kept shaking my head and when I felt his mouth on my stomach, brushing more kisses over me, I tried to pull away.
But he didn’t stop raining kisses on my throat, my shoulders, my breasts and my stomach. As if each part of me deserved to be touched and kissed and stroked and held.
It was unbearable.
‘You shouldn’t do that,’ I whispered raggedly.
‘Why not? Give me one good reason.’
I didn’t want to tell him, didn’t want to give away the truth. But I had nothing left. ‘You’re right. I don’t deserve it.’
‘Poppy...’
‘My dad died because of me.’
He went still, his hands resting on me and not moving, and so I went on. ‘I wanted a pony when I was ten. I begged and begged and begged. And Dad said he didn’t have any money, but I wouldn’t listen. I told him that if he didn’t get me one I’d never, ever forgive him. I’d never love him again.’ The words were getting stuck, helpless tears clogging my throat. But I forced myself to keep speaking. ‘So he told me he was going to get me one. Then the next day he killed himself.’
‘Poppy.’
‘Mum screamed at me. She told me it was my fault for being such a brat. I know I wasn’t directly responsible. I didn’t know we were having money trouble and I didn’t tie that rope around his neck. I know it was his own financial mismanagement that did it. But there’s a part of me that thinks that maybe she was right. If I hadn’t been such a fucking brat, if I hadn’t told him I’d never forgive him, if I hadn’t kept going on at him, he might not have done it. That me begging for a stupid pony was the thing that maybe pushed him over.’ I could feel tears leaking out from underneath the fabric of my blindfold and I wanted to wipe them away, but I didn’t. ‘They didn’t want me anyway. Mum never wanted to get pregnant with me. I was a mistake. A mistake that killed my dad.’
I let more tears fall and just lay there, naked and exposed, the last horrible little secret echoing in the room around me.
Selfish and demanding, that was what I was. Wanting things I couldn’t and shouldn’t have. A pony. A mother and father who loved me. A family. A home.
I was a mistake. I shouldn’t even have been here.
I didn’t deserve a thing.
Xander
SHE WAS STRETCHED out beneath me, blindfolded. All naked golden curves and pain.
That pain was like a knife in my goddamned soul.
The tears leaked from underneath her blindfold, running down her cheeks and her neck, pooling at the base of her throat.
She thought she’d been the one to push her father over the edge.
She thought she’d been the one who’d killed him.
It wasn’t her. It was you.
The truth, that was what I had to tell her. The truth in all its ugly glory.
Except how could I do that now? I’d been trying to show her that she could trust me, that she didn’t have to fight me. That right now she was mine and I would care for her, protect her. Heal her if I could.
And she was wounded. So terribly wounded. Punishing herself for something that had never been her fault.
But telling her the truth might wound her even more and I couldn’t do that. It seemed like maybe some things were more important than total honesty.
So I didn’t say a word.
I leaned down, putting my hands on either side of her head, and I brushed my lips over hers then moved lower, kissing away the tears on her cheeks and along her jaw. Trailing down to her throat I tasted salt.
I gave her back sweetness. I gave her back warmth.
I gave her back kindness and caring and all the things she should have had as an angry, hurt little girl, that no one had given her. That she felt she hadn’t deserved.
She shuddered beneath my mouth, her hands lifting to my shoulders, trying to push me away, but I didn’t let her. Instead I took her hands in mine and turned them over, kissing her palms.
She gave a gasp, her body going taut, and I waited.
If she wanted to stop me, she knew what she had to do.
‘Xander...’ My name was a broken whisper. ‘Xander...don’t...’
But I ignored her. I laid her hands back down at her sides and I bent again, kissing my way down her body, inhaling the sweet scent of her, now tinged with the musk of her arousal and the salt from her tears.
‘You didn’t kill your father,’ I murmured, giving her this truth at least. ‘It wasn’t your fault. That was his choice. And it was the wrong one. He shouldn’t have done it, Poppy. He shouldn’t have taken himself from you.’
She gave a hiccupping sob, flinging her arm over her face again, even though she was already wearing a blindfold.
‘And if you’re a mistake then you’re the most perfect mistake I’ve ever seen.’ I stroked her, kissed her. Traced every line of her with my fingers and my mouth, not even questioning the urge, just going with it. I sensed that this was what she needed and so I gave it to her.
‘I’m a terrible person,’ she whispered in a cracked voice at last. ‘I treated you so badly. And it’s not Mum’s fault she is the way she is. If she’d never had me, everything would have been different.’
I put my fingers across her mouth, silencing her. ‘If she’d never had you, I would never have met you. And sure, my life would have been easier, but then I would have never got to touch you. Kiss you. I would never have been inside you.’ I let my fingers trail between her thighs, over that sweet, soft, hot little pussy. ‘I would never had known how it felt to have you touch me. To have your sympathy and your passion. Your caring. And I would have been poorer for that too.’
‘Stop it,’ she choked out. ‘Stop saying those things.’
But I didn’t stop. ‘You’re not my fuck toy tonight, Poppy.’ I stroked her inner thighs, spreading them gently apart, exposing the heart of her. ‘Tonight you’re my princess.’
She shuddered as I trailed my mouth up her thighs, then shuddered again as I brushed my lips over her pussy, kissing her there too. Then, using my fingers to spread her further, I explored her with my tongue. I tasted the tart sweetness of her, the sugar and spice that was her flavour.
I kept things gentle, light. There would be nothing hard tonight. It wasn’t the time for roughness.
I wanted her to trust me. I wanted her to know that, whatever was happening between us, I would never hurt
