Chapter 18
Adrian
Skylar feelsperfect in my arms. I knew she would, and damn, I’ve already fallen head over heels for her.
“How are you?” I ask. I don’t want her to be in any kind of pain. I’ve already hurt her, and I want to make her feel so much better now.
“I feel fantastic.” She smiles, and I see how flushed her cheeks are.
“You’re so beautiful.”
“Thank you,” she whispers. She touches my cheek, and just the feel of her flesh against mine makes me so fucking hard.
“I’ll always want you,” I say honestly.
“I feel great. Is it strange that I feel like myself? Is that even right?” She sounds confused, but there is pleasure in her voice, too. “I’ve waited so long for this moment, and I’m glad I experienced it with you.” A beat of silence passes between us. “Were you being serious when you said I now belonged to you?” She bites her lip, and I groan. She looks so damn sexy.
“You don’t have any clue how much I want you right now,” I say. I’m not going to fuck her again, not right now at least.
She kisses me with a passion that takes my breath away. Cupping her cheeks, I stare into her eyes, and I can’t help the question that keeps popping up into my head, and so I ask her.
“Why are Holden and Alex so protective of you?” I ask.
“Alex is my brother, and Holden is his best friend.”
“Yeah, I get a level of protection, believe me I do. Both of them go into serious protective mode. I don’t have a problem with it. Honestly, I was just curious if there was something I didn’t know about.”
She looks somewhere past my shoulder. “Why do they think you’re a bad guy?” she asks.
“Okay. How about I share with you first, and then you share with me?”
She nods.
I am quiet for a long while. “I grew up in a trailer park. It wasn’t a good place. My parents, I don’t even know why they kept me around. I was a thorn in their side, and if they could, they’d have gotten rid of me at the first opportunity.” I think about my past, about how I’ll never be that person again. “I was that kid who always wore clothes that were too short, and dirty, because my parents couldn’t afford anything else for me. They didn’t care. My bathing usually consisted of sneaking into the community pool near where I lived to clean myself off.” Shame fills me at admitting this to her. But I want Skylar to know about me, because I meant what I said about keeping her as mine.
“Oh my God.”
“Let’s just say I was called a lot of names by the time I hit high school. For the most part, I took it. Why not? According to everyone, and even my parents, I was trash.”
“That’s so awful.”
“My mom brought home random guys, and I didn’t understand until I was older that she slept with them for money. And my dad, well he was an abusive drunk more times than not, but he didn’t care that his wife was fucking these guys right in their bed.”
“I take it something changed?”
“Yeah. I got into a fight at school. I just snapped, and before I knew what was happening, I was in the principal’s office. I thought I was in serious trouble—not that I cared—but the coach from the soccer team was there. He thought I had potential, and he paid for me to train and be on the team. I’d never thought of doing soccer, but it came naturally, and I found it helped me get out a lot of frustrations I had.”
“Was that a happy ever after?”
I smile. “No. Not even close. It wasn’t long after that I started getting in more fights, and then found a way to be in the underground circuit and make money off of it.” I think about how raw those fights were, how I’d felt powerful … free. “I built up a reputation and it passed through high school. I fought my way out of that hell hole, and this is who I am now.”
“How do my brother and Holden know about this?”
“My reputation followed me here, and it doesn’t help that I got into a couple of serious fights my first year.” I shrug. “But they’d also seen me in the underground circuit a few times. I was known as being brutal, and putting opponents in the hospital was what I loved best.” Taking hold of her hand, I kiss her knuckles. “Now, your turn.”
She sighs. “You know I was a virgin, right?”
I nod, feeling pride that I was her first, and I’d be her last.