want to stop everything, or just that?” His lips brushed mine as he whispered, and my pelvis arched into him despite myself.

  “Aren’t you mad?” My voice was a whisper. This close I could see his face, though it was full of shadows in the dim room. His lids were at half mast, his eyes intent on me, but nothing about his expression said that he was upset with me.

  “Of course not.” He frowned as if I’d shocked him. “Why would I be?”

  I laughed, startled; I couldn’t help it. He eyed me quizzically, then groaned when I tentatively worked my hand between our bodies into the elastic waist of his sweats. I took him in my hand, rubbing my thumb over the velvet-soft tip of his erection.

  “I don’t want to stop.” I said. He thrust forward into my grip, growling into the curve of my neck.

  That same uncertainty washed over me when, with a pained groan, he caught my wrist in his fingers and removed my hand from his pants.

  “If you do that, I’m not going to be able to stop.” His voice was pained, and I couldn’t help feeling a bit pleased that I was the one who was making him feel that wait.

  “Okay.” I bit my lip, lying still beneath him. “Do we... do we have to stop everything?”

  I yelped when he nipped at my neck, then kissed his way back up to my lips.

  “No.” His voice was as breathless as mine, and I smiled against his mouth. “No, we don’t.”

  ***

  Alex snored.

  I couldn’t help but find it amusing that this perfect creature had a flaw. My shoulders shook silently with laughter as I slid from the bed, picked my jeans up off the floor and stepped into them.