Page 72 of Tethered Fates
I’m lightheaded, but I don’t dare come up for air. I wonder if this vampire’s bite is as addictive as his kiss.
Sen’s palm glides further up under my T-shirt, palming my torso. I gulp down each of his groans as he explores my sensitive skin, while my other hand grabs hold of his strong shoulder for support, gripping onto his bulging muscles.
When his palms stroke over my nipples, I gasp into him as shivers rake across my every nerve ending.
My dick twitches then—
Like I’ve been shocked by lightning, I push Sen away, sucking down panicked breaths as I stare at his heaving chest.
“Teagan?” Sen pants my name like he’s risen from deep waters.
I shake my head. Shame coils around my insides and squeezes, turning my pleasure into stomach-churning sickness.
“Hey.” Sen takes his hand out of my shirt and strokes my cheek with his other palm. I flinch. He pulls away, but when I shake my head—eyes scrunched—and lean into him, he cups the side of my face again and tucks me safely into his chest. “Teagan, it’s okay. We don’t have to do anything.”
“I…” Tears burn behind my eyes. “I want to. But I…I can’t, okay? I can’t.”
He kisses my temple. Runs the tips of his fingers along my cheeks, painting my skin with the tears I hadn’t noticed leaking.
“Can you explain to me why you can’t?” Sen asks gently, never letting me go.
I wanted to hide this last, shameful secret from Sen. From everyone. The thing my ex-friend Carter did that keeps making me flinch.
“The bullying…”
Sen goes deathly still. Then becomes the predator I know he is when he whispers, “Did they hurt you?”
“Not like that,” I mumble into his neck, softening against his hard chest.
My arms loop around his tapered waist. I touch the skin on his lower back and run my fingers along the ridges of his spine.
“Or I guess…different. The guy who used to be my friend was angry that I slept with his ex. But like, who cares, so had everyone else. But he didn’t like that I had done it. So he got a friend to pretend he wanted to fuck me. We went to his room, I took my clothes off and then…” I shut my eyes and press my nose into the hollow of Sen’s throat. Breathe in his warmth, his heat, his musk. “Then a bunch of people ran in and…laughed…at me. Since then, I can’t…I can’t get hard.”
“Sweetheart.” Sen’s solid hold tightens until I struggle to take a full breath. I wish he’d hold me tighter. “I am so sorry that happened.”
“Every time I…try, it’s like I’m taken back to that place. So something I used to love became something I’m ashamed of.”
Sen kisses my temple. “Then we won’t—”
“But I want to!” I groan, dropping my head to the wall with a thud. “Sex is great. Fun. I miss it, miss being close or…” I blink up at him. “Miss getting close to someone.”
His lips pull into a smile; his understanding of me is razor sharp. “Teagan, I’ve had sex with thousands of men.”
“Slut.” My lips twitch.
Sen chuckles, humming in agreement. “Yes, and as one slut to another—”
I grin, the shame dissipating with each smile Sen pulls from me. This is what I missed about sex, not the orgasms, or learning the shape of new bodies, but that sex is just fucking fun.
“ —I can tell you, there are many, many ways to have sex.”
“I know that,” I complain, running my fingers up and down his spine like the keys of a piano. “But I didn’t think I’d be fucking broken at twenty-two.”
“Don’t speak about yourself that way. You are not broken,” he says, carding his fingers into my curls.
“I know… sex isn’t power,” I mumble, turning my face so I can run my tongue along the beating pulse at his wrist. He groans. I do it again, all while looking up at him through my lashes. “But I feel so fucking powerless.”
Sen tilts my face up to his, and like my fingers touch his back, my gaze roams over every inch of his handsome face. His nose with a crook in it, his firm mouth and sharp jaw. His eyes that take in the whole of me, accepting my pieces not like I’m broken, but like I’m something he gets to explore and wonder at.
