I need to talk to him about the fact we didn’t use a condom. I bite the inside of my lip; I’ve never had this conversation before. As I’m about to broach the subject, his hands brush across the outside of my thighs and I see the moment he feels the scars. I pull away and jump from the shower and rush out of the room. I grab a towel on the way out, and I can feel his eyes following me. No one knows how low I got. How close I came to ending it. Subconsciously I cross my arms over my chest, my fingers play against the scars on the inside of my arms. I calm as soon as I feel them.
I stand there in the middle of the bedroom taking myself to that place where it’s just me and the blood is sliding down my skin.
I’m ripped from my thoughts when his hands grip my hips and twist my body around. Again, I find myself flying through the air before landing on the bed. And again, his body is over the top of me, but this time he’s not trying to make love to me. His face is tight. One of his big hands holds my arms over the top of my head. My weakness glaringly exposed.
“What the fuck are these marks, Kiera?” He demands as his other hand traces the fine thin scars. Four on the inside of each arm. He pulls back and looks down my body seeing the four on the outside of each thigh.
I close my eyes and fight the tears back. He can’t know what they are.
“Kiera.” He chokes, and I realize my tears are slipping out uncontrolled.
“I’m broken.” My lips tremble. “I need to punish myself.” I say the words I’ve never told anyone else. My soul rips apart as he looks down at me and I can’t hide what I am from him.
“Pixie, let me hold you together,” he says against my lips, and gently kisses me. “Don’t hurt yourself anymore. I need you.” His words shock me. How can someone I just met feel so vital to me?
“I haven’t done it in a while. Whenever I get the urge, I touch the old scars and it helps,” I confess.
He kisses my forehead, each cheek, my nose, and then my lips again. He pulls away and kisses over every scar, licking them with his tongue, and instead of settling me like when I touch them myself does, I feel a fullness in my heart. A warmth I’ve never felt before. The need to be everything he needs overwhelms me.
“I promise if I feel the urge, I’ll tell you,” I whisper as he takes my lips in a kiss that makes my toes curl. His tongue touching every part of my mouth, sliding against my own tongue, dancing.
He pulls back and both of us are breathless. His cock is heavy and erect between us.
“Food,” he says as he pulls up, and my stomach growls.
I smile and hide my face away from him.
Something hits my legs and I look down to see a soft blue T-shirt. I slip it over my head and realize I don’t have any panties or clean underclothes.
“Come on, pixie.” He reaches out for me and I take his hand. The T-shirt is long and lands just above my knees, covering everything. We make our way downstairs and to the kitchen at the back of the house. He lifts me up onto the island, and I cringe when my butt hits the cold marble countertop. He smiles as he turns and starts going through cupboards and the fridge.
“I made sure everything was fully stocked last weekend when I was here,” I say, and he turns to look at me with a soft smile on his lips. I want that look on his face all the time. My heart thumps hard in my chest.
I watch as he prepares us omelets. No matter how many times I try to help him, he tells me to stay put. He hands me a plate with a large glass of milk, and I start eating. I didn’t realize how famished I was. I haven’t eaten since lunch yesterday.
When I’m finished and he takes my plate away from me, I try to jump down but he blocks me in and pushes me back to lie on the island. He lifts up my borrowed T-shirt and proceeds to use his mouth on me before he thrusts inside me again.
He makes love to me right there in the kitchen, then a second round on the floor in the family room. I’m so sore now and worried that my conversation with him is too late in coming. He’s come inside me every time we’ve made love.
Now we are driving into town and I’m dressed in my jeans and clothes that we put through the wash before we left. He pulls up to the entrance of the Santa Claus Land of Lights, and I turn to him.
“Why are we here?”
“I haven’t done this in years, and I want to do it with you. You’re probably tired of seeing it, but where I live in Nevada there is no snow.”
“I haven’t gone through this since I was eleven.” I smile at him.
When we’d finally left the house, it was lightly snowing.
We drive through the twelve miles of Christmas lights laughing, and Coal stops to take my picture every so often in front of different exhibits. I’m looking at this crazy, weird town through different eyes for the first time ever. When we finish and get back on the road, he drives toward the shopping center and post office. He pulls up in front of the gallery where I saw him for the first time. It doesn’t feel like it was just yesterday. It feels like it was a lifetime ago.
“The first time I laid eyes on you was right here, pixie.”
“I was worried you were buying this place.”
“I own it now. It’s the only thing I have left of my mother. She loved art. She wasn’t very good at it, but she could sell and show it like it was nothing. This gallery is everything to me. I couldn’t sell it.”
“Your mother sounds like she was an amazing woman.”