‘I do,’ I say, but in fact, I feel completely drained and sleepy.
He holds me and rolls himself so we are both lying on our sides facing each other. Slowly, he slips out of me. My legs feel cramped and stiff and I straighten them with a sigh.
He touches my hair. ‘So silky,’ he mutters.
My eyes droop closed for a second before I realize that I am falling asleep. I force them open and look at him. It is astonishing how awake and alert he seems to be.
‘Aren’t you sleepy?’ I ask.
‘Nope. I have a high metabolic rate. I don’t tire fast. In fact, I hardly ever sleep.’ He eases off the condom, ties it, and chucks it over the edge of the bed.
‘Really? That’s amazing.’
‘It’s not all it’s cracked up to be. I spend too many nights when everyone else is asleep wandering around like some night creature.’
‘Is that why they call you The Bat? Because you’re up all night.’
He gives me an odd look, as if he is deciding what to tell me. ‘No, that’s not why.’
I get up on my elbow and look at him curiously. ‘Why then?’
In one smooth move he is on his haunches and has pulled me upright on the bed. We stand facing each other. ‘Because when I was 15 I didn’t know how to control my rage or my power and that made me fierce and vicious. This is how I fought then.’
He tucks his chin down to his chest, rounds his shoulders, and moves his fists as if he is throwing punches to the sides of my body. They only touch my body, but I get a measure of how lightning-fast his delivery is, and how impossible it must be to try and evade them if he was doing it for real. In seconds, I feel disorientated and I don’t resist when he grabs my shoulders, swooping down to touch his open mouth to the side of my neck. He lifts his head and stares at me.
‘I bit them hard enough to draw blood. At the end of every fight, my mouth was always dripping with their blood and sometimes I even spat out flesh.’
I stand frozen with shock. ‘Why were you so angry?’
Something flashes in his eyes. Something that hurt him badly. It shocks me to see him so vulnerable. And then a veil comes over his eyes. He had accidently revealed too much. ‘I didn’t bring you here talk. You’re here to fuck and to suck cock,’ he says, pushing my shoulders downwards.
I get on my knees. His cock is already rock hard, but just a moment ago I saw something in his eyes. Some terrible pain.
‘It’s a nice cock. I’ll enjoy sucking it,’ I say, softly looking up at him.
I lean forward and lick the smooth head. He rakes his fingers through my hair, fists them, and fucks my mouth as if I am a prostitute he picked up on a street corner. But I understood, even when I was getting on my knees, that it is the hurt, the terrible hurt that I reminded him of that is driving him.
He comes in my mouth without asking if he can.
I get it. He has just made me submit. Made me swallow his cum. He has owned me. I look up at him, my mouth still full of his softening flesh. His shoulders heave. He pulls out of me, crouches down, and we stare at each other. And I know that something has changed.
‘I have to leave,’ I say.
‘Stay the night.’
‘I can’t. Dominic is taking me out to breakfast.’
‘Sorry, I can’t let you go just yet. I haven’t had enough of you yet.’
‘I’m too sore, BJ.’
‘I know,’ he says softly, his voice husky. ‘I won’t hurt you.’
I feel my stomach lift.
He puts me on my back, pins me to the bed with his body, and kisses my eyes. What he does afterwards can only be called a worship of my body with his tongue and mouth. He covers every inch of me kissing, sucking, licking, nipping, biting. Neck, hands, fingers, legs, toes, breasts, nipples, stomach, hips, back, buttocks, asshole, and—finally, finally when I am shivering with arousal —clit.
The result of so much attention is an orgasm like I’ve never had. The kind where there are stars at the back of your eyelids and you really think you are going to pass out, or perhaps you even actually pass out. No wonder the French call it la petite mort, the little death. It is so consuming and powerful I feel almost melancholy and tears slip out of my eyes.
He looks at them curiously, bending his head to lick them.
The gesture is so innocent, so without guile that it makes me feel unreal. At that surreal moment I believe myself to be merely a reflection on a shiny surface or part of a dream. It is in the play of light from the flames in the fireplace on his face that pulls me back. I see him for what he really is. A totally misunderstood, half-man, half-beast, hiding a suffering heart. And I feel as protective over him as a mother bear of her cubs. I could never let anyone hurt him. And I know, in this moment, that I must never, never bring harm to him. I must guard him from the wrath of my family.
I touch his scar and he flinches.
‘What happened?’
‘Someone bit me,’ he says quietly, but I know it was not just anyone. The scar is still alive in his mind. And sometimes when I look at him, it even seems so to me.
‘A scar is a special thing. It means you were stronger than whatever tried to hurt you.’
His eyes widen. He stares at me in wonder.
‘What?’
He shakes his head. ‘You’re just different than what I thought you would be.’
I smile. ‘What did you think I’d be?’
He shakes his head again and looks away. ‘Not like this.’ He sits up. ‘Are you hungry?’
‘Starving actually.’
‘Come on. I’ll feed you and then take you home.’
We dress quickly as if we are leaving the scene of a crime. I have a great desire to stroke his cheek and make it better. But what am I making better? We have nothing but sex between us. There can be nothing between us, but secret passion. He looks at me, his stance, waiting, watching, patient.
I tie my skirt over my shirt, shrug on my jacket, and slip into my shoes. ‘Ready,’ I declare.
He takes me to a Chinese restaurant, one of these places that stays open all night. He orders what seems to be the entire menu.
‘Are you really going to eat all that?’
‘I burned a lot of calories tonight,’ he says with a grin.
The food starts arriving almost immediately. He has ordered all kinds of food, but I feel full after a helping of Kung Po chicken and ginger prawns on half a bowl of rice. It is actually too late to eat.
Feeling lethargic and satiated and happy, I lean my chin on my hand and watch with sleepy detachment as he goes through the pile of food. In the car, I yawn and lean my head back against the head rest. He turns towards me.
‘Meet me for dinner tomorrow?’
‘I can’t. I have to be in bed early. I have a job interview on Wednesday.’
‘I’ll call you and we’ll meet for lunch instead,’ he suggests.
The feeling of contentment disappears. ‘Let me call you,’ I say quickly.
‘Why?’
I bite my lip. ‘Jake doesn’t approve of me dating you.’
He leans away from me, his eyes grim. ‘I’m not going to sneak around behind anyone’s back.’
I feel the happiness ebbing away. ‘I was using the word approve euphemistically. He promised all-out war.’
He runs his hand through his hair. ‘Let me talk to him.’
‘No, don’t. Please. Don’t. It’s better if you don’t.’
‘I’m not afraid of Jake, Layla. I’ll fight anybody for what’s mine.’
I stare at him in shock as a flare of pure joy zings through my body. ‘I’m yours?’
‘Yeah, you’re fucking mine. And I don’t take kindly to anyone standing between me and my woman.’
‘He thinks you’re a drug dealer and he wants better for me.’
‘Too fucking bad. I don’t tell him how to live his life. If I want you, I’ll fucking have you.’
‘Maybe if you weren’t dealing in drugs, Jake wouldn’t be so against our relationship?’
He looks at me. ‘I do what I do because this is what I am. This is what I know and this is what I am good at. I won’t change for Jake.’
I sigh. ‘But what you’re doing is dangerous. It’s only a matter of time before you end up behind bars.
He shakes his head. ‘You have to trust me. I deal only in class 3 grass where the sentence is light and I have set it up in such a way that it never passes through my hands.’
I feel suddenly heavy hearted and tearful. Jake is right. What future is there for me with someone like him? He won’t change.
I drop my face. ‘Anyway, what we have might burn out quickly and we would have upset everyone for nothing.’
He grabs my chin. ‘You don’t get it. I don’t give a shit about upsetting everyone else. You’re mine and the sooner everyone knows it the better.’