Faithless (Mistress & Master of Restraint) (64 page)

“Usually they drop like flies. Phillip wouldn’t have lasted until the end of class,” Tim says, giving Wil a sidelong glance. “Out you go,” Tim sings, pulling Phil to his feet and towing him towards the door.

“And now there are seventeen,”
Cory says with a shit-eating grin.

“Fourteen,” Wil counters. “The other groups have lost a few people, too.

“Maybe the three of us will be part of the five,” I pray as I lie on the cold linoleum tiled floor of the Fire Department’s training center.

“We will be, Pixy… we will be,” Wil vows.

Cory patiently watches as Wil finally takes his turn. I’m more uncomfortable with Wil’s light and nimble fingers on my skin than I was with the pervert. The fact that Wil is shuddering and trying to control his breathing only accelerates my heart rate.

Wil tilts my head back, a firm hand on my forehead while the other cradles the nape of my neck. My mouth is open, waiting, and all too willing. A whimper spills from my mouth when Wil’s parted lips descend on mine.
He puffs a small burst of breath into my mouth, his lips lingering on mine. My body lights up as a series of quivers pulses in my muscles.

“I’ve dreamed of your taste… of the soft press of your lips… it’s always on my mind,” Wil
poetically breathes against my lips. A wet flick of his tongue seeks the taste he’s been dreaming about. A seductive Wil is a scary Wil. If I wasn’t already lying down, I would’ve swooned. I’m not proud, I may have moaned a little.

“This was a bad idea,” I groan, pushing Wil away. “A very bad idea. No flirting with me.”

“I wasn’t flirting. I was being honest,” Wil says in a quiet, hurt voice.

“Oh
no, you forgot the mouth guard.” Cory helpfully hands Wil the rescue mask.

Wil looks at the offending piece of plastic, but doesn’t take it. “There will never be a barrier between her and me,” Wil says in a deep
, lust-filled voice that has me scrambling to my knees. If I hadn’t gotten up off the floor… I don’t know what I would have done.

“Bad idea… bad, bad, bad, bad idea,” I chant.

“Oh,” Cory says with a smile. “I get it. Nice,” he drawls out, making Wil puff up like a proud peacock.

~Chapter Fifty-Four~

“You can’t touch me like that,” I whine as we walk back to my home after class- no snacks. I wasn’t ready to share a meal with Wil. It would be too much like a date. “Now, Cory thinks you’re my boyfriend. Partners don’t touch each other like that.”

“Does Stanton touch you?” Wil asks out of left field.

“Don’t be a pervert,” I snidely hiss.

“I don’t mean it like
that, Syn. I mean do you let Stanton touch you at all or do you flick him away? Do you punish him because of your mother? I’m sure you had let your daddy hug and kiss on you. You let your brothers and sisters hug you. Why are they exempt from Gwen’s taint?” Wil furiously hisses.

“That’s different. You’re talking about my siblings, the man who is acting as my father, and the man who really was my father. It’s different!”

“How about Grant?” Wil growls and I guiltily flinch. Wil, never missing a beat, keeps going after me. “Hmm? I’ve seen Grant hold your hand, touch you, hug you, comfort you.” Wil’s ire rises as he remembers every touch I’ve allowed Grant to take but not him.

“That’s different, too,” I whine, and I hate the weakness in my voice. Wil makes me feel weak- like a girl. “Grant is my friend. Grant is the father of my baby brother. Grant has been in my life my entire life. He doesn’t make me feel bad about myself- he makes me feel good.”

“You sound like you’re in love with him,” Wil growls, grabbing my upper arm and yanking me to a stop. We’re just outside of Morretti’s. Three more feet and I will be home free in my imprisonment. Wil glares down into my eyes so glacially that I no longer see the hazel contacts, I can feel the cold, ice blue freeze my insides.

“The difference, Wil,” I bite out. “Is that I’m
not
in love with him. The difference is that he isn’t fucking my mom- in front of me, I might add. He isn’t rubbing it in my face. He isn’t telling me one thing and showing me another. He isn’t confusing me. I need a friend, and Grant is being that friend.”

Wil stands frozen in front of me. His fingers pulse around my upper arm in time with the beat of his heart. His jaw is grinding his teeth down to nubs as his labored breath saws out between his clenched lips. Minutes go by as the world around us doesn’t pause. People flow in and out of the restaurant. The bar is loud and obnoxious as I try to get a read on Wil. Finally, Wil blinks, coming back to life. He blinks several times before he reaches up and removes his contacts. He flicks them on the ground in disgust.

The white glow of Wil’s eyes pins me. “Take yours out,” he growls deep from his throat. “We can’t do this once we go into your building. So we’re going to do it right here. I need to see you, the real you, Faith. No Cynthia or Syn bullshit. My partner is Faith Simpson, and she is going to look me in the eyes.”

I do as Wil requests because he is so intense that his emotions are battering me. I don’t flick my contacts, though. I wet a fingertip so they will stay put and curl my hand into a fist for safe keeping.

“I did what I had to do. I broke your trust. I didn’t want to do it. I am not doing it any more. As embarrassing as it is to admit, I couldn’t really do it in the first place. You know what I’m talking about- it happened the first time I tried with you in your bathroom. I knew this would happen with your mother and I freaked out.” Wil’s blush is at odds with the cutting edge in his voice. “I’ve known for a while that she would come to me on my eighteenth birthday. It was Mitchell’s way of being a sick bastard. I tried- I tried three times. She tried her arsenal of dirty talk that actually made me sick. So whatever the fuck you heard, you didn’t hear it right!” Wil’s clenched fists smash into his thighs- it’s a gesture I make every time I’m frustrated and I can’t hurt something.

“My hearing is just fine,” I snidely hiss. “I’m just waiting for a new sibling to crawl out my mother’s well-used snatch!”

Wil closes his eyes and sighs so deeply that I doubt there is a molecule of oxygen left in his body. “You need to stop putting her down,” he quietly says, eyes still closed. “Not for her, but for yourself. Putting her down doesn’t elevate you, it lowers you. You are right, she has used her body, but that doesn’t give you the right to judge. Gwen
is
your mother, and saying bad shit about her is disrespecting yourself. Have some self-respect,” Wil reprimands me.

“I loathe it when you defend her,” I snarl.

“You’re jealous,” Wil says with a shrug and a small curl to his lips. “I’m not defending her, I’m defending you. You will hurt when you grow up and wish you hadn’t thought the bad things about her. Mark my words,” Wil ominously whispers.

“Doubtful,” I defiantly hiss, petulantly crossing my arms over my chest.

“Childishness doesn’t become you, Pixy. The honest to God truth: I swear on my dead father, my dead step-mother, my sister, and on our unborn nephew that this is the truth,” Wil vows. “Three times, three attempts, the night of my birthday- all leading to miserable failure. I had two condoms on. I tried, she tried, and it didn’t work. I ended up feeling used, disgusting, dirty- and I left her feeling just as bad. I know how she feels, how you feel, how Ezra feels. We were played for fun. It’s worse knowing what you were going through at that very moment and I wasn’t there to help you. I should have been by your side. I should have held you afterwards. Now you don’t trust me. You won’t look me in the eye. You won’t touch me or let me touch you- I
need
you, dammit!”

I stare at my balled up fists and pretend that I’m not silently crying. “I can’t go back to what we were doing. It… the sex made me feel bad. It’s not supposed to. We shouldn’t feel guilty or
ashamed afterwards. I… I do want you like that. I can’t help it. My body remembers what it felt like with you, but then it went to shit. No sex, Wil. I can’t.”

“
Just tell me why so I can understand,” his voice is close, intimate. The heat of his body warms and comforts me, but he doesn’t make a move to touch me.

“The difference is that I’m not ready for that with you. I’m not really ready for sex.
I feel pressured. Ezra is looming over me like a storm cloud. At any moment my enemies could yank me back to Crestview and I’d be literally fucked. I don’t want to feel like I’m cheating on you if I have to be with Ezra. A part of me wants you to feel how awful I felt seeing you together- make you feel the excruciating sting of betrayal, but I can’t do that to you. Mixing you and sex… it would kill me,” I whisper, still refusing to look at Wil.

“Why?” he breathes against my cheek.
My body sways into his warmth- a magnetic force field I cannot deny. I lean against him and feel safe for the first time in a long time.

My eyes flick up to meet his pale blue gaze at the
exact moment the words flow from my mouth. “I need you as my rock- my partner. I need to lean on you and you to lean on me. In my head, sex is bad. Gwen is a whore, and I feel it in my bones that it wasn’t by choice but it’s all she knows. Stan is ruined for sex because of her; making him cast silent judgment on the three of us he calls his kids. Cort is ruining Ezra through sex. Grant is trying to make me see that it doesn’t make you a bad person. I feel pressured, and I don’t need pressure from you. I need a friend.”

“That I can do,” Wil says with a beatific smile. “I suck at sex, anyway,” he teases.

“A warning,” I whimper in shame. “I can’t be your girlfriend because of the game. Someone will force you or me to touch someone we don’t want to touch. The shame is bad enough. I don’t want to feel like I betrayed you at the same time. My body is going to take what it needs from whoever it needs. Do you understand?”

Wil looks torn, so I know he gets what I’m saying. We will always be a hairsbreadth away from being whored out and I can’t betray him like that.

“Okay,” he softly agrees. “I don’t need to go there with you, just let me hold your hand or something. I miss you,” Wil stresses so hard that his voice breaks. “I’ll work up to you letting me hug you again. I’ll behave,” he promises.

“I don’t know if I can behave, though,” I growl. “That’s the problem. A hug or kiss with you is the same as sex with someone else. Sex with you…”

“Why?” Wil sounds heartbroken.

“Because I’m in love with you, that’s why,” I admit to him and myself for the very first time.

A silent Wil rapidly blinks eyes that glow like halogen headlights. I’ve stunned him. I watch the column of his throat as he convulsively swallows. I feel like a fool for admitting that I love him. I love a lot of people, but not in the same way. Wil has the power to destroy me with one word or action. He could ruin me with a glance.

I turn to walk in to my building but Wil yanks me to him. “Forgive me,” he breathes against my mouth a heartbeat before his warm lips connect with mine. The kiss is sweet and filled with longing and promise. Wil brushes his lips against mine like a feather made of silk. He uses his lips to paint words he’s never spoken.

My arms find Wil’s back and clutch him tightly, pulling him closely to my body, never wanting to let him go. I want to fuse us as one, knowing it’s not possible, knowing it’s a very bad idea. Being with Wil has the potential to kill us both.

Slowly Wil pulls away, eye glazed and foggy with emotion, lips ruddy and swollen from our kiss, and breath coming in small pants. I need to pull him back- that wasn’t enough. I need more. I ache for him- physically ache.

Resting his forehead against mine, he says, “I couldn’t allow you to tell me that you loved me without kissing you. I won’t do it again until you’re ready- I promise. I’m in love with you, too, Pixy. I think I always have been. Since I saw your spunky ass glaring at me from the peephole- I knew my life would never be the same. I’ll prove to you that love can be pure. I will think of some way to touch that will give us the connection we need without the pain. I won’t ever hurt you again,” Wil vows… and I don’t know if I’m being a dumbass, naïve teenager, but I believe him. I vow never to hurt him as well.

Sensing, I roll my eyes skyward. Ab
ove us two sets of curious eyes drink in our emotional moment and digest it.

I groan deep from my chest, knowing what comes next.
“Ready to be lectured?” I breathe against Wil’s cheek as I pull away. I flick my eyes to the roofline in explanation.

An hour later… Stanton’s voice buzzes like a swarm of bees.

“Stanton!” I scream and even Gunner flinches. “Enough!”

“I just want what’s best for you,” Stanton calmly says, dropping down on his knees so we are eye-level.

“I know that. Stan, I love you as a dad. You’re a great dad- nice and controlling- smothering. But you are a shitty listener. I agree with everything you keep drilling into me. What you saw was Wil and I agreeing to be partners- just friends. No sexual connotations of any kind, no matter how much we may feel it. I was explaining to Wil why. He deserved to know that. I told him it’s because of the game, that there are too many emotions between us, and that sex shouldn’t mentally and emotionally hurt. It’s too soon after all the shit that is going on and I don’t want to feel like I’m betraying him if I have to follow the rules. See, we are copasetic,” I brightly smile and hiss between my teeth, “stop lecturing us before I rip your tongue out.”