Her smile broadens into a smirk and she gives me a look of disbelief. "Cook? A guy like you knows how to cook?"
The cab stops in front of my building and I return her expression. "Don't judge a book by its cover, baby. I'm a man of all trades." I place one hand on the door handle and place the other behind her neck, pulling her closer to me. "Don't let the man on the surface deceive you, because what really lies inside is so many layers of charred and fucked up, you don't want to know the real me; the ugly side. I learned the key to survival at a very young age. You haven't seen anything yet."
"What if I do," she counters in question.
I hand the driver a folded bill and grab her hand. Exiting the car, I drag her with me in a hurry. She follows closely behind, keeping pace the entire way to my door. I place the key into the lock and turn it. I open it and pull her inside, slamming it behind me.
I turn, closing in on her, backing her against the door. I place my hands on the door at each side of her, blocking her in. I don't know what's going on inside me. I don't know what she's doing to me, but the internal pit known as my soul is no longer just a pile of embers. Each time I'm with her, they are receiving oxygen and building into full flame. What scares me is that it won't take long until I'll be dealing with an inferno. "You don't want to know me, Piper. You have no idea what you're saying or how dangerous that could be for you. I shouldn't even be letting myself near you, but I can't stop. I just met you and I'm hooked on your body. I can't think of anything but being inside of you, watching your beautiful face as you come underneath me. I'm in too deep with you already, but that has never happened with any woman, so I need to ask you one question. What the fuck are you doing to me?"
She keeps her arms to her sides. Her eyes are boring into mine. "You're wrong. I want to know everything there is to know about you. I don't care how crazy or dangerous this is. I'm not ready to stop. The truth is, for the first time I'm starting to feel free. Don't make me stop, Haddox. I'm tired of being a captive. Please, don't take this feeling away from me yet."
Something about her begging me snaps a part of internal bondage. I can feel the relief of it, although small, but still something. I have no idea what, and I don't know if it's going to cost me in the end or free me from some of the guilt I carry. In reality, what do I have to lose? I've only known her two days and that is fucking insane, but in this moment I know I'd give her anything she asked of me within reason.
"How can you make that decision when you haven't even seen the worst of me? You know nothing about me, yet you want to give more of yourself to me? I'm dark, Piper. I'm blackened and cold on the inside. I live in the Arctic where no one wants to go. You're not. You're warm and sunny. I enjoy things that would send most girls like you running, which is why I generally don't fuck girls like you." Her eyes widen, but never veer. I still have her attention.
"Some of my sex life and the way I like it even need it, is considered to be dabbling in the world of BDSM, though I'm not a Dom. I don't like to follow rules or categorize myself under any genre and I sure as hell don't need someone to train me how to fuck. I own my own control. When I need a release from things that own my soul, things I'll keep you free from, it's my outlet. When I need to submerge myself in the dark, will you be able to handle it?" I reach down and grab her hands, pulling them above her head, pressing my body against hers, and showing her just how hard she's made me, yet again.
Those brown eyes swirled with amber are clear, looking back at me. "Whether you're at your worst or your best, you're still you. I just think we're two broken people needing nothing but company while we cope. This person that I've been doesn't fit in. I'm living a lie. I asked you to show me another way and I meant it. You won't hurt me. I can sense it. You may need control, but maybe I need to let it go. I may be innocent to what you like, but not naive. I'm willing to learn. Show me pleasure or show me pain, as long as mentally you allow me to escape. We don't have to be anything aside from what we are; nothing more, nothing less."
I can't take it anymore. My cock is going wild to get inside her. She's next to fucking perfect. I reach down and grab her by the thighs, picking her up. She wraps her long legs around my waist. "We're staying in bed most of the day. If there is any confusion as to who your pussy belongs to, there won't be for long. I'm marking it as mine."
She moans as I grab her bottom lip between mine, nipping it, while walking toward the bedroom. I haven't consistently fucked the same woman since Breanna, and for that reason. I know I can't give a woman what she wants nine times out of ten, regardless of what she says, so I don't risk it at all. With Piper, I don't have the option to decide. It's been decided for me whether I'm ready for it or not.
My eyes open. It's dark, with only the lights of the city peeping through the window. Shit. How could I have slept the day away? I love sleep, but I never sleep more than five hours at a time without medication. I've been that way all my life. My internal clock sucks when most of my friends in high school and college could sleep upwards of ten to twelve hours at a time.
I have too much crap to do for school. Dammit. I roll my head to the side. Haddox is still sleeping. He's lying on his side with one arm under the pillow and the other cupped over my naked breast. He looks peaceful. It gives me an idea to get my mind into sketching before I start back on my portfolio. Phase one is due soon. Choosing our design theme. I can't choose a theme without rough draft sketching a few designs.
I squint and slide my right leg off the edge of the bed, quietly letting it fall. When I get my foot placed on the floor, I slide closer to the outer side of the bed. Instead of trying to pick his hand up I let it slide across my body until it falls onto the warm spot I was previously laying. I ease off the bed, letting it dip as I stand from the edge.
I tiptoe around the bed, trying not to wake him. His shirt is lying on the floor at the foot of the bed. I pick it up and pull it over my head and arms, letting it fall in a loose fit down my body, stopping just below my butt. I feel around until I find my underwear not far from where the shirt was lying and step in them, pulling them up my legs.
I grab the collar and pull it under my nose, inhaling his scent. I love the way he smells. I don't know why. Usually it's not much more than cologne and soap mixed when in the presence of a man, but something about his smell is different. The cologne is subtle, but it's almost masked by this manly clean smell, distinct to him. He stirs and I freeze. He rolls over onto his stomach, wrapping his left arm around my pillow and pulls it to his body.
I'm standing in silence, waiting anxiously for him to wake up and wonder what I'm doing, but to my surprise he goes back into a peaceful slumber, no longer moving. The comforter is almost completely off the foot of the bed. One of us is obviously a rough sleeper or it's the combination of the two, because my covers at home are always in the same place when I awaken, as they were when I went to bed. The sheet is pulled down halfway over his ass, revealing the top of both butt cheeks and his naked torso. What a beautiful view that is.
I look around the room now that my eyes are focused for the dark, looking for my bag. I spot it on the wall by the window, not far from the chair in the corner of the room. Perfect. It even has a floor lamp next to it, but it's far enough away from the bed that maybe it won't wake him. I walk quietly towards it and squat down. I fold over the flap to my bag, removing what I need to sketch.
Sketching is my escape. It takes me out of my head by channeling some of my emotions onto the page. I have a true passion for fashion sketching, but I found a love for what I like to call discovery sketching years ago. I sit with an empty sketchpad and let my mind instruct my hands on what to draw. It has been my saving grace on so many bad days.
I inch toward the chair one step at a time and sit down. I turn on the lamp, staring at him as it comes on, hoping and praying he doesn't wake up from the light. His head is turned in my direction. I should go in the other room, but I want to draw him like this. When this is over I want something to remember him
by.
His eyelids squint a little as the bulb comes on, but his eyes never open. Pulling my legs up onto the seat of the chair, I rest my sketchpad on my knees and prepare to sketch. I take a moment to stare at his form, photographing it to memory. Once I have it I'll only have to glance briefly to stay on track. From the head of the bed to the foot I burn that beautiful man into my memory, never to be forgotten. Someone that visually appetizing would be hard to forget anyway.
I close my eyes, letting my mind shut down to everything but that photo. I open them and start with basic lines, placing them in the appropriate places. My hand moves from place to place quickly, never stopping as the pencil obeys my mind's command. I get lost in the sound of the lead traveling across the textured paper. I love that sound. It's hypnotic.
Real time slips away as I draw him, only glancing up from time to time, continuing to mark him to memory so I don't miss a single detail, and I won't. I never do. The attention to detail is what separates a good artist from a great artist. It's imperative.
Drawing is something I did on a whim when I decided I wanted to be a fashion designer. I came home from that photo shoot with my aunt, going on and on to Mom about how I wanted to be the next Vera Wang. I wanted to enroll in an art class. She laughed at me. It was waste of time, she said. She lectured me about how modeling was in my genes and that most girls would kill to look like we did. She thought the idea of being behind the scenes of the camera instead of in front of it was a disgrace.
You have to understand my mom. She is beautiful, but she's also self-centered. All of my life she has tried to be in the spotlight, either personally or through me. She's a socialite at the greatest degree. It's a little sickening. I'm nothing like her and on most days I can't stand her. I've been shoved into more classes and auditions over the years than I care to think about.
I'm actually almost positive she doesn't even love my dad. Dollar signs is what she saw in him when she met him at a very young age at a charity event and he knows it, but for some insane reason he loves her. Those that come from money never stray, I guess, because she has absolutely no redeeming qualities. She's an unlovable person. Maybe she knew that and knew she would never find someone better than my father. She hit the jackpot with him. She prides herself on being a trophy wife, and also about fifteen years younger than my dad. I love him dearly, but I personally think he's crazy, because other than being a control freak he's an awesome person.
I am my father's child. My mother just incubated me, because I never claim her as mine. I don't know how I could come from any of her DNA. I keep telling myself I had to come from a donor egg, because we are that different aside from looks. It's either that or my father has some potent sperm, his DNA overriding hers. She embarrasses me.
My dad is smart as hell, though, because that's how he keeps my mom on a leash and forever his. He baits her with money and lavishing her with gifts, but never giving her access to funds except through a credit card in which he controls. I've studied him for years and she's either stupid or so greedy that she doesn't care. It's probably a little of both.
The only reason I was able to enroll in art was because of my father. I cried for days after my mother told me no. Daddy's little girl controls his heart and lucky for me my dad hates to see me upset. If you study a control freak long enough, you figure out how to control them. People of controlling qualities are predictable. It's all about letting them think they are in control, even when they're not. To this day I let my dad control my every move and in turn I get what I want, such as my car. It's coming.
After I told him what was wrong, I allowed him to bribe me. If I humored my mother by allowing her to shuffle my portfolio all over the place after she got my aunt to make one for me, he would allow me to enroll in art classes indefinitely. She had been driving my dad crazy over it for months, but I didn't want to do it, so he kept telling her to wait. I agreed. Since he controls my mother nothing more was said, but she was pissed and wasn't ashamed to show it, to me at least. She made my life a living hell for a month after that, but it was worth it, because I found the one thing I'm great at. I found my talent.
My mother hates my relationship with my father. She's jealous because she is seriously lacking a likable personality. She's as fake as they come. As far as she's concerned there is only room for one woman in the Morgan house. She kissed my ass my entire senior year when I announced I wanted to live on campus beginning freshman year. My dad wasn't happy with that request. Eighteen years with her on a daily basis was all I could stand. She even helped me convince him of the benefits so he would agree. She loves no one but herself.
I shade the last section when that sexy voice pulls me into the present. "What are you doing?"
I look up and quickly close my sketchpad. He's propped up on his side, looking at me with a sleepy expression. His bottom half is covered by the thin sheet, but showing a slight outline of what’s underneath. I love cityscapes and skylines. The view of the city all lit up at night has always been my favorite thing to look at. I was born a city girl and a city girl I'll always be, but the view before me is quickly bypassing my favorite in a race for the number one spot.
"I was just sketching. I'm sorry. Did I wake you?" I stand and gather my things. "I'll go in the other room. It was rude to turn on the light while you were sleeping. I'm sorry."
I turn around to shut off the light in a hurry. Before I'm able to turn back around or leave he's already standing behind me, completely naked. He places his hands palm down on my thighs, lightly brushing them up my body, underneath the shirt I'm wearing. He stops on my hips, pulling me against him. His reflexes are indescribably fast. "You ramble a lot. How is anyone supposed to answer your questions when you don't give them the time?"
I close my eyes at the deepness of his voice just outside my ear. My breathing picks up. Chills start to arise all over my body and I'm not cold. I clench onto my sketchpad and bag tighter, trying to stop the shaking of my hands. He makes me a nervous wreck in his presence aside from sex, because he makes it to where I don't think at all during those encounters. Obviously we're participating in a sex-a-thon, because the sore spot between my legs is proof. I've had sex more times in the past two days than I have in the last six months.
I don't know what to say. "I'm sorry." I bite my tongue at the stupid response. It's the third time I've apologized. He removes his right hand from its resting position and places it on the outside my hair, sweeping it from left to right in the opposite direction from his face like a curtain.
"Do I make you uncomfortable?"
"Yes."
"Good. That means I'm doing my job. Show me what you were sketching."
I really don't want to show him. How creepy is it going to look if he finds out I've been sitting here watching him sleep and drawing him? I can't face him right now. I can't lie either, because it's a brand new sketchpad. I have no other sketches in this one. I feel like slapping myself for doing something so personal around him. Actually, I suddenly have the urge to run, almost naked or not. "It's nothing that will interest you. It just helps me sometimes to free sketch when I find something that interests me and I have a lot of stuff for school. It was just an inspirational moment I guess. It's stupid."
He grabs my chin, turning it toward him. I try to pull away, but he tightens his hold. "Face me."
My mind is telling me to rebel, but my body wants to behave. I hate being told what to do. Even worse, I despise that I want to obey. I should tell him to fuck off and mind his own business, that if I want to keep my sketches private I will, but I'm finding difficulty in getting my tongue to work. "Piper...face me."
A war is going on inside me. My feet begin to turn, carrying my body with them. I look up at him. His jaw is flexing back and forth as if he's clenching his teeth together. His gaze is burning into me. A part of me is fighting him, because the part I'm trying to ignore is slipping from my grasp as if he's calling for me to follow him. If I go, he's either going to be my savior or t
he storm that destroys me.
His silence is intimidating. The only sound is coming from him breathing through his nose. I'm waiting on something to come from his mouth: anything. It bothers me that I care. I barely know him. Actually, I know nothing about him. He could be psycho for all I know. He still has my chin in his grasp. He runs the pad of his thumb across my bottom lip. The way he looks at me has my heart beating rapidly, but why?
I find myself leaning into his touch. Without thought my lips start to take on a mind of their own, trying to kiss his thumb. I want his approval. I wish I knew why. I hate myself for it, but I also want more. He closes his eyes briefly. When he opens them they change. Something in them is different. I can't place it. It's as if he's at war with something bigger than himself, having to push it back.
"I'll never take away your free will, Piper." His voice is lower, less angry. "The second either of us want this thing between us to end, it ends. No questions asked. I know I have an intense personality. I get that it's hard for you, but I need you to humor me. I need you to take the back seat with your want to control your own actions when you're with me. There aren't many things I need, but baby, this I do. I can't explain it. It's my shit to bear, but I need you to trust me."
There are so many reasons I shouldn't trust him. I don't want to put my trust in anyone anymore. You get burned. I want to go back to only worrying about myself, keeping things simple. There are fewer letdowns that way, but no matter how much I want that I can't have it. I can't rewind my life before I met him, and even if I could, I wouldn't.
I have no idea who this sexy man before me is, but I want to find out. I want to peel his layers back one at a time. We're both damaged goods. Everyone knows they always get thrown out as trash, but sometimes if you dig through the rubble, you'll find hidden treasure amongst the mess. Scars on a person aren't always ugly. They add character, lifelines. The beauty of a person is always in the eye of the beholder, inside and out.
Fight for You Page 10