With our bodies shaking and our breath shuddering through us, I wrap my hand gently at her neck, feeling her pulse.
Fast. Hard. Strong.
Alive.
“I’m going to make you love me, Dragonfly. I’m going to make you love me,” I vow to her, right before I kiss her again.53ToiI’m going to make you love me.
Marcum’s voice echoes through my thoughts.
I feel like I can’t breathe. I touch my neck where moments before Marcum’s hand was.
He wants me to love him.
I don’t know what love is. I’ve never had it in my life and I’ve never wanted it.
I’m going to make you love me.
He once told me he didn’t do love. Why did he say he wanted me to love him then? I know I’m starting to panic—what I don’t know is why.
“What are you thinking, honey?” Marcum asks, coming back into the room. He gathers me up into his arms and I curl into him.
“About you,” I whisper.
“I like that.” He grins and kisses the top of my head.
“Where are we going?”
“I’m going to bathe my woman.”
“Bathe me? First, you carry me everywhere, then feed me, and now you want to bathe me? Marcum, did you have an obsession with playing with Barbie dolls when you were a child?”
“Fuck, no. Barbie is fucking scary.”
“What?”
“She had no pussy. That kind of shit can scar a man. Boobs without nipples and no pussy? Jesus. And don’t get me started on Ken.”
“You’re insane,” I laugh softly, kissing the side of his neck.
“If I am, you’ve driven me there, Dragonfly.”
He lowers me down into an old claw-foot tub. The hot water wraps around my body, instantly relaxing me even further.
“This feels like heaven,” I whisper, leaning back against the tub and closing my eyes.
“You feel like heaven,” he counters and his hand goes between my legs and he holds me there. My eyes instantly open up and my gaze locks with his.
“Marcum—”
“I didn’t use a condom with you, Dragonfly.”
I go instantly tense. I didn’t even think about birth control. My face drains of color despite the heat of the water. My stomach churns. Oh God. I just had sex with a biker, one of the most fucking virile bikers in history without protection. What if I’m pregnant?
“Oh God,” I whisper, closing my eyes.
“Dragonfly, I’m clean I swear,” he says and another thought enters my head.
Oh God… what if one of the millions of women he’s been with had something…
“Oh God,” I say again, but this one sounds much more painful—because it is.
“Dragonfly, I’m clean. I swear it to you. I’ll even go with you and have tests done so you can see for yourself—and I haven’t been with another woman in a fuck of a long time. You don’t need to worry,” he says and I bite my lip and look at him. He’s being honest. It’s written all over his face.
“You could have made me pregnant. God knows you seem to make a woman pregnant just by looking at her.”
“Toi,” he says, shaking his head as his lips spread into a smile.
“God, how could I be so stupid?”
“Stop that. What we shared was not stupid, Toi. It was beautiful.”
“It was stupid.”
“It was special,” he argues and I have to admit I like that he thinks that. I take a deep breath, trying to calm myself.
“What if I’m pregnant, Marcum?”
“Then we have a beautiful baby and we love it.”
“You don’t do love,” I remind him, closing my eyes.
“Maybe you’re the one that can change my mind, Dragonfly.”
“You have a hundred kids, Marcum. The last thing you need is another one.”
“I would want a child with you, Toi. Fuck, I want that more than you will ever know.”
“Marcum… We don’t… I mean what we have… It’s new and…”
“It’s real and it will be forever, Dragonfly. I’ve told you before and you need to realize it. I’m not giving you up.”
“But Cherry is back and…”
“She’s here until we figure out what the fuck she is up to,” he sighs, starting to wash me.
“What she’s up to?”
“Maybe I’m wrong, but I can’t believe that it’s a coincidence she’s the one Weasel had taking you away from me.”
I frown… Something is nagging at me.
“She did yell at me when you first showed up. She said something about having to salvage everything. She was afraid I got her caught… I didn’t pay much attention and then with the accident…”
“Fuck…”
“I’m sorry. Was that important, do you think?”
“It could be. Dragonfly, we need to talk,” Marcum says with a sigh.
His face is completely serious and all at once I’m scared about what he’s going to tell me.
“I—”
“Let me finish washing you, honey, and then we’ll talk,” he says and butterflies are fluttering nervously in my stomach.54Marcum“I thought we were going on lockdown?” Toi asks as I lay her down on the bed.
She’s right; I really should take her down there for the night. But, I can’t bring myself to do it. I want this night with her alone. We have a bedroom down there, but it’s small and it will be loud because it’s right off the common area. There’s very little privacy with everyone down there and that’s not what I want with Toi—not after what we just shared.