Lost King by Piper Lennox (best self help books to read .TXT) 📕

people,” I shrugged. His praise embarrassed me, but in a fantastic way. The kind that makes your heart buzz, knowing someone finally sees those unseeable pieces.

My insecurities still chattered in the background, though, and I couldn’t resist my next question.

“What about the rest?”

I felt the mattress shift as he pushed up on his elbow; when I opened my eyes, he was staring down into my face. His free hand pushed my hair off my forehead, thumb resting against my temple.

He bent down, placing a soft, testing kiss on my collarbone. “What ‘rest?’”

I knew he felt the heat enveloping me, clawing its way across my skin and sinking into his lips. “I don’t look like the other girls down there. I’m not exactly pretty.”

“I think you are.”

He brought his mouth to mine. There was no contact, just a floating, barely-there connection as he studied me up-close.

“Something about you is just so good and honest,” he whispered. “I’ve never known anyone like you.”

When he finally kissed me, the entire world tilted sideways.

Everything was saturated in hormones and alcohol. Our limbs moved with the music and much louder soundtrack of our own fevered breathing, clothes being shoved aside and removed, every wet or hard place being explored at breakneck pace. It felt like staring at a multi-course feast and not knowing where on earth to start. You wanted it all.

He filled me with his fingers and pulsed them against my G-spot so hard I nearly cried at how good it felt. My thighs shook, twitching when his other hand left my hard nipples to find my clitoris.

Neon static zig-zagged through my head. Soon all I could do was tell him, “I’m gonna come,” over and over until it was happening.

My orgasm prowled through me like lightning when it shreds the sky, powerful and fierce. I whimpered against his mouth, my bottom lip trapped in his teeth, and shuddered down from the high.

Theo bit his smile as he pulled back and gently slipped his fingers out of me.

I kissed him hard, grabbing his collar in both fists. Maybe it was because no one else had ever made me come before—no one else had ever touched me—but I felt so close to him in that heady afterglow. I wanted nothing more than to make him feel it, too.

We moved to the foot of the bed. He sat. I kneeled in front.

My swimming brain directed me through the motions I didn’t really know how to do. Like our banter, I wondered if my bravery was the alcohol at work or Theo himself.

It had to be him.

He wasn’t like those kids downstairs—nothing at all like Vivi, Cate, or the boys who frequently peeled tires nearby when they saw me around town. He didn’t make me feel judged. He was worlds apart from the kids who took one look at my crossed eye, crooked teeth, bargain clothes or extra weight and dubbed me garbage.

He was beyond them all. Above. Alone in a quiet, soft room as their party tumbled on.

“Oh, fuck…Aria,” he moaned, winding my hair into his grip and guiding my pace. His erection hit the back of my throat. “I’m so close.”

His abdominals tightened. I braced myself; I’d heard ejaculate tasted awful from several girls back home. Even the ones who insisted otherwise said it was better to go deep, and avoid letting it linger on your tongue.

Either way, I wanted to swallow Theo’s. It felt like the more intimate option, and that’s what I wanted: for this night to mean something beyond a party hookup or drunken fling. I was willing to do whatever it took to show him how much I liked him. How great we’d be together.

“Coming,” Theo stammered, tilting his head to the ceiling.

Suddenly, a loud bang sounded at the door. I drew back at the exact second Theo orgasmed.

Two things registered with me, first.

One was how much my eye stung, the heat of his ejaculate rapidly cooling until it felt like a line of slush dripping down to my mouth.

And two...the crowd of bodies tumbling through the doorway, screaming and laughing and shrieking insults as little glowing orbs flew between them.

Flashlights, I thought.

Then I realized, no: cell phones.

7

Theo bolted to his feet. I lost my balance, splayed back on the perfect white rug.

Cameras were shoved close as I hid my face. Jagged laughter pummeled me from all sides when I grabbed my skirt and ducked into the bathroom.

I slammed and locked the door behind me, pulse pounding. Worse than pounding. It really felt like my heart would explode.

“Come on out, Tons of Fun!” someone shouted. “You owe these nice folks an encore. Let’s shoot it again, different angle.”

More slurred insults drilled through the door. Palms and fists rattled it until my spine felt rearranged.

Slowly, I lifted my eyes to the mirror.

Theo’s ejaculate was still on my face. My hair was wet from it. The back was tangled from where he’d grabbed me.

I looked down, the harsh lights illuminating every curve in the wrong place, every dimple of cellulite...my rugburned knees and awkward stance, like a pigeon-toed toddler waiting on a punishment.

I looked pathetic, and cheap, and so wrong in that lavish bathroom. A beaten-up thrift store doll, on a shelf of porcelain collectibles.

A big, ugly coyote skull amongst dainty little birds.

Did Theo put them up to this?

My hands trembled. The brushed nickel handles of the cabinets singed my palms as I threw them open, hunting for a towel, a cover-up...anything to help me regain some dignity.

This can’t be real.

Vomit rose into my throat. The shock was fading. This was the most real moment of my life, and something irreversibly awful had just occurred. That much, I knew. Even if I couldn’t yet