Page 70 of Broken Saint
He brushes his thumb over my bottom lip as he stares into my eyes.
“We never used to, no. But I think we’ve already established that we’re not the same people we used to be. I might still be a selfish asshole because I’m not letting you escape, but I promise, I have good intentions of taking care of you.”
My eyes burn red hot with tears.
“A marathon sex session after how long of nothing?” he teases. “I know you must be hurting.”
Now that’s something I can’t exactly argue with.
“Don’t you have training or?—”
“Nope. I’m all yours to do whatever you want with me.”
I’m all yours.How freaking long have I wanted to hear those words?
“If you’re sure,” I squeak, sounding nothing like the confident girl he used to hook up with back in the day.
“Oh, baby, I’ve never been surer of anything in my life.”
I sit there shocked to my core as his words repeat over and over in my head while he shamelessly takes a pee in front of me and then disappears from the room.
I don’t move for the longest time as the sound of him crashing around in the kitchen makes its way down to me. I can’t help but smile.
I’ve spent the night with Colt a few times over the years, but it’s usually been because we passed out the second we finished having sex. It was never because he wrapped me in his arms and refused to let me go, or because he wanted to look after me the next morning.
Lifting my hand, I brush my finger over my bottom lip, just like he did with his thumb while butterflies flutter wildly in my stomach.
This can’t be real. It just can’t be.
Nothing this good happens to me. Ever.
It has to be a joke, a dream…something.
I don’t just turn up out of the blue and the only guy I’ve ever truly cared about welcomes me back into his life with open arms. It just doesn’t happen.
Finally, I manage to peel my ass from the countertop and jump to my feet. Every single muscle in my body pulls, but mostly the ones I forgot even existed. And nothing aches as beautifully as my core. My little kitty has been used and abused, and it has never been happier about it.
Stepping up to the large, almost full-length mirror on the wall opposite the tub, I stare myself right in the eyes.
There’s something different. Something lighter. Something that makes my heart sing and my shoulders relax.
Taking a deep breath, I allow my eyes to drop lower, taking in my swollen lips, the hickeys on my neck and chest, and the bite mark on my right breast. I don’t even remember him doing that, but damn, it looks good.
I find the stretch marks and the scar on my stomach before I get to the swell of my hips, and the scars on my thigh.
A lump crawls up my throat as I remember him kissing each one last night. Tracing the reddened, puckered skin with his tongue.
Tears burn my eyes as I trace those marks with my fingers, pretending it’s him again.
He didn’t care.
He didn’t care about my size, about my scars, about any of the things I’ve been driving myself crazy with over the past few years.
I suffered badly as a teenager with my weight and an eating disorder. But by the time I started at Maddison Kings, I had managed to overcome it, and with the help of yoga and a good psychologist, I had a much better relationship with food. For the first time in years, I could look at myself in a mirror and not be disgusted by what stared back at me.
All of that hard work was ruined when I woke up in the hospital with a cannula in the back of my hand, and my mom sobbing into my brother’s chest.
From the moment I saw them, I knew that my life was never going to be the same again.