Wasted Lust - JA Huss Page 0,66
a hand on her shoulder to stop her. “Wait. I have some dry clothes you can change into.”
I grab her a new t-shirt and boxer briefs and point towards the bathroom. She shoots a shy grin towards the floor as she takes them from my hands and that just kills me. I imagined her a million ways as I gathered information these past few months, but finding out she is soft and so very, very sweet is a complete surprise.
“Thank you,” she says, walking into the bathroom and closing the door.
I watch her shadow change the light seeping out from under the door for a few seconds, and then climb into bed, leaving the covers open for her.
She comes out a few minutes later, flipping the light off as she passes through the door. And then a few seconds later her small body is next to me. “You know a lot more about me than I know about you.”
“Sorry about that. But if you have any questions, just ask. I’d love for you to know me better.”
She turns her body and I can see her shadowed face in the dim light from the window. “Why me?”
“You’re special.” It comes out easy because it’s true.
“I’m bad too. I’m just as bad as Nick.”
A strand of hair falls over her cheek and I reach over and tuck it behind her ear so I can continue looking at her face. “I know you think that thirteen was old enough to call the shots, Sasha. I can tell. You’re independent and strong. You’re well-educated and logical. But that’s not logical. You were a child. They killed your whole family. You responded the way they trained you. You didn’t choose to continue that path like Nick did. You allowed someone else to take charge and you left it behind. I’m stunned that you don’t see yourself as a survivor.”
“I do,” she says, her defenses up. “I’ve always seen myself that way. I kicked ass back in the day. And I can still kick ass now.”
“As Julian is now aware. And that’s not what I meant. I meant that you allow yourself to be a product of your environment. And you’re not. You rose above it. You’re out. You can stay out.”
“If I join you.”
I lean in and kiss her gently on the mouth. She responds in her soft way that has had my full attention since I saw her outside her school yesterday afternoon. She is on the edge of something. A discovery. About Nick, for sure. About herself, I hope. About the world, unfortunately. And tomorrow it’s only going to get worse. I pull back a little and whisper, “Let me erase those doubts.”
“With sex?” Her eyes are searching mine. Longing for more, I can tell. But afraid to ask for it.
“You can call it that if you want. But I’m not gonna.”
“What’s it called?”
“I don’t know,” I answer truthfully. “I just got you, ya know? I wanted you so fucking bad, you have no idea.”
“You don’t even know me. You know Nick better than you know me. And I don’t know you at all. So tell me something real, Jax. Because every day I feel like a fake. I’m not real. I’m that illusion you thought I was. An apparition of that girl the Company made me. I have no idea what I’m doing. And I feel like I’m suffocating. I feel like my past is back to strangle the life out of me. I feel like I’ve been walking around wearing a costume for ten years and it’s so much a part of me, I’m afraid to take it off. I think I’ll lose myself for good if I take it off, Jax. So tell me something real. Or this ghost version of me might float away and disappear. I might never pull myself back from that. I was young when I killed those people. I was scared and I didn’t know any better. But now I know. What I did was wrong. What I became—”
I stop her words with another kiss. This time I cup her face with both hands, afraid that she really will float away and disappear. She opens her mouth, her tongue seeking me out. One hand slips up her shirt and I find her breast and twist her nipple.
Her moan makes me instantly hard. “That’s real,” I say, placing her hand over my erection. “That’s real. And last night when I was inside you, that was real,