Lust (19 page)

But I had been with Ivy; I had gotten her off in my office. I touched her. I think I would have noticed if anything was missing, which only caused me to have even more questions. Why hadn’t I noticed something was different? She was so adamant and fearful of people seeing her and noticing the scars, but yet I hadn’t discerned anything different with her.

I glanced over at her and noticed she was staring back at me with wide eyes. The grey looked almost silver as she stared unblinkingly at me. I wanted to ask her things, but I couldn’t find the words. The fear in her features stole any words that I would have said and erased them.

“Just ask me,” she said, her timid voice breaking. “I know you want to ask.”

I started to shake my head, but she was right. “Why did she do it?”

“I don’t know. I never had the chance to ask.”

“But I read that it is a cultural thing. Did she believe in that kind of thing?”

Her shoulders rose to her chin. “I have no idea. I don’t think so since I was never raised that way. My mother wasn’t a religious person as far as I knew. I think she was just crazy. There was something seriously wrong with her, but I’ll never know what it was. There are a lot of things I will never know because she’s not here anymore to ask. I did talk to her boyfriend once, the one that called social services and had me taken away from my mom. I never told him what happened to me, but I did ask if he knew what was wrong with her. He told me that he never realized there was anything wrong until close to the end of their relationship. They had a fight when he told her I should be allowed to be around other kids. She argued with him that I wasn’t allowed to be seen by anyone. He said that’s when he realized something wasn’t right. It wasn’t long after that when he made the call, and he said he was scared the entire time, worrying what would happen to me if they didn’t take me away. He told me that if they let her keep me, he would have come back for me. But I never saw or spoke to him again after that. I have no idea what ever happened to him, but I believe he saved my life. I don’t even want to think about what would have happened to me had he never called anyone. Then again, I look at myself and wonder what kind of life I have now because of it. Maybe I would have been better off where I was, safe in my own little bubble.”

“You can’t possibly believe that to be true.”

She shrugged again and looked at the computer screen. “That’s not what happened to me,” she said as she read the screen. “There was a doctor at the hospital that explained it all to me. I had no idea what had happened or why, and she explained it the best way she could to an eleven-year-old. As I got older, I became curious about it, but I never looked into it. I didn’t want to read about it or know any more than what I already did. But I do know that nothing was ever cut off. I was only sewn closed.”

Relief flooded my veins at her admission. “So, these scars…” I let my sentence drift off, allowing her to finish it herself. I was used to asking tough questions in my profession but, for some reason, I couldn’t find the strength to finish any real question I had wanted to ask Ivy.

“They are from the sutures. There were some that ripped out when I was younger and now I have scars. I remember finding a mirror at my aunt’s house and looking at myself after everything happened. I had never seen myself before, and only on occasion had felt it, and I was curious as to what I looked like without them. I was disgusted and never looked again.”

“When you first told me that you didn’t like to be touched or seen and after what you told me about your mom, I just thought it made you feel dirty. I had no idea it was this bad. Why didn’t you tell me before? You could have told me, Ivy.” I had a desperate need for her to understand that I was there for her, that I would always be there for her. I didn’t understand it because I never felt the need to
always
be there for someone before.

Her eyes met mine again and they looked glassy, like she was about to cry again. I moved closer to her and leaned over her body, getting my face as close to hers while still being able to see her clearly. Her breathing hitched and once she let it out, I felt a slow wave of warm air brush against my skin.

“I couldn’t tell you, Cade. I had only ever told a few people when I was younger and in foster care. The way they looked at me after I told them, like I was only half a person, made me feel even worse about myself. I couldn’t let you look at me like that. I wouldn’t be able to handle that. There is something about you that makes me feel okay, and I knew that would go away if I told you.”

“Am I looking at you that way now? Am I looking at you like you’re half a person?”

A single tear slipped from the corner of her eye, but she didn’t bother to wipe it away. “No.”

“Can I look at you now?”

Her brows pinched in the middle as she tried to figure out what I was asking.

“I want to see you, Ivy… all of you. Can I do that?” I whispered, letting my breath carry my words.

Fear consumed her features once she realized what I was asking. Her head started shaking vigorously back and forth and her eyes grew twice the normal size. “No. You can’t look at me. It’s hideous. Please don’t look at me,” she begged, on the verge of crying again.

“Ivy,” I whispered against her cheek just before I softly pressed my lips on her wet skin. “You’ve come this far. You’ve already opened up to me about this, just open up one more time. Break through this barrier with me. Let me help make you feel better. Please,” I begged against her cheek, needing her to know this was about making her feel better and not some morbid curiosity.

“I can’t, Cade. I know what you’re doing. I know you only want to see it because you’re curious and I can’t bear that. I don’t want you to look at me out of curiosity. Please don’t do that.” The way her voice broke as she begged me not to look at her tore through me and left me raw.

I kissed her neck before pulling back to look in her eyes. “I only want to worship you, Ivy. That’s it. I will admit, there is a level of curiosity, a deep need to know you’re okay. But that’s not what is driving me to see you. I want to touch you,
taste
you. All of you. I just need to. You came to me for a reason—because you want to fix this part of you. You’ve come this far, let me take you all the way.” I felt like an ass for using her need to be healed as a way to be with her in a way I’ve never been before, but I couldn’t think of anything else. I couldn’t tell her it was selfish, and that I needed it to heal myself as much as I needed to heal her.

“I don’t know…” she whispered, and I could tell she was on the verge of giving in.

“I need you, Ivy. I need you more than I’ve ever needed anything or anyone. More than air to breathe,” I confessed as my lips traveled down her neck, stopping just shy of her breasts. “Tell me to stop and I will, I swear it. Just let me try to comfort you, please.”

She didn’t say yes, but she also didn’t say no. Her breathing picked up as soon as I continued my trail down the front of her body, laying gentle touches of my lips over her shirt. Once I made it to her stomach, I felt her suck it in and hold it. I wished she could see herself the way I saw her—perfect.

I slowly pushed her shirt up to the bottom of her bra, revealing her bare stomach. My lips danced along her ribcage as I tried to soothe her with my mouth, touching her lightly with my fingertips just to see the gooseflesh rise on her skin. My tongue made a hot trail to her bellybutton and then circled it, nearly feeling her spine with the way she was sucking her stomach in. I groaned against her skin, needing more.

I pushed the blanket down and out of the way as I made my way to her hips and slowly slid her stretchy pants down. I realized then how much I loved her pants; I didn’t have to worry about buckles or buttons or zippers, they just gave way as if all on their own. And in one move, she was bared to me… all of her, and that’s when my own breath hitched, holding still in my chest.

“My God,” I whispered against the tender flesh of her pubic bone as I lay between her parted thighs.

Ivy tried to close her legs and push my head away. “I told you…”

The realization that she misunderstood my awe gutted me. “No, Ivy. You’re fucking perfect. There is nothing about you that you should be ashamed of or try to hide. Nothing. You don’t need to hide from me.”

“I know you see it.” The terror in her soft-spoken words sliced through my heart like a razorblade.

She was wrong; I hadn’t seen anything. Once I found myself looking at the part of her that nearly no one else had ever seen, I no longer cared what was there. I no longer had the curiosity to see her imperfections because to me, there weren’t any—she was imperfectly perfect. All I wanted to do was look at her beauty, her unbelievable magnificence that no one else had ever witnessed. And I felt like the luckiest guy in the world with my face between her legs and her hands in my hair.

“You want to know what I see?” I asked breathlessly, locking eyes with her. “I see the strongest person alive. I see someone that has no idea how much courage and strength she possesses. I see complete and utter beauty that can only be found in you.” I kissed her curly hair and took in a deep breath that was all Ivy and grunted. “The things you fucking do to me, Ivy Jaymes. I wish you knew. If you knew the way you make me feel, the way you’ve completely turned my world inside out, flipped it on its axis, and filled it with things that have been missing for hundreds of lifetimes, you might understand half of what I see.”

I felt her legs relax around me. They didn’t fall open, but they were released of the tight muscles that were trying to push me away. She was silently giving me her permission and I didn’t waste a moment. I took one more look at her as she closed her eyes and softly bit down on her bottom lip. That one single move had me wanting to freeze time and hold on to that moment forever. But I couldn’t do that; I had a pussy to taste.

I carefully slid my hands beneath her ass and tilted her pelvis so that I had the perfect angle. The moment her soft, musky scent hit me, I had to force myself to slow down. I needed her, but I also needed to make it last—for her and for me. So I slowly slid my relaxed tongue through her folds until I reached her tight clit, tasting every bit of her as I nibbled my way slowly up the path. Once I reached her clit and began to flick it with the tip of my tongue, her legs began to shake vigorously, tightening around the sides of my head. I lifted my eyes to make sure her reaction wasn’t out of fear and locked eyes with her. She was watching me, and that egged me on more than anything. Her mouth was parted and the look in her eyes was sexy as hell, it urged me on.

Without taking my eyes from hers, I ran my tongue from back to front again, tasting the salty wetness that hadn’t been there the first time. I closed my mouth around her hard clit and sucked, causing her to gasp and start to close her eyes again. I didn’t want her to do that; I wanted her to look at me the entire time so I quickly pressed a finger into her warm, wet channel and her eyes popped back open, staring at me. A sudden fear began to consume her features until I hooked my finger, bending it at the knuckle until I was scratching her inner wall like an itch. Her fingers tightened in my hair as she began to rock her pussy against my face and finger.

I released her clit and mumbled against it, “See what you do to me, Ivy? Do you see the power you have over me?” I slowed the movement of my finger to a taunting pace and bit down gently just above her pelvic bone. “Tell me what you want, Ivy. Tell me what to do. You have all the control here.”

I had never given control to anyone before, other than the attempt I tried to make with Alyssa, but whether I wanted to or not, Ivy had it all. She held the cards. The ball was in her court, and that’s when I realized it always had been. Since the very beginning, I would have given her everything.

I licked her clit slowly and said quietly, “Tell me, Ivy.”

“Faster,” was all she said, sounding as if she had been holding her breath.

“My tongue or my finger?”

“Both,” she moaned, tilting her head back and pressing herself into me more.

“Not until you look at me.”

Her head snapped back down as her eyes settled on mine. I had her. I had all of her, just as she had all of me. And I didn’t waste another second. I added a second finger, feeling her stretch around them, and began to taunt her swollen g-spot. My mouth latched onto her clit once more, alternating between sucking and nibbling.

It didn’t take longer than about fifteen seconds before she was closing in around my fingers, her body going completely rigid, and a veil of red coloring flushing her skin. Her eyes fell closed and I allowed it, knowing she was close to falling over the edge, falling apart on my tongue.

As soon as I knew she was at her peak and taking the final step off, I removed my fingers and replaced it with the tip of my tongue, tasting every ounce of pleasure I had given her. I lapped up everything she gave me as her wetness increased. Her body began to convulse, her thighs clenched my head like a vice, and the only sound I could hear was her heavy panting. I waited until her legs relaxed and her fingers loosened in my hair before I licked her clean and made my way up her body, planting heady kisses along the way.

When I reached her face, I looked down into her sated eyes and asked, “Want to know what heaven tastes like?” I didn’t give her time to answer; Instead, I took her mouth with mine and parted her lips with my tongue, allowing her to taste herself. Had I given it any thought, I would have worried that she’d push away, but she didn’t.