Love and War: Part One – Chapter 16

I know I’ve won before I even turn around. When I don’t work I’m usually at home, alone. I never really developed that whole skill of being social with other people; that thing called friends.

Most of my childhood was spent alone, so that’s the way I usually spend my time off, and in doing that I have to find stuff to occupy my time since I don’t prefer to lay around. I could play this game in my sleep. I let her win the second round to make it more fun. “You decided on a spot for my name yet?”

When she realizes I won, her shoulders fall. She removes the guitar and hands it back to me. I watch as her entire demeanor changes.

I’ve never understood females. They’re too emotional. That’s something I was stripped of young. I grew up around cold-hearted people and thugs. I was a member of Satan’s army for years, getting into gangbanger shit and whatever got me out of that bitch’s den, but even I know when excitement turns to dread.

“I’ll let you decide,” she says. “I’m starting to get sleepy.” She hugs me over the guitar lying still at my front, her half-naked body against mine. I flinch at first, like I always do when something touches my bare skin, but shove it aside and try to relax. She’s warm. “Thanks for tonight. It was fun. I like hanging out with you when you don’t have a stick up your ass. Goodnight, Kross.”

Without another glance, she starts to walk away. Her panties are only covering half of her ass. I’m not sure whether I love or hate the fact that she’s so open with her body. She prefers to go naked or barely clothed. “Just like that, huh?”

She stops and glances back. “What?”

“Giving up so easily?”

“What do you mean? You won.”

I take off my guitar and toss it on the couch, before walking toward her and placing my hands against the sides of her neck. “The agreement was winner takes all.”

“I thought that’s what you were doing.”

I shake my head.

“I’m confused.”

“Winner takes all. I get both stakes of the bet—yours and mine.”

Her smile returns. “You want to cuddle?”

“That’s what you chose, isn’t it?”

“I thought you weren’t a cuddling kind of guy.”

“Maybe not, but I never lose. I just alter the rules. I’m going to try something new. I wouldn’t wanna be termed a pussy or anything.” My lips touch hers, instantly backing away. “Besides, you’re hot playing a guitar. I’m not sure I’m ready to send you to your room yet.”

She breathes out, her hands cautiously going around my neck as I kiss her. I pick her up, her legs instantly wrapping around my waist. She tugs at my bottom lip, rubbing the metal along the front. “I really fucking like that lip ring.”

“You’re letting me in your room?”

I open my door and walk in, shutting it behind me. The lock clicks into place. “Yes.”

“Why are you locking it? It’s just us.”

“I can’t sleep without it.”

“Why?”

“Just leave it alone, Delta. I can’t go there.”

“Okay,” she whispers, and kisses me this time, in the hypnotic way that she always does. Between the movement of her lips and her tongue coming in waves it makes you not want to stop. I unhook her bra before lying her down on the bed, following on top of her so that I don’t have to.

Her arms and legs wrap around me, pulling me closer. She’s already pushing my underwear down my legs. I finish when it’s beyond her reach, before repositioning onto my knees and shins. “I like the way your body feels.”

“I thought you wanted to cuddle,” I say, gripping her panties by the back and pulling them down to her thighs. She moves, allowing me to take them off, before wrapping back around me.

“I do . . . after.”

“You want it again already?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because I like it with you.”

I align and slowly push inside. Don’t fucking ask me why. I’ve never thought there was much of a point to slow sex. Fast always felt better and made me come sooner. But she’s always so damn wet. It’s more addictive than any drug ever was. Halfway in I thrust harder, driving all the way to the back. I stop, looking in her eyes, using the neon light that stays plugged in hanging on the wall to see. “I think I want to try something.”

“Okay. What?”

“Touch me.”

Her hands transition to my back. She’s kept away from my front with her hands since I snapped at her. I grab her wrist and place it on my chest. “No. Touch me.”

“I don’t want you to get upset with me.”

“I’m telling you to.”

Slowly, she adds the other hand and I release the one I’m holding, letting her touch freely. I pull back slowly and enter her once again, focusing on her face so that I don’t get lost in the memories. She finds scar after scar hidden within the ink as her fingertips trace along the designs.

Her feet run down the back of my legs, hers tangling with mine. I like the way this feels—every part of my body touching every part of hers. “You’ve been hurt before?”

She’s breathing hard, a moan slipping each time I go deep. “Yes.”

Her legs tighten around mine, pulling me closer. Every muscle in my body tenses when her lips touch to the lighter burn she found last time, as if she remembers exactly where it is. She lightly runs her tongue along the textured skin, making it slightly different from the unscathed. Most people think my chest and neck are covered in ink because I wanted it that way, but it started out as camouflage.

“You won’t be ever again. I promise.”

I grip her ass cheek in my hand and slide back into her wet center, never completely leaving it. Fuck, it’s so hot in there, wrapped around my dick in a tight fit. I don’t remember the inside of a woman ever feeling quite like her. “Some promises can’t be kept.”

“I can promise I have your back and I’ll slowly take away your pain if you’ll let me.”

My pelvis starts to hit a little harder but no faster. “That’s what I was doing when I moved you in with me.”

When her feet start to ascend back up to my waist, I grab her calves and move them to shoulders. I lean forward on my fists to lift her bottom half.

“Fuuuuck, you have the best dick.”

I thrust hard, hitting deep over and over, close to coming. All I have to do is look at her every time I fuck her and it’s enough to get off. When she’s turned on it’s all over her face.

Her back arches and she starts squeezing around me, giving me permission to nut. I pull her legs down and kiss her as my hips slam between her legs. As soon as I start to come, her hands grab my ass and she holds me to her, skin-to-skin. I don’t move any part of me but my lips, letting them run down her neck and front until I close around her nipple.

I place my hand on her hip tattoo that runs down the outside of her thigh, guiding it to the one that takes up her entire right side. Suddenly I feel chill bumps on her skin. I look at her. “Are you cold?”

“No. I just like when you touch me like that. You did it the night you gave me my tattoo.”

“Touch you like what?”

“Like you’re studying my body and memorizing every line, shade, and design.”

“Oh.”

My hand drops. “No. Don’t stop.”

“We should get some sleep.”

I pull out of her and grab the blanket to pull it down the bed. She crawls up to the head and pulls the comforter to her neck, turning over to face the wall. I’m fighting the shutdown. The cold that I live in is slowly returning. Most of the time I’m already consumed with it before I know it’s there. My fist closes so tight that it starts to shake. I told her I would do this. I get under the covers beside her, facing her back. “Delta.”

“Yeah?”

“Show me how to cuddle.”

She turns over. “You’ve never cuddled with someone at all? Not even like when you were younger and lost your virginity?”

“No.”

“Am I pushing you?”

“I think I need to be pushed.”

“Are you comfortable on your back?”

“I can make it work.”

She sits up, the blanket falling and revealing her naked chest. Seeing her naked gets me every time just like it did the first time. It makes me a little crazy, to be honest. “Come closer.”

My mind is moving toward numb. I’m trying to fight the desire to walk out of this room. Solitude is my best friend and worst enemy. I need it, but I also hate it. It’s my vice.

I move toward the center of the mattress from the edge and turn on my back. She takes my hand. Reflexively, I form a fist, but then open it when her fingers close over mine. She was going to adjust instead of asking me to open it. As it loosens, her fingers lace between mine and she extends my arm across the bed. She scoots closer, slowly, and then lies back down on her side, placing her head on my chest.

My eyes won’t move from the spot on the ceiling they’ve focused on. This feels weird. I don’t know if I like it. Maybe I should just go sleep on the couch. “Kross, breathe.”

My chest starts rising and falling with that one word. Her hand hovers over my stomach for a few seconds before she starts to pull away. “Just do it.”

“We can try again another night if you want.”

“No. I’ll work it out. Finish what you were doing.”

Her palm lowers to my sternum at the slowest pace, and then her arm settles right after. She starts rubbing up and down my torso, not missing a spot that’s free. I feel paralyzed. “It’s okay. I won’t hurt you. You can relax.”

My spine finally curves into the mattress as all of my muscles loosen from their contracted state. “So, this is what girls are always bitching about wanting? This is cuddling?”

“Almost.”

“What am I doing wrong?”

“Hold me.” Hold? We’re lying down. I’m not even sure I understand what that means. “Wrap your arm around me.”

The lower part of my arm underneath her comes up, bending and hovering over her shoulder. I clench my fist over and over, trying to drive away the urge to pull away. Finally, it drops, my palm lying on top of her skin. “Like this?”

“Yes. How does it make you feel?”

“Awkward.”

“That’s normal.”

For the first time I relax in the most complete way, pulling her closer. She has a way of dealing with my fucked-up-ness like no one else likely would. “No, it’s not normal, but I’m trying to give it a shot.”

“Will you tell me one thing about yourself that I don’t know?”

I swallow. That is a disturbing question. I don’t talk about myself. Personal information has never been important to me. I wrote off my past the second I left it behind. I don’t give a shit about giving it out or getting it. I never have. I talk about things that have a purpose. Guns. Ink. Deals. Money. Those are the things I’m good at talking about. “Maybe. What do you want to know?”

She’s still rubbing her soft hand along my skin in the lightest manner, never going past the blanket at my waist. “Promise you won’t get mad?”

“I promise not to outwardly show it.”

“Is there a story behind the neon lights?”

I freeze. No one has ever asked me that before. “Kross, breathe.”

I can feel air in my lungs again. I don’t like thinking of my own childhood, much less tell someone else about it. It’s always the same fucked-up incomplete puzzle. All of the vital pieces are missing. Something like that is extremely personal for me. “Why do you ask?”

“I noticed you have a lot of it.”

I remain silent, trying to determine if I’m actually going to go there or just tell her to leave it alone like the door lock. The problem is that I’ve never openly dealt with my issues. They’ve just been there for as long as I can remember, but I’m starting to like her in a way that I didn’t in the beginning. She’s here. And that means I’m not alone.

She forces me to open even if it’s only a crack. Somehow, I need to keep her here. I can’t explain the obsession I’ve had with her from the start, but now it’s a little worse. And I’m learning to adjust to the chattiness of another person twenty-four-fucking-seven, when naturally all I want is silence. “If I tell you to stop when I can’t go any further, will you agree to leave it alone without thinking I’m an asshole.”

“Yes.”

“It’s the only thing I can remember from the time with my mother.”

“So, she liked them?”

“I don’t know. I get blurred flashbacks of them sometimes. Occasionally they’re blue, but most of the time pink.”

“What happened to her?”

“She abandoned me.”

“How old were you?”

“Four, I think.”

I try to blink it away, but it grows stronger until it’s tormented me a little more.

“Mama! Mama!”

The screams fill the air as they pull me from beneath the bed by my feet. “It’s okay. We won’t hurt you.”

“Mama! I want my mama.”

“Calm down. We’ll find her.”

My tears fall on the shirt of someone I don’t know. The crying screams start all over. “Mama!”

“It’s okay. We’ll find you a good home until we can find your mama. It’ll be okay, sweetie.”

It was a lie from the time she shoved me under those blue lights. She never found my mama . . .

Lips touch mine. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to do that to you.”

I blink, looking up at her hovering over me. “Do what?”

“Make you zone out like that. You don’t move, don’t breathe, and it’s like your body starts acting out something disturbing in your head. I won’t ask you any more questions until you ask me to or tell me first. I think I get it now.”

“My Hell is not your problem. You have no reason to be sorry.”

She kisses me again. “It is whether you pull me in it or not. I’m voluntarily walking in.”

“Can we cuddle again?” She turns over and lies down. “Or not.”

She laughs and then grabs my hand, pulling it over her side. “I’m not going to make you sleep like that. You’re like a statue. There are different ways to cuddle. This is spooning. Bring me your body.” I pull her toward me, my hand against her stomach. “Or vice versa. That works too. This is more comfortable for sleeping.”

She laughs again. Laughing puts me into a paranoid rage. “What’s so fucking funny?”

“Sleeping, not ass poking. Put that away.”

“Your naked ass is on my dick. What do you expect?” I push it down and pull her closer. “Happy now?”

“Yes.”

I seal her into the curve of my body, leaving no space. What’s left of her perfume becomes more noticeable being so close to her neck. “You smell good. What is that?”

“Ed Hardy.”

“Keep wearing it.”

“Okay. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight.”

I situate my lower arm under her pillow, bumping into hers. She loosely connects our hands. All I can do is stare at the back of her ink free neck since she put her hair up earlier. The back of the neck is actually a beautiful place for a tattoo—on a woman, at least. It’s feminine if done right. I think I know where I’m tattooing my name. That way every fucker trying to stare at her ass will also be graced with a property tag. She just doesn’t know my name will be hidden within a design. A brand is tacky. I wouldn’t do that to a woman. Names of partners are generally bad luck and rarely done right.

“Kross . . .”

“I thought you were going to sleep.”

“I just thought you should know something.”

“What?”

“This was my favorite Halloween so far.”

“What is something about you I don’t know?” I ask, repeating her question from earlier.

She tightens our fingers together. “My mother abandoned me in ways too.”

“What about your dad?” we ask the same question at the exact same time.

“I never met him,” we both say in unison again.

Then the room becomes silent, because right now there is nothing more to say. The world is a fucked-up place. Because no good place would leave so many kids as orphans.