Love the Way You Lie(33)

“You’re beautiful,” he says, his voice hoarse.

I flinch, because it’s what Byron used to tell me. Of course when he said it, it was a compliment to himself, praise for finding the perfect accessory to his life.

Kip notices. “You don’t like that word.”

“No. Yes. I don’t know.” I laugh softly. “It’s complicated. I look like my mother.”

That’s what my father always told me, with the bitter light of grief in his eyes.

There must be grief in my eyes too, because Kip says, “She’s gone.”

“It was a long time ago. I thought I was over it, but for some reason I think of her a lot more now.” Maybe because Clara is paying for her sins. Maybe because I am too.

He is quiet a moment. “I think we never really get over the past. It’s always shaping us.”

Then how is it shaping you? But I am careful not to ask that question. I think with the quietude and the starlit intimacy, he might actually tell me. And then where would I be? I can’t care about a man. I can’t care about anything but my sister. All I can carve out for myself is a single night with a man I choose.

Because it isn’t really about payment when I take his hand and place it on my breast.

A breath leaves him on a sigh as his hand cups me. Broad fingers stroke my skin above the edge of my tank top. A heavy palm warms me through the fabric. I can still hear him saying I’m beautiful, but he holds back now, thoughtful. “I see you,” he finally murmurs. “Only you.”

It’s his way of grounding me in the present, and it’s working. He does see me, because he doesn’t know anything of my past. He doesn’t know where I came from or where I’m going. I’m so tired of being my father’s daughter, my mother’s daughter, my sister’s protector. For this moment I’m just me. I’m only a warm body for him to use, and I need to be that for him.

“Do you want me to dance for you now?” I whisper even though I said I wouldn’t.

He shakes his head slowly, eyes dark and solemn. “You don’t have to dance. You don’t even have to move. Just let me make you feel good.”

I don’t remember what good is anymore, but his strong hands show me. They push up the hem of my tank top, exposing me to the cool night air. They trace circles over my skin. He pulls the fabric over my breasts, sucking in a breath when he sees the lace bra I have on.

His hand looks dark against the bright red, powerful over the sheer fabric. He strokes his thumb back and forth across the tip of my breast, hardening the nipple until it makes a point. My body responds to him without me doing anything—like he said, I don’t even have to move. My hands remain at my sides, my head resting on the folded edge of the jacket that is my pillow. My head is propped enough that I can watch him stroke my breasts while I lay passive, and it’s so easy to lie there, so easy to let him, so easy to feel pleasure arc through me without moving a muscle.

He runs a finger over the curves of my small breasts, traces the lines of the bra. Then he slips his hand underneath, touching me without seeing. It is a shocking warmth, his hand on my breast. These breasts I’ve bared to so many men. They are covered now—by him.

The lacy fabric stretches over his hand, pushed up with no room to give. Underneath, his hand shifts, finding my nipple between thumb and forefinger. He squeezes gently, and a soft sound escapes me, like a whimper.

“You feel so good. You feel like fucking heaven.” He rolls my nipple between his fingers. “This is what I dream about. Keeping you in bed, bringing you food and wine, touching you as much as I want.”

My eyes fall shut, imagining his fantasy. Instead of a stripper in a seedy club, I am his personal sex slave, wrapped in silks and desire. My body grows warm at the thought, wet at the core. “Kip.”

“Would you like that?” he murmurs. I think he knows exactly what he’s doing to me. “Would you lie there and let me touch you as long as I want to? Even when you fall asleep, I’d keep my hands on you. On these pretty breasts. On your pussy.”

And then, as if to illustrate his point, he removes his hand from my bra and slides it down, underneath the waistband of my pants. He doesn’t stop until he dips his fingers into the slickness pooling there.

“Fuck, you do like this.” He actually sounds shocked.

It makes me laugh—though it’s almost a giggle. I didn’t know I was even capable of making that sound, but then a lot of things are a surprise tonight. Apparently I’m the type of girl who can drink alcohol with a boy she likes, who will let him finger her while she plays the docile, innocent victim.