Page 104 of Silas
I can only sigh, and groan, and huff. My eyes flutter closed as she continues to caress me with both hands, twisting at the top, plunging down to the root, and then stroking me with one hand and cradling my heavy, sensitive balls with the other.
“Do you taste as good as you smell?” She asks.
It’s a rhetorical question. She looks up at me, and I see curiosity in her eyes, wonder, desire…no fear.
God, she’s brave.
“You don’t have to do this,” I whisper.
“I want to.” She gives me another slow caress from root to tip. “For myself.”
I swallow hard, clenching my jaw around a groan as she holds my cock in both hands, pulls me away from my torso, and presses her closed lips against the tip of me.
Slowly, she presses her face forward and allows me to part her lips. Her shoulders rise and fall with slow, intentional breathing. She’s afraid—facing her fear, her trauma. I want to stop her. No matter how good it would feel to have her mouth on my cock, the reality that she’s feeling fear and apprehension causes me discomfort.
“Naomi, honey, stop,” I pull away and drop to my knees in front of her, cradling her face in my hands. “It shouldn’t be difficult or painful or scary, honey. It should be fun and it should feel good.”
She squeezes her eyes shut. “I want to do that to you, Silas. Iwantto.”
“You’re shaking. I can see the fear written all over you.”
She stands up, turns off the water. “He used that act to punish me. When I had to lay with him, I could…just sort of…tune out. Be somewhere else in my head, not really attached to what was going on physically. He hated it when I did that—he expected me to enjoy it, or at least convincingly pretend I did.”
I reach out and snag a pair of towels, wrapping one around my waist. I pull her out of the shower and use the other towel to scrub her dry. She takes it from me, then, and twists her hair up in the towel, and then takes me by the hand and leads me back to the bed. She unwraps the towel from my waist and takes her turn drying me off, and then tugs me onto the bed. I lay on my back and she crawls into my embrace.
“If I wasn’t pretending to like it, he would get mad. He couldn’t go more than once, even if he took his pill. So then, the next time he wanted me, he would make me get on my knees and he would…” She trails off. “He used my mouth. He would be rough. He didn’t care if he almost made me vomit, or cry. That was how he punished me for not showing the proper enthusiasm for his attention.”
“Fuck, that’s awful.” I feel hate bubbling inside me. “I don’t want to retraumatize you. I don’t want you to do that act if it comes with all that fucking horrible shit attached to it.”
“But…don’t you enjoy it?”
I sigh. “Sure. Of course I do. A part of me would love nothing more than to feel your sweet mouth on me. But seeing how traumatized you are about it, no. I don’t want it. I wouldn’t enjoy it in the fucking least—not if it’s causing you pain or fear or anything. It’s not worth it. Sex is meant to be fun, Naomi. It’s supposed to feel good. It’s…well, it’s never been emotional for me, except maybe a few times toward the end with Sue, but with you, it is. Every time. No matter what we’re doing, it’s a connection between us. Itmeanssomething to me, Naomi.”
“It meanseverythingto me, Silas,” she whispers. “And I willnotlet that…thatmonsterhave any part of me. He won’t win. He can’t beat me. I survived Papa. I survived Zeke. I survived Jerry. I’m a good person. With you, I’m finally starting to…tolikelife. To want more of everything being alive is. Before, I…there were so many nights I prayed to not wake up. But I always did, and I never understood why. I never understood why God would allow me to suffer so much for so long.”
“Fuck, Naomi,” I whisper, gutted to the core at her words. “I’m so fucking sorry you went through that.”
“I’m not.” She cups my jaw, turning my face down so our gazes connect, silver-on-green. “It led me to you. To be here, now, with you. You loving me, after what you’ve been through…it means everything to me. It makes sense of everything. I’ve been waiting for you my whole life. What I went through made me strong enough to be the woman who could love you back. I don’t think anyone else could but me.”
“Jesus,” I whisper, blinking hard. “You fucking unman me when you say that shit.”
“There is absolutely nothing unmanly in any way whatsover about showing me your real emotions, Silas.” Her voice is intense and firm. “You’re human. We feel things, deeply.”
I close my eyes and breathe through it. “I was a sensitive kid,” I tell her. “I felt things more deeply than my brothers. Sol and Sax, they’re…tougher than I am. They defended me against Dad. They’d step in and take the beating meant for me. But Dad, he…he knew. He knew I was sensitive. Things would make me cry, and he’d…well, he did his best to beat the weakness out of me. He’d make me cry and then hit me until I stopped. And while he was beating the hell out of me, he’d be screaming at me for being weak, for being a sissy and a girl and pussy and all that shit. I learned to shut down. To stop feeling. To stop letting things affect me.”
“He failed, Silas,” she whispers. “You’re a sensitive soul, and it’s beautiful to me. You’re a big, tough, strong man. You’ve suffered every bit as much as I have, and you’re still able to show me kindness like I’ve never known. You’re gentle. You’re sweet. You’re thoughtful. You have the strength to give me the time and space to trust you, to trust myself, to figure things out. Your father tried to beat the sensitivity out of you, Silas, and he failed. And I’m so,soglad he did.”
I breathe through the beautiful breaking in my spirit.
It’s the same kind of pain as when you reset a dislocated shoulder—it hurts like hell, but it’s followed by the sweetest of relief.
“We win, Silas,” she whispers.
“We win,” I echo.
She sweeps the towel off of her head and tosses it aside. Her hair is damp and cool against my chest. She runs her hand over my sternum, down over my belly. Gathers my now-slack cock in her hand. Caresses it, thumb rolling over the head, back and forth, back and forth, then slipping downward a little. Cupping my balls, teasing them with her fingertips, tickling and scratching them until I feel tightness settle in them at the base, in my taint. Her fingers dare there, as well, tracing and touching. Back up my shaft, now unfurling slowly against my belly. Cradling my length in her hand, she works me to full erection.
“It’s beautiful,” she whispers. “I love it.”