His to Keep by Lydia Goodfellow
Chapter Twenty-Two
I’m too hot—it’s what wakes me. I’m so warm and sweaty, my dress sticks to my body like a second skin, and I wish more than anything I could dive into a pool of cold water. Why is it so hot? Isn’t it snowing outside?
Although I’m not ready to wake up, realizing I’m weighed down by something that’s on top of me makes me groggily open my eyes. A short breath releases from my lungs when I see Callum’s head on my chest, arms wrapped tightly around my waist. Even with the slight movement of rubbing the sleep from my eyes, his arms gather me even closer.
My throat dries. He’s close when he shouldn’t be. Yet, even with all the wrong, my feelings for him are so intense and heightened, my insides light up. I suddenly don’t care about the heat anymore, realizing it’s probably because of the central fire downstairs heating the bedrooms. Here we are, bodies entangled because sometime during the night, Callum had chosen to hold me. My throat swells. I want this. Why won’t he let us have it in secret? We’d be careful like we have been whenever we have stolen moments together.
My fingers stroke his hair. It’s slightly damp from the heat and has grown heaps since I’ve been here. It curls around his ears in a way that I like. Especially the times when it’s effortlessly messy. He truly is perfection. I’m all too aware of him being topless and ache to touch where I’m not allowed. With him asleep, I can’t help but take advantage.
Moving down, my finger lightly touches his neck. He moves, and I gasp when he moans, the same time pressing his face into my stomach and breathing in. “Ava, please…”
“W-What?”
“You know what. Your heart is beating so fast.” Shuddering from being wrapped up in him, his eyes are like liquid surrounded by dark, long eyelashes when he looks up. I almost lose the tiny bit of sanity I have left. But he lets go of me, frustration and embarrassment evident on his face as he sits up. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to hold you like that.”
“Oh.” I drop my gaze, hurt smothering me. Kicking the sheets from his legs, he sits up and scrubs a hand over his face. Leaning up on my elbow, I have to ask. “You’re asking me to stop, but I don’t know what I’m meant to be stopping.”
He’s silent for a moment, mulling over my words until he gets out of bed. Instead of going into the bathroom on his own like I think he’s about to, he moves around the bed to my side, and I gasp when he picks me up in his arms and takes me with him. Kicking the door behind him, he puts me down next to the bathtub. With my heart in my throat, he turns on the shower. Reaching for the hem of my dress, he pulls it upward over my head. I’m not wearing a bra, just a pair of white panties, and he loses his breath when he glances down.
He wants to touch me, and I want him to, but he doesn’t. His fists clench at his sides instead. “I ask you to stop, but you’re right. You can’t. You’re you, and I’m me… I’m the one who’s unable to—I can’t stop wanting you.”
“Have me,” I whisper, leaning forward and resting my forehead against his jaw.
“No. Tell me to stop,” he begs, grabbing me again and lifting me into the tub. I gasp from the warm spray of water as it hits the skin of my back. My nipples harden, but my insides are anything but cold.
“Don’t stop.”
Taking off his pants, he leaves his boxers on and climbs in with me, moving until he’s close to me. Grabbing the shower curtain, he pulls it around us, shielding us away from everything else. The feverish shivers are back. My heart flutters in my chest as he reaches out and pushes my hair from my face, brushing his thumb against my bottom lip. He wants to kiss me. His eyes are lit with need as he wraps his arms around me and pulls me against him. My breasts press against his front as I hug him back, leaning my head on his chest. Once again, it feels like we’re in our own secret world. Danger lurks just outside, but we both know it’s unlikely anybody will come to the bedroom this early.
“You’re shaking.” I’m not cold. I’m still hot. It’s the effect he has on me that’s making my body rattle.
I lift my head and rest my gaze on his face. “I’m okay.”
He presses his forehead against mine and closes his eyes. “The things I want to do to you, Ava. I think my father’s right. You are a temptress—”
“Don’t call me that,” I beg him. “I’m not.”
“But you are,” he says over the spray of the shower. “Surely, you must know what you look like. Whenever you look in the mirror, do you not see perfection staring back?”
“I’m not perfect,” I say. “And besides, haven’t you looked in the mirror and saw the same?”
“The devil can take on many forms.” Moving his head slightly, he brushes his lips against my cheek. His following words are hushed, hesitant. “I think about you when I touch myself.” I swallow hard, my face tingling from every kiss he puts on my skin. “Before you came here, it was just something I had to do—like a chore. Even from how my father described you before you came, I knew you’d be beautiful, but I wasn’t prepared for what you’d really be like. You could only walk past me, and I’d react. It only started happening after that time John took you, and you fell asleep on me. Your dress opened, and I saw you. The way you looked at me looking at you—I’d never felt anything like it.”
“I touched myself last night,” I admit, flushing.
Moving back from my ear, he stares deeply into my eyes. “You did?”
I nod, cheeks flaming. “Yes, it was after what we did in the library. But it wasn’t the same. It didn’t feel the same, so I stopped.”
Concern floods his features. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did you come?”
“W-What?”
“Did you orgasm?” he asks. He must read my expression because he suddenly backs me up and presses my back against the tiles. Those are cold, and my breath hitches. “Show me. Show me how you touched yourself.” Dropping my hand, I slowly move down. Until my hand’s between my legs. He watches me as water drips down his face, his bottom lip rolling into his mouth. Looking up, he leans in and brushes his lips against mine. “I’m going to help you, okay?”
I nod nervously. I’ve only dreamed of doing this with him, and now it’s really happening. He starts by kissing my chin and then my neck. I moan when one of his hands rub my breast, his thumb and forefinger rolling my nipple and sending spasms through my body. Then he does something I don’t expect. Leaning down, his mouth covers my other nipple, his tongue swirling around the sensitive bud, enough to make me moan out loud. Thank God the shower drowns out the sound.
I put my hand over my mouth as he does the same to my other nipple. Not even in my wildest dreams did I think someone’s mouth can do this. My back arches, between my legs throbbing unmercifully, so warm and hot. He lifts his head and kisses me again, tongue swirling with mine. Then he stops and lifts his head, kissing me on the lips again. “Trust me?”
Nodding my head, unable to speak, his fingers hook the sides of my panties and pulls them down. He’s going to see me, and although I’ve been naked in front of him before, he never looked. Not in the way he is now as he untangles them from my ankles. My face flames. Coming back up, he shifts and positions himself like he did in the library, only this time, his hand goes down between us. Before I can even think of what he’s doing, he touches me where it aches most, rubbing in slow, gentle circles that make me gasp. He leans me back against the wall as he works his fingers.
Keeping one arm on the wall and the other between my legs, my hips start to move, the same as how I did in the library, only this time, I’m grinding against his fingers. Each movement is slow, and the ripples of pleasure that suddenly come make me shiver.
“Callum.” I moan, forgetting where I am, what I’ve been through, and the things I’ve seen. I forget that we’re not meant to do this with each other. That we’re supposed to be hiding behind the illusion of friends. We were never friends.
Breathing heavily through his nose, he wraps his arm around my waist and pulls me closer to him. I know it’s because I’m squirming away from him. Not because I want to stop, but because it’s so intense. Consuming. He moves his fingers quicker, and then that delicious sensation I was chasing in the library comes back, pulsating harder than ever.
He leans his head on mine. Maybe it’s the hum of the shower. The way the warmth rains down on us. The water makes each movement more fluid until I’m panting and digging my nails into his arm. Maybe it’s the way he’s watching me with hooded eyes, his erection constrained by his boxers every time I grind into his fingers.
“Ava. I want to tell you…” Moaning, I feel something build and build. “I like you too.” Plunging a finger into my core, I cry out and come apart, clenching desperately around his fingers inside of me. He holds onto me so tight as my first orgasm rocks through me, even with the uncomfortable pinch of this new intrusion. As the feeling fades, I’m left trembling and shaking in his arms as he gently removes his fingers. His lips capture mine then, and my body turns to mush.
“Fucking beautiful,” I hear him whisper as I lean my head back against the tiles with my eyes closed to catch my breath. My legs tremble as he reaches up and knocks off the shower. We stand for a minute or so, listening to water dripping off our bodies and trickling down the drain.
He helps me out of the tub and dries me with the towel. Every place he touches, I tingle, my skin now oversensitive. Dropping the towel to the floor, he takes hold of my neck and kisses me again. Heat once again flares inside of me, wanting more. “Callum…I…”
“I know,” he says, sighing as he tucks my wet hair behind my ear. “But we can’t.”
“Why?”
“I might not stop.” Stifling my desire, after I’m dressed and my hair’s combed, he stays behind. “I’ll be out in a minute.” Nodding, I leave him and flop down on the bed as he closes the door.
I like you, too.
I smile at his words. Putting my hand on my chest where my heart is, I sigh, warmth and something indescribable flooding me. Though, as I look around the room, my smile fades. I’m having my first time here in this dreadful place when I shouldn’t be. I like Callum, but I wish we had met on the outside. Everything would be so different.
Fifteen minutes later, he returns, this time fully dressed. When he sees my solemn mood, his forehead creases, and he lays beside me, pulling me into his chest. “What’s wrong? Was it what we did? Did I hurt you?”
“No,” I say, “I liked what we did, and you didn’t hurt me. I’m just sad that it has to be here in this house and not out there.”
“We wouldn’t have ever met out there,” he says, and I know he’s right, but I can’t help wishing things were different. “If he never chose you, you’d still be out there, and I…” He trails off, but I know what he was about to say. That he’d probably be dead.
Then I can’t help wondering if Father Aaron chose someone else—a different girl. Would he be the same with her as he is me? Would she be wrapped in his arms like I am now, her body still throbbing from her very first orgasm? I bite my lip. I can’t be sure that it’s stupid lust pushing this—a way of escaping this place for a little while because there’s nothing else.
“I wish we’d never have met.” I look up at him, weirdly not hurt by what he said because nothing about us is normal. “I wish you’d have better than this. Not stuck in this house, this room, with me. Not when all I can think about is wanting you.”
I mess with the button of his shirt. “Wanting me how?”
“Don’t ask me that. You shouldn’t have let me do anything tonight. I’ll be twenty next year—”
“And I’ll be seventeen.”
“It still feels wrong. The things I want to do with you can’t happen. If he finds out you’re no longer a virgin before the ceremony, he’ll kill you out of rage, and then me once he gets his money.”
I blink at him, soaking in what he said. “Why do you care about what your father wants for the ceremony?”
“I don’t—”
I sit up. “But you just said if he finds out I’m not a virgin before the ceremony, he’ll kill me, which I’m taking means you’re not going to do anything to jeopardize that.” I scoff and shake my head. “And after telling me that you like me and that you wish I had better? You’re saying I’m basically to stay a virgin for your father when it’s you who keeps starting this.”
“That’s not what I meant.” He sits up too. “Ava, come on. If we continue what we’re doing, you won’t be a virgin anymore. We both know it. This will only go further, and he’ll drive a knife through your heart. I don’t want that to happen, so no, I won’t do anything to risk it.”
“Let him kill me!” I suddenly yell. “I don’t care!”
“Keep your voice down!” he growls at me. “Don’t ruin this.”
“You’ve already ruined it.”
He sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose. “The thought of him doing anything to you makes me sick. But if it keeps you alive...”
“No.” I stand up, unable to believe he’s saying this to me now. “I know what you’re doing.” My voice quivers, my heart beating fast as I pace the room. “You’re trying to put me off you, but it’s not going to work. What this is between us is unexplainable. Stupid and absolutely reckless. It’s happened so fast, and it’s confusing to us both. But kissing me and touching me and then saying I’m still to be your father’s is cruel! Do you even like me? Or am I just a whore like your mother calls me? How John sees me?”
“I do not think you’re a whore!” His expression darkens. “And I wasn’t trying to put you off me, but if that’s what you want, then maybe this will. If letting him fuck you means you’ll live and stay with me, then yes, you’re his!”
His words shake me to the core, and I wish I hadn’t reacted at all. That we hadn’t had this argument that’s shown the rot in the seeds we’ve sowed. Maybe the feelings aren’t as strong for him as they are for me. I’m falling for him, I know it, and it means nothing. I’ll still be Father Aaron’s.
“Ava.” Callum breaks my trail of thought. A frown indents his brow, and guilt swarms in his eyes. “You know I don’t want him anywhere near you. I just don’t want you to get hurt because of me.”
I nod, even though I’m still unnerved by what he said. But in his strange way, he’s trying to keep me safe. I think. “I know.”
“I keep saying it, but this really has to be the last time we do this. Before it goes any further.”
“I know.”
But I don’t, and I never will.