(a/n: you won't hear this from an author often, but I am pretty fucking proud of myself and how this book is turning out. I don't have much self confidence, but apparently, when it comes to writing, I am not a bitch. Writing is my bitch.
edit from future editor: goddamn, I really just did that huh)
Chapter Fourteen
Everything is temporary.
That is what I tried to remind myself—a mantra, a chant, words to live by—as Aziel's fingers left the skin of my hands and trailed to my back, lightly grazing my shoulder blade.
All that we do, all that we feel, all that we know, is temporary.
I knew this as Aziel's fingers began kneading my sore skin, digging his fingers in just that right amount, testing the boundaries of my pain, but holding none accountable for what we were doing: what was spoken and unspoken, what we were as a whole.
His breaths were calm and warm, fanning out across my bare shoulder as he leaned over to inspect my shoulder. I hissed when he moved my arm, and he stopped.
"Does it hurt too much, Romina?" He asked.
I swallowed before replying, pressing my breasts further into his chest as he kneaded deeper, harder, faster.
It was painful, yes. But the heat? This bliss? It couldn't be more than bruised.
I knew that once I said I was okay, this would be over. It would truly become temporary, and Aziel would leave me, naked on his bathroom's counter. Bare to him in more ways than one.
I didn't want him to stop, so I didn't tell him to.
Things may be temporary, but if we convince ourselves otherwise, the present is forever and a future without it is impossible.
"It's...it's sore..." I whispered weakly, voice hoarse, cracking at the end with emotion. With feeling, rather. It wasn't emotion.
My fingers gripped his hard shoulders as he treated my wound, fingers digging softly into his soft skin. It was soft, but it was hard. How was that possible? His muscles flexed beneath my touch, rippling and hardening.
"Romina..." He grit out. It was a grumble so low it reached not just my mind, but my lower half as well. I froze against him, stiffening. He leaned back, removing his hand from my shoulder and placing it along my chin, lifting it to meet his gaze. Intense. His stare was intense, sudden, shocking.
Dark.
He could drown me, and while my body felt like it was flying among stars, my mind knew I was succumbing to nothing but darkness.
I waited for his reply.
It, his reply, was strained. His teeth were grit, and something alike vexation teased his thick brows, pulling them along with his sharpened eyes.
"You're not really hurt, are you?"
Yes, I was hurt. But hurt to the point where I needed to undress for one of Father's working colleagues, sit on his bathroom counter, and let his hands roam freely over my exposed torso? No, not exactly.
I sucked in a sharp breath. "It's sore."
"Yes," a deep rumbling laugh echoed deep in his chest, but it didn't escape with his breath as he sighed, a charming grin coming to his lips. He pressed a hand to his face, closing one eye. "Sore...but not..." He dropped his hands and left them on my waist. Though a shock ran through my spine at the movement, I refused to budge.
I liked this. I liked how it felt to be in his arms.
"...not broken." I finished for him. A small laugh escaped my lips, unbidden, tittering its way into the room. I blushed, embarrassed by my laugh. "I heard you were asking about my age."
"Yes." The man said surely, gaze level. "You're a beautiful young woman, Romina. At your age, you'd normally be married off by now." His eyes dropped momentarily to my lips, and for a moment I wished they'd be replaced by his own: him, to kiss me. I quickly shook the thought away. What in the world had gotten into me?
"I'll get married at twenty." I told him, though he already knew. My fingers drifted down his from shoulders, ghosting his skin as I went. His eyes fell to the movement of my thin fingers, tracing lines down his veined and muscled forearms. "I—" I blushed, quickly drawing my hands away as if he'd burned me. His stare went back to mine, unamused. "I'm sorry. I-I didn't mean to—"
"No." He cut in, voice hard. I froze once more. His lip curled. "I think it's quite simple, really. I touch you, you touch me." He leaned in closer, nose almost touching mine. "You're almost twenty, aren't you?"
I gulped, unsure. "Yes...in a few months, I believe."
I saw his fists tighten against the counter, whitening his knuckles. "How many."
"Uh, what?" I stuttered out.
His look darkened. "How many, Romina. How many more fucking months until you're married off?"
My heart beat rocketed through the roof. "I-I—" stop stuttering, Romina! Stupid! It's been how many years since you learned to speak again? "Three months, give or take."
"Do you know who it is? Do you know who'll be with you on your wedding night?"
Red slowly crept up my neck like blood-ivy, flooding my veins with enough fire to alight my heart. "No, I don't."
He seemed to calm. "Well, then," He paused, eyeing my hand hanging pointlessly by my side, "you don't know how to treat a husband, do you?" I narrowed my eyes uncertainly. Of course I did. I knew to cook and clean. Wasn't that all there was to it?
"So sweet..." He drawled lowly, fingers lifting to trail along my cheek. He touched me so softly, so lightly, that it was almost as if he weren't touching me at all. But he was. I felt the fire-lit path he left in his wake. "Innocent, you're so innocent, love." His hooded eyes fluttered closed for a moment, and I swore when he opened them again, the whites of his eyes flashed black for a moment. But when I looked again, his eyes were the same: those dark, dark pits of coal. "Men love that innocence. They love to prey upon it, to devour it. To ruin you."
You're a man too, aren't you?
"Don't you yearn to be touched? To experience what a lover must?"
"I'll wait." I said stubbornly, though my voice was quiet.
"Wait for what? For your husband to teach you how to love him right?"
Uncertainty crept into my gut at his words. What if I didn't know how to treat him right? There was more to a marriage than cooking and cleaning. There was loving and...and....
The roses on my cheeks decided to bloom.
"Yes, yes, yes..." His voice a husky breath at this point. "Loving and what, Romina?"
I knew the answer. I knew it damn well.
"You said my husband will be the man I spend my wedding night with," I said.
"Hm, yes." He settled his hands along my hips—just barely above my bottom. "You're lost, aren't you?"
"I am." I said, almost in a trance. His eyes were hypnotizing, and his words were a drug. Call me foolish, but the fool is always the one playing the joke in the end. "I am, Aziel. I'm lost."
His eyes flashed again—that moment of complete darkness, where his eyes were eclipsed in darkness. Where the sun was swallowed whole, and night came to reign its terror.
"Please, Romina." He said. "Let me help you find your way."