Page 95 of Pretty Broken Wings

If I don’t stop, I’ll come.

I freeze, trying to keep my breathing under control.

There’s an awkward silence.

Does Raven know? Can she tell I was about to blow in my fucking pants? I sneak a glance at her, but I can’t see much.

“You know,” Raven drones. “In all my pillow-humping days… I’ve seen better.”

The tension breaks.

“Your hips are stiff as fuck. Let me guess, you also can’t dance?”

“Hey,” I stifle an outraged laugh. “I can line dance.”

“That’s what I thought.” Raven sounds looser than she did before. Less stressed. And I feel a familiar rush of relief. It’s odd feeling it right now. It feels like… like I felt after I could help my animals feel better. It was what I always fought for with Mom, but never fully got.

Which makes me remember that Raven is, in fact, a thousand times more complicated than an animal. And my success rating with humans is not very high.

“You done?” Raven asks.

“Huh?” I glance at her.

“Well, you’re making yourself look like a one-pump chump.” I hear the laughter in her voice this time. She’s actually teasing me.

I’m grabbing the pillow under me to throw at her when her voice sobers up. “Do you think he’ll buy it?”

I pause. I hate to admit that I’m not sure. I’m not sure that Axel would believe anything short of fucking in front of him, and Raven would never do that. I feel unbelievable disappointment for all the wrong reasons.

“We need something that he can see.” Raven’s pacing. That nervous energy is back, and I hate it.

I think it at the same time that she says, “A hickey.”

My dick springs back to life. I would love to give her a hickey.

“Give me a hickey.” Raven’s voice is uncertain.

I want to lunge at her and take the opportunity before she changes her mind. But it’s the hesitation in her voice that makes me pause. It’s not uncertainty, it’s fear. Anytime sex is brought up, Raven is afraid.

Of me? Or of sex?

I know she has a stalker. That would be enough to justify her constant fear. But she seems afraid of sex.

“Do it to me,” I say on impulse. I clear my throat. “Give me the hickey.”

Raven’s still there, by the edge of the bed, but she’s stopped pacing. I can practically hear her thinking through my offer.

I lay on my back on the bed so I’m lower than her. “Give him a reason to believe it.”

She’s still hesitating. I take my hands and put them under my ass so they’re pinned beneath me.

Do it. Take me. I don’t say the words ‘cause I don’t want to scare her off. But my dick thinks they’re fantastic, and I’m hard again. Hard with nothing but my slacks to hide my raging boner.

I hope she doesn’t look. Please don’t fucking look.

“Don’t touch me,” she says, almost whispering it. Almost like she doesn’t realize she’s saying it. There’s such a depth of apathyin her words that it’s like it’s not even Raven saying them. It makes my chest tighten painfully.

Then her fingers are on my chin, and she’s angling my face away and baring my neck to her. My heart starts racing. Raven could do whatever she wanted to me in this instant, and I’d let her. Fuck my life, I’d let her.