I had no clue what had happened to her gun, but it was nowhere in sight. If I had spotted it in that second, I might've grabbed it from her and pulled the trigger myself. But there was only me and her now. Her freaky pale blue orbs saw everything and more, making me shiver and wish she'd just put me down already.
"Please," I begged, my words slurring in the cold breeze.
"You've had a hard life but possess a pure soul," she said, ignoring me as I begged for death. "Hope drips from you like water in a leaky bucket. If it dries up, you'll turn hard and brittle. Like your friend." Her fingers shifted toward my eyes. I squeezed them shut right before she pressed both her thumbs into each of my sockets.
"What the fuck?" Was she going to pluck my eyeballs out? That sounded like it'd hurt. And I just wanted everything to stop hurting.
I grabbed her wrists to pull her off. "Let go." But as soon as my fingers latched around loose skin draped over frail bone, something happened and I couldn't move. My fingers locked into place around her, and I couldn't retreat, couldn't attack.
I was paralyzed.
"Don't worry." Her voice echoed between my ears as if she were speaking inside my head. "I'll give you your hope back."
That's when it happened. I have no idea how else to explain it except I was transported, sucked right out of my body on that cold wet ground with my ankle on fire and bleeding until suddenly, I was warm and dry, without a pain in the world and stretched out on a bed, buck-ass naked while the softest skin of the girl under me slid against mine.
Whoa! I was having sex with someone on silky sheets and a comfortable mattress. And fuck. Sex felt good after all. It wasn't as demented and perverted as that bastard who'd raped Tristy had made it look. It was sweet and warm, and just . . . really, really good. Better than good. Amazing.
Connected to my partner in the most unspeakable way, I buried myself deeper into her. Her sharp fingernails bit into my ass to keep me there. Desire rippled through my bloodstream as the sweetest, tightest wet heat hugged my dick. The link between us seemed to strengthen as her smell, her softness, her throaty sounds of pleasure attacked all my senses. I glanced down into her face, needing to see what she looked like.
She was beautiful, so beautiful. Probably in her early twenties, though I had a feeling I was too, and she had pale corn silk blonde hair that looked glossy and soft.
Dumbfounded by such pretty hair, I sank my fingers into it as I cupped her face in my palm. Grinning, she parted long, dark lashes to reveal the most amazing set of eyes I'd ever seen. Almost turquoise around the pupils, their color fanned out, turning stark blue and then a bright navy close to the rings of the irises. It didn't seem possible that eyes could change three shades of one color like that, but they did.
Her features were flawless, matching her unique eyes to perfection. With olive skin that wasn't pockmarked by blisters and sores as most of the methed-up girls in my neighborhood, she looked clean and wholesome. Pure.
"Tinker Bell," I said, my voice shocking me because it was deeper and more grown-up than I'd ever heard it before. I was no longer fourteen.
She smiled and breathed out a sigh, staring up at me as if she—
"I love you," she said, actually voicing the words I was aching to hear. It was the first time anyone had said that to me.
A shudder tore through me. Overwhelmed by a blasting warmth and a strangling, overwhelming desire to say it back, I pressed my forehead to hers and pumped my hips with an age-old rhythm that seemed as natural as breathing. Her wet warmth clamped even more snuggly around me and her spine arched up, smashing a set of full breasts against my chest as she gasped and threw her head back.
She was coming.
Most magnificent sight ever.
I had no idea how I knew what was happening to her, but I did, and the knowledge spurred my own body to respond. My balls tightened and my dick began to contract.
Before I could follow her into oblivion though, I was sucked away. Panicked, I clawed out to return to her, the perfect girl with the perfect body who said she loved me.
But then, there she was again. The bed under us disappeared and we were no longer naked. At least we were still twisted together—on a couch this time—and my chest still felt as weightless and free as it had in the last scene, as if I had nothing to worry about. I was . . . shit, I was happy.
So was she. Squirming underneath me, she tried to twist out of my grip as she laughed. I kept tickling her because I loved that sound, and I swear I loved her too. I had no idea how I knew that. I just knew. She was everything to me.
"Patrick Jason Ryan," she scolded me. "I'm warning you." But there was too much warmth and joy in her voice to be of any real threat.
She loved this as much as I did. My body responded, and I was ready for more of that sex I decided wasn't so bad after all.
But just as I leaned in to kiss her, a small voice asked, "Mama? Daddy? What're you guys doing?"
Startled the fucking shit out of me.
I wrenched my head around to find a little girl of four, five, hell, maybe six years old standing in the doorway, watching us curiously as she hugged a pink stuffed pig to her chest and sucked on her thumb. She was freaking adorable. Startling blue eyes, just like the woman on the couch with me, but darker hair.
Kind of like mine.
"Skylar." The woman gasped, unable to break free of me. "Help me, baby. Tickle Daddy. Get him!"