She swallowed hard and her eyes bore into me, unblinking.
“Ran to my room, took my trusty baseball bat my dad had bought me, and I bashed his fucking head in until he was dead. He was the first man I killed, Soph. He wasn't the last.”
“You were thirteen years old?” she asked.
If I wondered if she could cry, the answer came right then and there, as twin tears rolled down both cheeks. Her tears were beautiful to me.
“I'm fucked up, Sophie. More than you can even imagine. I'm not a good man and I never will be. You deserve better than me, especially with all the difficulty you’ve had.”
She wiped away the tears with the back of her hand and sniffed.
“So because you’ve been hurt, I shouldn’t love you? By that logic, Maverick, I’m equally unlovable. If you let your past dictate your future, then why even live? Let me ask you something. Did you like being with me?”
“Christ Sophie, like doesn’t even come close. I loved every second. Last night was simultaneously the most painful and pleasurable night of my life.”
She surreptitiously changed the record. I realized I was handing her a heavy load while she was trying to work. She put on Iris by the Goo Goo dolls. I’d always loved the song, but I listened closely to the lyrics for the first time.
“Why don’t we just give it a try? It might feel like everything is riding on this, but in truth, that’s not the case. We know one another’s shortcomings so to speak, maybe we could be healing for one another.”
I wanted to get on my knees in front of her. I was humbled by how generous and clear minded she was being.
“But, Maverick—”
“My name’s Gabriel. You can call me either, but Maverick is my club name. My mother named me Gabriel. I’m sorry, I can’t stand the idea of not being completely transparent with you.”
“Gabriel, okay, wow. My name is Sophia Costa, but I go by Sophie.”
“I know.”
“What I wanted to say is that you can’t leave me like that again. Even when you get scared. I understand your fears and your issues, but my parents are dead. I’ve been completely on my own for years. My biggest fear is someone running out and just simply up and disappearing. When my parents died, I was unconscious and in surgery. By the time I woke up, there was no opportunity to ever see them again. One because I’d lost most of my vision, but also because they’d been cremated while I was sleeping. An empty bed, like the one from this morning, is my worst nightmare.”
“Sophie, I’m so fucking sorry,” I said. I pulled her into my arms, kissing her face and her head, crushing her in my arms. “I was terrified my attraction to you was proof of my pathology, you’re too young, too small, in a vulnerable position. When you said people mistake you for a boy, maybe you can imagine how much that made me hate myself.”
And I’d give up forever to touch you.
Sophie looked up into my face and wrapped her arms around my neck.
“I’m not that small,” she said. “Or boyish.” She pulled my hand down to cup her small breast and I kissed her passionately on the mouth. “And who’s to say that even if you’d grown up in the perfect family with a white picket fence and little league on the weekends, you wouldn’t find me irresistible.” She guided my hand down to cup her ass. Sophie’s ass was her most shocking feature after her ethereal eyes. Such a tiny waist and then an unexpected bounty in ass cheeks. “Maybe petite girls are your thing. It doesn’t have to mean you’re being deviant in any way. You’re allowed to have preferences and kinks. Just because you were abused, doesn’t exclude you from finding what pleases you.”
“I don’t ever want to hurt you,” I told her as I massaged her ample ass eagerly. I felt my cock strain against my jeans.
I just want you to know who I am.
“Don’t leave me then,” she said. Sophie changed the record and turned back to me and smiled. “You come to strip clubs all the time, but you’ve never had a lap dance?” she asked me.
I licked my lips and a grin spread across my face. “Soph, I won’t leave you. Be careful what you wish for.” She pushed me backward until the backs of my knees hit a chair in the booth.
“Sit,” she commanded. I sat. Then Sophie pulled her baggy sweatshirt off to reveal her flat stomach and this time, a plain black cotton bra. She tossed it on a crate of records and pulled down her joggers and kicked off her shoes. Her thong was black lace and showed off her full ass. My cock pressed into the denim and I reached down to adjust myself. Somehow the shame and torment I’d felt had already washed far down stream, and what was left in its spot, was the pure uninhibited obsession I’d felt for Sophie from the minute I’d laid eyes on her.