Текст книги "Come to Me Quietly"

Автор книги: A. L. Jackson

Соавторы: A. L. Jackson
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Текущая страница: 9 (всего у книги 20 страниц)

Anger pushed at my insides, and I was twitching, aching to unleash this aggression on Dickhead’s face, because I couldn’t stand to watch him closing in on her. Fighting had always been a release. But this was different. This was a need.

Jealousy roiled and my feet came up under me before I knew how to stop them. But I paused on the fringes of the yard when I saw Aly mumble something to him and disappear underwater. She emerged at the steps and took them one by one. Water dripped down the length of her body. She grabbed her things from the ground and wrapped herself in a towel. Warily she glanced over at me with sad eyes before she headed inside, like maybe there was some way she knew she’d just spent the last ten minutes torturing me.

It was fucking cruel, even though there wasn’t a chance she had any clue about how much she affected me.

I watched her retreat through the sliding door.

What was I thinking? Doing this? Allowing my feet to move? But they were, my footfalls heavy as I crossed the small thatch of lawn and twisted through the groups of people huddling in circles on the patio.

From a safe distance, I trailed her inside. Music blared from the living room, the lights dimmed, the rooms packed wall to wall with people, faces and bodies and movement that I wanted to play no part in.

I just wanted Aly.

The need was blinding, yet it was all I could see.

Watching her head bob through the crowd, I saw her turn and dart down a hall. She disappeared into a door on the right. I followed her and stopped in front of the closed door. In the darkness I paced, the agitation I felt unlike anything I’d ever experienced before. I knew it was her, that she’d managed to unlock something inside me that should never have been released. Behind the door, water ran and clothing rustled.

All I could think about was Aly on the other side, that body wet and those eyes sad. All I could focus on was the raging in my heart and the madness she’d sent careening through my mind.

The door opened, and Aly straightened with a shock when saw me there. A confused smile lit her mouth, and she whispered, “Jare… ” before my name died on her lips as she made out the expression on my face. She shifted on her feet, blinking as uncertainty danced in the warmth of her green eyes.

Control eluded me, left me at a complete loss as I stared at the girl.

And it was stupid, so fucking stupid and greedy and selfish, but I took. I lifted her by the waist and spun her around to pin her to the opposite wall with my hips.

Aly gasped.

And like I’d imagined the first time more than a month ago, those perfect legs were wrapped around my waist. With my nose lost in the sweetness under her jaw, I flattened myself against her, groaned aloud because even through our clothes, I’d never felt anything better than Aly’s body pressed to mine.

She whimpered and wove her fingers through my hair.

I trailed my palms down the length of her thighs, and my heart was beating so fucking hard I was sure it was going to hammer right through my chest.

My mouth sought hers, hard and demanding. Her lips were soft and yielding. And I took, deepened the kiss because I knew this would be the only taste of Aly I would ever get. Desire surged, flooded, and every inch of my body hardened. I strained against her, edged back for a breath as I whispered her name.

“Jared” fell from her mouth, her eyes wild, before she dove back in and sucked at my bottom lip. Her sweet tongue flicked out to tease at my skin. Returning the kiss, I consumed her mouth with mine.

She tightened her legs around my waist, desperation pouring from her as she struggled to bring me closer, hunger in her eyes and impatience in her touch. “Jared… please.” Her fingers dug into my shoulders.

My head spun and my pulse sped, and I wanted to devour every inch of her. Overwrought, my senses were on overload – overwhelmed – everything quickened and slowed and amplified.

Reality came crashing back to me.

No.

I tore my mouth from her, panting, my eyes frantic as they roved over her face.

She burrowed her fingers deeper into my skin, pleading.

No.

I edged back, forcing her legs to drop free as I supported her at her waist, her knees weak as she grappled for footing when her feet fell to the floor.

I steadied her before I pressed my hands to her shoulders and forced myself back.

Her fingers fluttered up to touch her lips, so much like they had done when the first of the fireworks had blanketed the sky. “Jared?” It came low, a breathy question whispered into the dimness of the suffocating hall.

“Shit,” I mumbled, stumbling back from the girl who held so much power over me, the one who chased away every rational thought.

I didn’t deserve her.

I never could, no matter how fucking badly I needed her.

Hurt wrapped her tight, just as tight as she wrapped her arms protectively over her chest.

What had I done?

I shook my head as I backed away. “I am so sorry, Aly.”

Turning, I rushed down the hall, pushed through the throng of sweating bodies, and burst out the front door, gasping at the reprieve of the thick night air.

Pain hit me full force, as clearly as if my eyes were closed and I was living it all again, the day I destroyed everything, took my family’s joy, the day she’d died and taken my soul with her.

I don’t get to have this.

At eleven seventeen the next night, I finally put my key in the lock and turned the knob. I hadn’t come back to the apartment at all last night. Facing her after what I’d done felt impossible because I knew what I now had to do. There was no other way around it. I’d fucked it all up, ruined it, the way I always did, and now it was time to pay.

A deep ache clamored in my chest when I stepped through the door and into the low-lit apartment, the only illumination bleeding from the small light under the microwave in the kitchen. This would be the last time I’d enter it.

And honestly, it made me fucking sad because the last month had felt like something, like I wasn’t just existing, but there was some kind of purpose to it all.

Only I’d been deluding myself because I’d always known it’d come to this.

Most of all, this hurt because I was going to miss her.

Latching the door behind me, I took in the silence of the empty room. At the end of the hall, Christopher’s door sat wide open, the room vacant. The only sound in the apartment seeped from the thin walls of Aly’s bathroom, the dull hum of the shower telling me she stood under a steaming fall of water.

I rubbed at the soreness on my chest. Yeah. It was unbelievable just how much I was going to miss her.

I couldn’t help wondering what she was thinking. Was she hurting after what I’d done to her? After I’d left her standing there confused? Used? Because that’s what it had been, hadn’t it?

Me consumed with the way she made me feel, the way she filled up this fucking void in my chest like she belonged there. Me deceiving myself that for a few seconds it was okay.

But this was Aly. My Aly. And I’d used her because I wanted her so badly and because I’d never known anything that felt so good. Her presence was like this balm I didn’t understand, solace in the insufferable night.

So like the asshole I was, I’d taken.

I pressed the heels of my hands into my eyes. Shit. I was always fucking taking.

Guilt had eaten at me all night and day. I shouldn’t have touched her, shouldn’t have allowed her to touch me. Now it lingered on my mouth and swam in my spirit, the memory of her kiss.

Overpowering. Intoxicating. Too much.

The sickest part was that I wanted more. I had to get out of this apartment, out of this city, before all this shit caved in on us, before we imploded and there was nothing left of either of us.

The shower squealed as it was shut off, and the metal curtain rings screeched as they were pushed aside.

Thank God Christopher was gone. I wasn’t sure I could handle sitting on the couch beside him, acting as if everything was normal after everything had gone to shit, after I’d pinned his little sister to the wall, after my hands had been on her. He would fucking kill me if he knew what had gone down last night, and he had every right to. I wished he would. I deserved it.

Now I would give her an apology. Try to explain myself a little.

The hardest part was it seemed as if none of my reasons or explanations fit together because it felt like maybe Aly and I did. I heaved a breath through my pursed lips and shoved that dangerous thinking aside. Without a doubt, that wasn’t possible. I wasn’t made for anything but ruin.

I’d apologize the best I could and promise her I’d pack my shit; then she’d never have to see my sorry ass again.

Rustling echoed from her bathroom. A drawer opened and closed, and a cabinet door banged shut. I imagined her standing in front of the mirror, drying off, then slipping on those sleep shorts she always wore. How wrong was it that I was hoping so? That I wanted nothing more than to endure living through the sight of Aly dressed like that one more time?

That’d be the last thing I took with me – the memory of her kind face mixed with that body. The two combined made me dangerous for her to be around, and I was putting an end to it all.

I stopped outside the bathroom door and rested my forehead against the wood, listened to her subtle movements on the other side, and wished things were different than they were.

What I was getting ready to do was going to hurt worse than any conscious decision I’d ever made.

I kind of wanted to laugh because all of a sudden I was thinking about all the phrases they’d used while I was in juvie, during the sessions they’d placed me in because that’s where they sent all the junkies. I’d thought all of it bullshit because they knew nothing about me. They’d talked about the withdrawals we’d experience, but how it would be so much easier while we were on the inside and separated from all the temptations on the outside. They’d warned us that once we got out, we’d have to be careful to stay straight, to keep our noses clean and the triggers at bay.

Two weeks ago I’d made the decision to keep my trigger close. Aly was the greatest temptation I’d ever had, and I’d decided to pretend that just extracting myself from her room would be enough. As if seeing her every day wasn’t going to wear me down. I should have known I would slip.

I was assaulted by visions of Aly pinned up against the wall by my hips, the feel of her body and the taste of her skin.

I’d slipped, all right.

Fallen.

Heaving the air from my lungs, I turned away, crossed the hall, and let myself into the stillness of her room. I didn’t know what the hell I was thinking, just going in without her permission, but I felt like this good-bye had to happen here. In the place where she’d affected me so deeply. The lights were off, but her blinds were drawn, and the lights from the parking lot below spilled onto the floor.

Her bed was all tussled, the sheets twisted and tied, and I pictured her there last night, tossing as she turned, sleep evading her as she longed for me.

And I knew she did. I’d felt it in her touch. She wanted me just as intensely as I wanted her.

Those sheets looked so damned inviting. Like a creep, I had the urge to bundle them up, to press them to my nose, to breathe in all that was Aly before I walked away.

Yeah, it’d be wise to avoid her bed.

I pulled the chair out from under her dressing table and turned it around to face the room. Then I carefully sat on the hard, wooden chair. I fidgeted as I took in her space, tugging at the hem of my T-shirt. Everything here was so distinctly Aly. Comfortable. Right.

One of her sketch pads lay on the floor. God, I wanted to know what she kept inside them so badly, to get a little further inside her head, to catch a glimpse of her soul. I could so easily cross her room and look inside, but I instinctively knew whatever she had there was as personal to her as the words I wrote in my books. I was still shocked by the impulse I’d had to give her a little glimpse into mine, the words I’d left on her pillow. I wanted to show her that even though I could feel no joy, I could still see beauty. That night when I lay awake with her sleeping in my arms, it was all I could see, the beauty in this girl.

I tore my attention from the pad because there was no chance I’d disrespect her privacy like that, and I let my eyes trace her bookshelves, the pictures on her walls, memorized her space.

As if I could ever forget it.

Agitation bounced my knee, each passing second excruciating. I didn’t know what I was going to say to her, but I refused to be a coward and disappear without an explanation. Even if telling her good-bye was going to kill me.

I froze when I heard the bathroom door open across the hall.

This was it.

The knob to her room rattled as it turned, and I swallowed hard when Aly came into view. Her hand was on the doorknob as it swung open, her body in motion until she stumbled back when she saw me sitting in the shadows. Her hair was wet, and she’d obviously run a comb through it. The length of it fell in long sheets that had deepened to black, and errant strands curled where they clung to her shoulders. She was wearing those same tiny pink shorts and a matching tank, the softness of her breasts swelling at the top, the long stretch of her legs exposed.

Instantly I was hard.

My knee bounced faster as I struggled with the intense urge to run or maybe give in to a repeat of last night.

Motherfucking trigger.

I raked a shaky hand through my hair while Aly remained rooted in the doorway. I couldn’t tell if she was pissed or relieved or confused. Troubled green eyes darted across my face as if they were searching for some sort of clue, and I wondered just how badly I’d injured her when I walked away from her last night.

My jaw ticked, and she just stared.

What the fuck was I supposed to say when she was standing there looking at me like that? When her chest rose and fell in a heavy pant, her eyes wide with surprise, her mouth slack with what looked like relief.

“Jared,” she finally said so quietly. She made my name sound like a statement, maybe even an answer.

She’d wondered if I would return and now I was here. And God, I didn’t want to leave.

Her eyes softened, though her expression remained intense, and her chin lifted as she stepped forward and latched the door. She reached behind her and blindly turned the lock. The little click sounded deafening in the silence of the room, like this overt warning that there’d be no running tonight.

But running was exactly what I’d be doing.

Aly laid the full force of her eyes on me, their intensity pinning me to the hard wooden chair.

Shifting in discomfort, I searched for words in a situation where I didn’t want to speak, because really all I wanted to do was stay. I leaned forward to rest my forearms on my legs, threaded my fingers together, and dropped my head while I gathered my thoughts. Then I lifted my face to meet hers and whispered slowly, “I’m so sorry, Aly.”

“You’re leaving,” she said, the words not so much a question but an accusation.

Straightening, I groaned and scrubbed both palms over my face, dropped my hands back to my lap and looked up at her.

“What else can I do? I’m so sorry, Aly. I’m so fucking sorry. I don’t know what came over me last night… .” It all began to flood, a rush of words that couldn’t be contained in my mouth. I had to get them out so I could get out. I couldn’t be closed in here with her, with her scent and her smile and everything that was Aly that had become the only thing in this world that I wanted.

“I mean, I did fucking know. I was so pissed off because that dickhead wouldn’t stop touching you.” Harshly, I ran my hand over my head and down to my neck, hoping it would quell that feeling that rose in me again, the possessiveness I felt for her like this poison that I had to somehow expel. “It made me fucking crazy, and I fucking ruined it. I’m sorry I ruined it, Aly, but I warned you that I would.” My head tipped to the side, my eyes tightened in emphasis as I tried to make her understand. “I told you I’d make you regret this. I knew this was happen – ”

My words died on my tongue when the expression on her face shifted into something I wished I couldn’t make out. I wanted her to be pissed, to be angry with me the way she should be, but instead she was looking at me a little like I’d been looking at her for the last month. Her eyes were tender, but her lips were parted, and something like need rose and sucked all the air from the room.

I drew in a ragged breath. “Aly… ”

Don’t.

I barely shook my head.

Slowly she began to approach, and I sank farther back into the chair the closer she came, my knee bouncing harder as she timidly inched up in front of me. Her movements were slow, hypnotizing, and I couldn’t stop myself from watching those legs. My eyes darted to her hands. She was rubbing her thumbs over her fingertips as if she were searching for some kind of friction or maybe looking for confidence. My gaze flicked up to meet her face. A color I didn’t understand had darkened her eyes. There was no looking away as she crossed the room, and my head continued to tilt back, locked on her, lost in this place where I knew I absolutely shouldn’t fucking be.

She stopped just a breath from me.

My hands dropped slack, dangled at my sides.

Everything became heavy. My fingers twitched, and I had to force the air in and out of my lungs.

I swore I could actually hear Aly’s heart beating as she hovered in hesitation an inch away. She blinked hard, squirmed before she looked at me with determination. “Jared, I don’t want you to leave.”

“Aly… I… ” What was I supposed to say? Because I didn’t want to leave, either.

I had to.

Erasing the last of the space between us, Aly allowed the front of her legs to touch my knees, and she groaned as if the contact seared her. She wavered, before she reached out to run the back of her hand down my face, testing me. Tempting me.

I stopped breathing altogether when she slowly straddled my lap and murmured close to my ear, “Please… don’t leave me.”

Fuck.

This was bad, really fucking bad. And I knew I should push her away, make her stop because what she was doing was only bringing us a little closer to the edge. She held on to the chair behind me, her warm body pressed into mine. There was no chance she wasn’t feeling just how much I wanted her.

“What are you doing, Aly?” My hands went to her slender hips with the intention of edging her off my lap. Instead my fingers dug into the soft skin.

A shudder sped up my spine when she trembled above me.

Wetting my lips, I tried to move her back but only managed to brush up against her farther. Her expression was severe but soft, her movements shaky but sure. She searched my face, her eyes burning a path as she left me utterly exposed. And I could smell her, and the memory of the way she tasted, the way she felt, overwhelmed every last one of my senses. She didn’t even have to move, and she was already touching me everywhere.

She swallowed, then spoke. “Did you want to kiss me last night?”

“Last night was a mistake, Aly. I – ”

Her hands went to my face, and she held me there, forcing me to look up at her. “I didn’t ask you if it was a mistake. I asked if you wanted to.”

A frustrated sound worked its way free of my throat, and I shifted again, which only brought her closer. Right then I knew there was not a fucking thing I could do because nothing else mattered in the world except for the way she felt pressed up tight against me. My fingers dug farther into her hips, and we were nose-to-nose, Aly’s hands firm on my face. I realized we were moving, our bodies subtly rocking.

I groaned. “I’ve wanted to kiss you every single second of every single day since the moment I opened my eyes to find you standing over me, Aly. But you know we can’t do this.” My voice cracked. “I don’t get to have this. I already told you… you deserve someone who can love you, someone who will be good for you, and you know that’s not me.”

I hoped maybe she’d listen to reason, but instead she crushed her chest to mine and dipped her head to the side. Her mouth came urgent against my neck, and she kissed at a sensitive spot under my jaw that very nearly made me jump out of my skin because it felt so fucking good. And she was sucking and moving and touching and… fuck.

Making her way up my neck, she kissed along my jaw, then lifted her soft lips to mine as she murmured, “Then tell me you don’t want me.”

Pleasure rocked through my body when she ground herself against me. A growl clanged around in my chest and rumbled up my throat. “Aly… ”

And she did it again, holding me close as if she were hanging on to life. “I said… tell me you don’t want me.”

“You know that would be a lie.” My eyelids closed with the admission, and I knew I shouldn’t say it, but I needed her to know. “God, I want you so bad, Aly. So bad.”

I could feel the affection in her touch as she slowly slid her hands down my chest and over my stomach. Her deep green eyes never released mine when she sat back a little to take hold of the bottom of her tank. Slowly she drew it up, inch by excruciating inch. And I was frozen, everything except for my eyes that trailed her movements as I took in the lush flesh she exposed.

Aly wasn’t wearing a bra, and I thought maybe somewhere in my subconscious I already knew that, but this… this was shocking, too much, and I sucked in a fortifying breath because I had no idea how I was ever going to get out of this.

I didn’t want to.

Aly’s hair fell in a tangled mess around her shoulders as she finally lifted the shirt over her head and dropped it to the floor.

And I was trembling, my body losing all control as my attention shot between her face and her full breasts.

What the hell did she think she was doing to me? This was almost as cruel as making me watch her splash around with Dickhead in that fucking pool last night. Although neither time had there been anything callous in her movements, nothing meant to taunt, and tonight it was clear this was spurred by the same need spinning through her that was spinning through me.

“Touch me,” she commanded, her voice low. There was something in the demand, a hidden shyness that only affirmed the goodness I found in her.

“Aly… damn it… you need to stop.”

“Please,” she begged.

My fingers worked deeper into her hips, and Aly sat back, her hands on my shoulders as she bared herself to me. This girl was so unbelievably gorgeous, her skin a creamy color that seemed to glow in the dim light. So soft. Perfect.

My fingers moved, slowly trailing up her sides, dipping into the faint divots between each of her ribs. “Aleena” quietly slipped from my mouth like a prayer.

With my touch, goose bumps pebbled over the expanse of her skin and the rosy buds of her breasts tightened. Her head listed just to the side as she drew in a shaky breath, her dark hair falling all over one shoulder, a silent whimper falling from her trembling lips.

“Aly, I… ” I looked up at her, unable to understand why someone like her wanted to give herself to someone like me.

“Shh,” she begged. “Don’t, Jared. I need you… want you. I don’t care about anything outside my door. Here, it’s just the two of us.”

Gentle fingers swept down my chest and teased under the hem of my shirt. Warm palms flattened on my bare skin, and she slowly skimmed them up my stomach, dragging my shirt with it, pressing harder as she passed over my ribs. She splayed her fingers wide as her hands moved over my shoulders.

I shook, but I was powerless, so I let her take control. In surrender, I lifted my arms so she could tug the shirt over my head. She tossed it to the floor on top of hers.

Aly sat back to take me in. She’d seen me without my shirt on before. I mean, I’d even let her touch me. But never in my life had I felt as exposed as I did right then. Her fingertips softened as they traced along the outline of my sins, as she caressed the markings of every mistake I’d ever made as if this girl somehow found some kind of beauty in them. She explored, caressed down my chest, back up my sides, and over my shoulders.

She should be repulsed because I was every time I looked in the mirror.

But she was gazing at me, touching me like maybe she really did understand, like she wasn’t humoring me with some kind of bullshit pity party. She leaned down and kissed the dying rose at the center of my chest.

A tremor coursed through my body.

I knew it wasn’t feigned. I could feel it. Aly understood me.

And again I was thinking that maybe she and I did fit because she was fucking perfect and good and every kind of beautiful, and I was corrupted and impure and vile, and just maybe piecing two people together so contrary meant we could somehow create a whole.

That kind of thinking, though, was all just a painful delusion. But right then, I didn’t fucking care. I’d be happy to die in this deception.

“You are so beautiful,” Aly murmured as she reached out to touch my face with nothing but sincerity in her words, and I knew she would be happy to live in this illusion, too.

I folded my arms around her waist and lifted her up as I stood from the chair. She hooked her legs over my hips, locking herself to me, and I was kissing her as I walked her to the bed. She cupped my face in her hands, smiling against my lips, kissing me hard and soft and everything in between, and then she was pressing these little kisses to my chin and my cheeks and my nose.

Something that almost felt like joy rose up from the inside and pushed against my ribs.

Another delusion, but I’d take it.

Because right then, taking felt right.

One of my knees hit the bed, and I crawled up with her still clinging to me. I untangled her from my neck and waist and gently set her on her twisted sheets. I edged back to standing, looking down on this girl who I should be running from instead of running toward.

She lay there wearing nothing but her sleep shorts, her feet flat on the mattress with her knees parted and bent. Her bare chest heaved as she stared up at me staring down at her. A faint smile curved her lips while her eyes continued to explore every inch of my skin.

For the first time in years, I didn’t mind.

“Jared,” she said, her hand fluttering up to beckon me forward. “Please.”

I leaned down to unlace my boots, watching her while she watched me. I stood and kicked them off. Slowly I began to work through the buttons on my fly.

Part of me was praying she’d stop me, that she’d finally grasp reality and see me for exactly what I was. But the rest of me screamed for her. It was like I could feel her spirit sinking under my skin, slipping through my veins, taking hold.

A blink of fear shot through my heart.

No. I don’t get to have this.

I shoved the feeling off.

Pushing my jeans down to the floor, I shrugged them aside and stood at the edge of her bed in my underwear while I took in every inch of the girl who had some kind of insane hold over me.

Light filtered in from the window above her. Her stomach was flat and her breasts were full, her legs so fucking long and slender and strong. She lay there with her arms draped out to the side, rocking a little side to side as if she were just as impatient for me as I was for her. The muscles in my chest and arms twitched and flexed as I slowly climbed onto her bed. I nudged her knees farther apart. With one hand I supported my weight and hovered a foot over her while I touched her face and ran my fingers through her hair.

“Look at you,” I said as I cupped her cheek. My gaze rushed all over her face, along her chin and her delicate neck, down the curves and the lines that I was dying to touch. “Aly, you are so incredibly beautiful. Do you know that? Do you have any idea how perfect you are?”

Redness flushed along her skin. She drew her shoulders up and crushed her chest to mine as she splayed her hands across my back, like an embrace that greeted me body and soul, and I couldn’t imagine feeling closer to anyone until the second she covered my mouth with hers. This kiss was slow, just a gentle caress of her lips on mine, a soft breath of air from her nose.

She pulled back. Meaningfully, she gazed up at me. “I’m not perfect, Jared. No one is.”

A pensive smile formed on my mouth as she wrapped me in undeserved kindness. I wanted to dispute her claim because to me, that’s what she was. This girl who’d shaken me. I wanted to tell her she was wrong because I knew inside that pure heart of hers she believed the two of us were just the same.

Maybe her soul burned so bright she couldn’t see the blackness in mine.

Fingertips trailed along my jaw and wound in the hairs at the nape of my neck.

With a harsh shake of my head, I asked her the same question I’d been asking myself for the last month. “What are we doing, Aly?”

She tightened her hold and whispered along my jaw, “Whatever feels right.”

I released the air from my lungs and gave in. Devoured her mouth. I sucked her bottom lip between both of mine. Her jaw slackened as she fully succumbed to my kiss. Colors flashed behind my eyes as I let my weight cover her, chest to chest, breath to breath. I caged her, her tiny body pinned below mine as our mouths collided, reckless, hard, and demanding.

Heat blanketed us, flames and fire and need. I’d never wanted anyone like this, had never ached to bury myself in someone this way. I wanted to lose myself there, disappearing forever in this blissful delusion.

Aly was panting when I pulled away. She gasped and clutched my head when I dipped down and took the rosy bud of her breast in my mouth. “Oh my God… Jared,” she breathed, her words shooting straight through me.

Writhing, she moaned, and I lifted my weight to my knees so I could drag my flattened palms down her sides. Her muscles jumped and ticked, and she arched as I sucked at her. Almost frantic, her hands tugged at my hair.

I eased, gently kissed along the underside of her breast, then ran my nose back up over the sensitive skin. Her hands loosened and she sighed as she massaged her fingers at the back of my scalp. My kiss traveled the valley of her chest, and I took the opposite breast in my mouth.