My breath is heavy only inches away from her face, but she doesn’t cower away. Her head rests to the side of my shoulder, giving me full access to bury my face into her neck.

After a long moment of heavy breathing and silence, she whispers, “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t do that again,” I mumble, squeezing her wrists above her head.

“I won’t.”

Softly, I feel her hips grind toward me, rubbing a delicious friction against the stiffness pressed against her body. For once, I actually let her move against me until we’re moving together, and I tilt my hips in tandem with hers.

“Why are you torturing yourself?” she asks, opening her legs for me.

My movement stops. Moving away from her, I try not to let her words sink in. This isn’t torture. I refuse to call it that. This isn’t torture.

“Let me help you,” she murmurs, pressing her body toward me. Before she can reach me, I pull away and grab my bag from its place near the door.

“I don’t need your help.”

Quickly, I disappear through the door and rush up the stairs to my apartment.

Shelby

I can’t sleep. Whenever I close my eyes, I see the snarl on his face after my fingers drifted across the cool, moist skin of his back.

Every few minutes, I convince myself that it’s nothing. I’m looking into too much, and I need to drop it. Rafe is nothing but a miserable jerk who likes to use sex as a tool of manipulation. What he did to me on the couch was amazing...but there was nothing emotional tied to it for him. He was just trying to get me off his back.

But I’ve sure as fuck never been with a guy who just wanted to get me off and get nothing in return. Rafe wouldn’t even let me touch him.

I toss again, unable to quiet my mind enough to sleep.

He snapped when I touched his back. It was instinct, and he’s never let me touch him. He’s always kept my hands back when we kissed. Does he never let anyone touch him? Ever?

But if no one can touch him...then how does he have sex with them? Does he really make the women he sleeps with keep their hands restrained the entire time?

Unless he doesn’t have sex at all…

I flip again in my bed. This is ridiculous. Why do I even care? So he’s fucked up and has some serious issues. He doesn’t give two shits about me, so why should I care about him?

Then I replay the moments on the couch ten years ago. I kissed him, touched his face, and for a moment, he let me. Just before he pushed me away and never spoke to me again. From that moment, he hated me.

Did Rafe really have so many emotional scars that he has always been this haunted?

What exactly happened to him as a kid that he behaves this way? I know he spent some time in and out of foster care, but he certainly never talked about that much in high school. Probably not much of a chance I could get him to open up about it now.