Hate to Want You

by Alisha Rai

  He ghosted his lips over the crease of her groin. “Livvy, can I fuck you with my tongue?”

  She stifled a sob and pulled at her binding, but he really had been a Boy Scout. That was a solid knot. She wasn’t going anywhere. “Yes. Yes, please.”

  “Do you know why I always wanted to go down on you?” He kissed her mound.

  She inhaled. “The answer every woman wants to hear is because you love it.”

  “I do love it. I love your taste and scent and how you move under me. I love I can make you crazy for my touch. But also . . . I was always so grateful.” He nuzzled his nose against the landing strip of hair there, breathing her in, allowing himself to pretend they were together for real and that this was his right and privilege at all times. “Whenever you contacted me, I wanted to get on my hands and knees and show you how grateful I was.”

  She stilled under him. “Most people send a card.”

  “I don’t like writing.” He spread her open with both fingers and touched his tongue to her hard clit, holding her still when she would have jumped. “I love licking you.”

  He settled in to feast, fucking her deep and hard with his mouth. The world around him vanished, his entire focus on the wetness on his tongue, her trembling thighs surrounding his head, the gasping cries she gave. He used his thumb to keep stimulating her clit, even after she started coming, sensing she wouldn’t be satisfied with just one orgasm. He loved it when she hit multiple peaks. It didn’t always happen, but when it did, he felt like a god.

  When she was replete, a boneless heap beneath him, he stretched up her body and kissed her lax mouth. “Livvy, can I fuck you?” he whispered.

  “Yes,” she whispered, then gasped when he readjusted his body and sank inside her, her heat making his toes curl. With the exception of the time in the woods, he’d worn a condom. She might be on birth control, but he wasn’t a man who took chances.

  Except with her, he supposed. He should pull out and suit up but this was such perfection. Fucking her bare sent him back to when they’d been young and hot and committed to one another.

  He pressed his lips against her ear. “I’ve never been naked like this with anyone but you.” Her pussy contracted around him at the confession, and he had to swallow to keep speaking. “Just like no woman’s gone down on me but you.”

  Her head snapped back, incredulity edging out the passion in her gaze. “Are you serious?”

  The sense of vulnerability was overhelming. So was the freedom. “Extremely. I told you it had been a long time.”

  “But that long?”

  “Yes.” He worked his way deeper. “Those words are exactly what I want to hear when my cock is out, by the way. Say them with more excitement.”

  She huffed out a laugh, her breasts jiggling. She tugged at her bonds. “Let me touch you.”

  Fearing she might tweak a muscle, he complied and then entwined his hands with hers. He pressed them flat against the mattress as he withdrew and shafted back inside.

  He grew selfish and greedy as he fucked her, shoving harder. He thought he could hold out longer, but then she turned her head, her teeth sinking into his shoulder, her orgasm tightening her pussy around him. He came with a strangled shout, his come spurting out of him in great spasms.

  He returned to reality in slow degrees when she shifted her body under his and brought her hands to rest on his shoulders, her fingers caressing his skin. He turned his head and kissed her inner wrist, where three dots decorated her skin, so tiny one could miss them. She’d had them since she was twenty-one or so. He remembered the first time he’d noticed. “Where did you get this tattoo?”

  “New York.”

  He nodded, closing his eyes, a nagging sensation still tugging at his consciousness. He would move in a second, once he could get his shit together, but right now this felt so fucking good, resting on top of her while she stroked his shoulders and hair. If he could, he would stay here forever.

  Boston.

  D.C.

  Los Angeles.

  New York.

  He frowned, trying to shoo the wriggling thoughts as his brain struggled to piece together parts of a puzzle he hadn’t been aware existed. He didn’t need his head to ruin this perfect night.

  He pulled out of her and took care of the condom, dropping it into the wastebasket by the bed. Then he ran his hand up her side, urging her onto her stomach.

  Her lashes fluttered. “Wha—?”

  “Let me rub your back,” he murmured.

  She complied, and he had her entire lovely back before him. He ran his hands over her shoulders and lower, rubbing the flesh, working out the knots there.

  His fingers brushed over vibrant ink, so colorful it felt alive. She had a watercolor tattoo of a gold compass centered on her spine, splashes of soothing purple and blue and green behind it. He traced the script N above the arrow at the top. It stood for north, not Nicholas.

  He drew a circle over the compass. She turned her head so her cheek rested against the pillow and sighed. He drew another circle. “A box,” she murmured.

  “What?”

  “Draw a square, not a circle.”

  He didn’t understand her request, but he changed the motion. Her eyes narrowed in pleasure.

  “Do you like that more?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  She didn’t answer for a moment. “It’s something someone taught me. If I’m feeling overwhelmed or like my emotions are too big, I think of putting my feelings into a box. It helps calm me down.”

  How funny. She had to put her feelings in a box, while he’d only recently allowed his out.

  He shifted to lay on his side, and continued the motion, finding it soothing to him as well. He moved to the N, boxing that. “Where did you get this tattoo?”

  “Chicago,” she murmured.

  Boston.

  D.C.

  Los Angeles.

  New York.

  Chicago.

  His mind whirred to life, fitting the cities into a pattern, alongside what he knew about those tattoos and when they’d appeared on her body.

  What were the odds she would get a single tattoo in every city he’d met her in?

  He ran his finger up to the vine that unfurled on her upper back, almost kissing a splatter of ink from the compass. The harsh lines of the vine were a sharp contrast to the dreamy blurriness of the compass. He drew a square there, around a prickly flower. “What does this mean?”

  Her shoulders moved. “I told you. I thought it was pretty.”

  He nodded and slid his hand down her arm to her wrist. A box there. “And this?”

  “It’s an ellipsis.”

  “What does it mean?”

  She rolled over on to her back and stared up at him. “Punctuation.”

  He bent and pressed a kiss on the side of her breast, where the heart lay. “What about this?”

  “It’s from a poem I liked.”

  “What poem?”

  “What’s with all the questions?” She moved, subtly edging away. She shoved the sheets and comforter down and crawled under them, wrapping the bedding around herself.

  “I’m curious.”

  Boston.

  D.C.

  Los Angeles.

  New York.

  Chicago.

  “What about your other ones?”

  She yawned, her eyes closing. “Other what?”

  “All your tattoos? Where did you get each one?”

  Her lashes fluttered. “What’s the big deal, Nico?”

  That Nico wasn’t a caressing endearment. It was a warning. His stomach churned.

  Too bad he’d never been good at heeding warnings. “Did you get a tattoo in every city we met up in?”

  She straightened, clutching the sheet to her chest. “Huh?”

  “There’s a pattern. Boston, D.C., L.A., New York, Chicago. I flew to all those places over the years. I’m betting you have other cities we met in on you, don’t you? At
lanta? Minneapolis?”

  “Uh, I was living in those places, of course I got ink there. And I got tattoos in places we never met up.” She raised her arm and flashed the tiny velociraptor on her inner biceps. “That was in Denver.”

  Well used to her wily ways, he rested on his elbow and watched her. “I asked you if you got something in every city we met up in, not if you only got them in those places.”

  “So what if I did?”

  He tensed. “That’s interesting.”

  “Why is it interesting?” She rolled her eyes. “It just is.”

  His gaze dropped to the pot of gold on her hip. She’d gotten that one the day after her seventeenth birthday.

  He might love patterns, but Livvy loved anniversaries. He had trouble swallowing. “It was the next day, wasn’t it? Each time?”

  “Jesus, what does it matter?” She sat up and threw her legs over the side of the bed, tugging the sheet so she could wrap it around her body toga-style.

  She stood and stalked over to her dress, picking it up and shaking it out, the petticoat flaring.

  He ran his hand over his face, suddenly, fiercely tired. “Livvy, I thought you wanted to resolve the stuff between us.”

  She dropped the sheet and stepped into her dress, quickly zipping it up before he could be distracted by her body. “That’s what we’re doing.”

  “We’re not if you won’t talk to me.”

  “This conversation is pointless. You’re digging for something and I don’t understand what.”

  “Were you punishing yourself? For sleeping with me?”

  She drew back, a sneer on her lips. “No, dumbass. Tattoos are never punishment.”

  She’d skipped calling him Nicholas and gone straight to dumbass, but he didn’t have the mental reserves to deal with that.

  She smoothed her badly wrinkled skirt. “Why would you even think that?”

  “Because I know you . . . hurt . . . after we broke up.”

  “Yeah, I told you that.”

  “I know . . .” He licked his lips, certain he should shut up, but unable to stop himself. “I know you were depressed. I know you said you wanted to die.”

  She went utterly still, every muscle frozen. It was like looking at a statue. Her lips barely moved when she spoke. “Who told you that?”

  Aw shit. He had to keep going now. “Your brother paid me a visit.”

  Her head snapped around. “What? When?”

  “Last week.”

  “Last week . . . when?”

  “The day we went to my grandfather’s.”

  Her gaze flickered, and her skin paled. “Oh God. The day you suddenly decided we needed to talk? Is that why . . . is that what this has been? You and me, this week? The sweetness, the talking, the fucking? Was this all out of, what? Pity?”

  He came to his knees, uncaring of his nudity. “No, no.”

  She laughed half-hysterically. “We talked about hate-fucks and guilt-fucks, but I suppose I should have brought up pity-fucks.”

  “That’s not it. Damn it, Livvy.”

  Fury joined horror in her expression. Beyond listening, she grabbed her shoes from where she’d kicked them off. “That’s what all the questions were about. Was I punishing myself for having sex with you? Because I was so heartbroken, I couldn’t stay away from you, right?”

  “That’s not—”

  “Yes. I was depressed after you broke things off with me, is that what you want to hear?” The tears trembling on her lashes broke something apart inside him. “I fell into the deepest, scariest pit of depression, so much I never thought I’d crawl my way out. I did want to die.” She didn’t bother to tie her sandals properly, simply wrapping the strings around her ankles in a large knot. “That first time I texted you, that first birthday, I felt so pathetic and lonely. After you left, I cried for days. But then the next year, I cried less. And even less the following. I built myself back up. And tonight? I’m not going to cry at all. So take your pity and go fuck yourself with it.”

  He scrambled out of bed, panic driving him. Wait, she couldn’t leave. Where were his pants? He had to stop her. “Livvy, wait. You’ve misunderstood everything. It wasn’t pity. It was never pity.”

  She stalked to the door and glanced over her shoulder. “Then what was it?”

  Love. He opened his mouth, the answer there, on the tip of his tongue.

  Say it.

  The seconds ticked by as he struggled to do it, to strip that final protective layer off his heart. Cold moved through him, freezing all animation, the wind-up man going still.

  Finally, she shook her head. Tears shimmered in her eyes, but they didn’t fall. “Actually, I think I finally understand everything.” The look she cast him was inscrutable and cool. “I think we’re done now, Nicholas. I’m going to do my damnedest to forget your number. Don’t ever text me again.”

  Chapter 18

  LIVVY’D LIED. She cried all the way home.

  With grim determination, she took ten minutes in her mother’s driveway blowing her nose and using the tiny tube of concealer in her purse to cover the puffiness under her eyes. It was late, but it was entirely possible her aunt may still be awake.

  She would not let anyone see what a mess she was inside.

  Like an object of pity.

  Don’t think about it. Get upstairs, get to your room, and then you can fall apart.

  When she entered the house and heard the murmur of a late-night talk show, Livvy was glad she’d taken the time to tidy up. She crept to the stairs, wincing over every creak. She was almost to the first step when her aunt’s low voice came from the living room. “Livvy?”

  She hastily ran her fingers through her hair, then walked to the arched opening, tugging on her wrinkled dress. Her aunt sat in her usual chair, her usual knitting in her hands. The only light in the room came from a small Tiffany lamp next to her chair and the T.V. Livvy stuck to the shadows right inside the door. “Hey, Aunt Maile.” She was proud her voice wasn’t tear-fogged and hoarse.

  “You’re home late.” Maile looked at her, and her ready smile faded. She put down her knitting. “Are you okay?”

  Livvy nodded, trying to control her lower lip. “Y-yes.”

  “Come here.”

  “I should go to bed.”

  “Come here.”

  Livvy didn’t often hear that commanding tone from Maile. Her feet moved before her head could catch up.

  She tried to straighten her shoulders as Maile surveyed her in the light. Head up, chin up, no tears. She was tough and strong, not some dumb girl screaming in her bedroom over a boy.

  Maile’s eyes softened, and she held out her hand. “Oh, my love. What did that man do to you?”

  Her lip quivered, and the next thing she knew, she was on her knees next to her aunt’s chair, her face buried in her lap as she sobbed. Maile’s calloused hand swept over her hair, keeping it from her wet cheeks.

  Livvy didn’t know how long she wept there, her aunt stroking her, but eventually her sobs turned to silent tears. She turned her head to speak. “Does everyone know about me and Nicholas?”

  “I don’t know about everyone. I ran into Darrell’s mother at bookclub, and she told me he saw the two of you together at the café.”

  Darrell. The cheerful kid behind the café counter.

  Maile continued petting Livvy’s head. “It was natural for you to want to see him again, honey.”

  “I slept with him.”

  “That’s natural too.” There was no judgment in her aunt’s voice.

  “I thought we could resolve what was between us.”

  “Is that really what you thought, my love?” Her voice was incredibly gentle. “Is that really why you saw him again? Or were you holding out some hope that this time it would all work out?”

  Livvy started to say no, but her breath arrested.

  It was never pity.

  Then what was it?

  She knew what she’d wanted him to say. “I’m so
stupid.” Counter thought. I deserve compassion.

  “No, you’re not.”

  “It could never work out.”

  “Never isn’t a good word,” Maile said. “It’s complicated.”

  “I think I still love him.” The words whispered into the dimly lit room, her worst truth fully revealed. “I can’t stay away from him, even when I try. Even when I know it’ll only hurt me. If that’s not stupid, I don’t know what is.” I deserve compassion.

  “That’s love, not stupidity.”

  “It’s irrational.”

  “If someone told you love is rational, they’re a liar. Sometimes you can’t stop loving someone.”

  There was such understanding in Maile’s voice, Livvy looked up. In her memory, her aunt had always been happily single, but there was a brooding sadness in her dark eyes that told Livvy she understood. “Did you love someone like that?”

  “Yes. Her name was Jacinda.” Maile’s fingers separated Livvy’s hair and started braiding. “We were young. My parents disapproved. Your father told me he would give me money to run away with her. Start over fresh somewhere new. But I was scared, so I broke things off.”

  “What happened to her?”

  “I don’t know. She left for New York City. She came back a few times. Until one day she didn’t.”

  “You could find out where she is now.”

  “I don’t know if I’m brave enough for that.” Maile tugged on Livvy’s crooked braid affectionately. “I’m not quite like you.”

  “I’m not brave at all.” I’m a good person. Please let me be compassionate to me.

  She just couldn’t.

  Fresh tears stung her eyes. “Nicholas found out how I reacted when we ended things last time.” And she would be giving Jackson a piece of her mind. Later, when she could concentrate more on her justifiable anger instead of this deep, yawning despair.

  “What do you mean?”

  “About how depressed I was.” She shied away from the word suicidal, though that was what she’d been. Her depression had been triggered by multiple events, that meeting in the woods the final push she’d needed. If Jackson hadn’t hid everything that could have harmed her in the house that first night, she wasn’t certain what she would have done.

  “Good. He should know how much he hurt you.”