22. Bedtime Stories

22. Bedtime Stories

Marilynn

“There you are!” Niles shouts,shoving past a group of naked inmates. “I’m sorry, the crowd pushed me away from you.”

I’ve been in the fetal position for the last several minutes. It’s not that I’m afraid, not that I’m weak, not that I’m incapable of defending myself.

It’s that I don’t want to. The electric charge of this smoke is damning.

And I’m having flashbacks.

Brief images of Vlademur Demechnef sneaking into my room at night. Blurs of the next morning, sobbing on the kitchen floor as I told Aurick. It’s confusing. These memories. The awful way my body is reacting in this setting.

But seeing Niles, it dulls the pain in my heart.

“Thank God,” I breathe.

“Did anyone touch you?” He kneels down to me, cradling my face in his warm hands.

I shake my head.

“Good. They wouldn’t be breathing right now if they had.” He pauses, lifting his brow in the way he does before he tells a joke. “And by that, I mean I would have run to Daddy Dessin to beat him up for me.”

I snort. “Daddy Dessin takes care of everything.”

Niles is quiet for a moment, doing his best to keep his hooded eyes clear of the lust that is pumping viciously through the air. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

His voice curves around my spine, pours into my heart like warm honey. I want to touch him, feel the sharpness of that jawline. Feel the silkiness of his golden hair.

“But will you touch me?”

His Adam’s apple bobs. “I don’t have to.”

“Why not?”

“The gas isn’t as strong on me as it might be for you.” He waves a hand around the stadium. “It’s been used on me enough before…enough to build a tolerance.”

My skin is hot and tingly. I run my hands over my body, unable to fight the jittery feelings swarming my gut like a colony of ants.

“You…” Think clearly, Marilynn. “You and I have similar backgrounds.”

“Oh?”

I pinch my thighs together. Stop looking at his crotch.

“Aurick’s father. He hurt me. He assaulted me. I didn’t get a say in what happened to my body.” I wish I could stop the fluttering in my lower belly. This topic is hard, serious. And it’s certainly not the time to get turned on.

Niles lifts his chin. “I’m so sorry, Marilynn.”

He’s touching me. He’s touching me. My vision lights up in a show of shooting stars.

“You know the feeling?”

He nods with tight lips.

The world roars around us in a blur, painting smudges of color in my periphery. Fire. Flesh. Clown faces. But it’s muted as I look up at him, descending into his kind eyes.

“I don’t want to make you feel obligated to touch me,” I say, making a strained noise. “Just, please ignore me while I”

Releasing a soft sigh, I rub a hand between my legs, graze my fingers over a nipple. The flush of warmth and the compulsion to stroke my sensitive skin are torture to ignore. It’s almost painful, like failing to scratch an itch that drives you completely mad after several moments of letting the tension build.

Niles’s eyes flash to my hands, watching them wander, watching them tease my breasts, my warm center.

“I don’t think I can ignore it,” he finally states without looking away from my hands.

That sentence, simple and straightforward, is like a deep, sensual massage over my entire body. I can’t tell if it’s the drug or just my own heart that yearns for him to say more things like that.

“But I thought you weren’t as affected by the drug as I am?” I’m squirming.

“I’m not.”

“You’re not,” I repeat.

“I’m affected by you.”

He plants those four words in my heart like seeds in a rose garden. They blossom in my chest, filling me with color and a floral aroma. That feeling of falling in my sleep makes my stomach dip.

“Oh.” It comes out as more of an exasperated breath than anything else.

He’s affected by me. Me. Marilynn. The woman who lived under the roof of the leader that ruined his life. The girl that still lives inside me, the small one that used to beg her mama for stories about Niles Offborth, the man full of love and a heart of gold.

Get a hold of yourself.

With slow, intentional movements, his hands slide up my neck to my cheeks. And those stormy, oceanic eyes are squared solely on me.

“Have I really been your hero?” he asks.

“Yes.”

Surprise washes forward like a morning ocean wave across his face. Even though he knew the answer, there’s that piece of him that lacks the confidence to believe it. A small slice of self-deprecating thoughts.

“I’ve never been a hero to anyone.”

He’ll never know how sad that makes my heart, withering like a rose without the sun.

Distance. Distance. Distance.

Niles leans forward, placing a kiss on my cheek, gentle and cautious. I nearly faint at his soft lips hovering over my jaw. His breath tickling my face still trapped between his hands. I, on the other hand, can’t breathe at all. My brain has commanded my body to stop functioning. To halt all progress. Every nerve ending puckers at his closeness.

“Please, Niles,” I exhale, a mix between a moan and a whimper.

He brushes the tip of his nose over the corner of my mouth, lovingly, adoringly, like he’s mesmerizing the smooth surface of my skin. And my eyes flutter close, blacking out the hysterical sounds drumming against my ears, the sweaty bodies riding through the high of the gas in the air.

His scent of sunshine has dimmed, the misery of this hell dampening his special fragrance. But as his nose brushes against my own, I catch the special aroma that is strictly Niles. Still there. Still sweet.

My clit throbs at the way he teases the closeness of our lips, the way he breathes cool air into my parted mouth, the way he rests his forehead against my own. I’m sucked into his atmosphere like a meteor plummeting to earth.

“Please,” I say again.

He hisses as I press my breasts against his chest, grating against my erect nipples. A spark of glittering electricity travels the length of my spine.

“Ask me to do it.” He places a light kiss on the corner of my mouth.

The self-control I have to not rip my uniform off is award-winning behavior. He traces his bottom lip over mine, so subtle I’m not even sure if we made contact.

The words spring from my mouth earnestly. “Kiss me.”

Niles expels a breath of release as he dips his head down, capturing me in a kiss I’ve only seen in my dreams. It encircles me like a hurricane. He’s everywhere. Hands on either side of my face. Hard edges of his body flattened against the soft planes of mine.

“Marilynn,” he whispers against my lips.

And I open for him, tasting his air, the swift dip of his tongue. He kisses like it’s an art, a graceful, elegant dance between partners. A conductor of a symphony. Every time he moves, I move. Head tilts, mine follows. Passion ignites my limbs, screaming through my bloodstream with pure excitement.

He’s kissing me. He’s kissing me.

It feels too good. Too right. Yet I know I’m supposed to pull away, to resist, to keep my distance. I don’t like it. Not at all. Right?

He hooks his arm around my waist, swallowing me in his embrace.

And I’m going to tell him. That he is the greatest bedtime story. The sweetest dream. But a black smoke fills the air, and someone screams.