Shattered Promises 02 - Fractured Souls by Jessica Sorensen (motivational books for students TXT) 📕

He presses his lips together, releases me, and then takes a step toward the towel rack. “My mom disappeared when I was younger.” He grabs a towel off the rack and turns back to me

I can suddenly feel it; the sparks and the elated electricity reuniting wholly with my body. It’s wonderful and heartbreaking, welcome and, yet, unwanted. “What happened to her?”

He grips the towel in his hand. “I have no idea.” He lets the towel fall open. “How about we talk about what we’re going to do about your mom?”

I wrap my arms around my body as the cold air gets to my dewed skin. “Why? Are you going to help me?”

“Lift your arms up,” he instructs and I hesitantly obey. “I was thinking about it, but only if we do it smartly.” He wraps the towel around my back and then drags it across my sides, wiping away the water.

“Why, though?” I wonder, fighting my eyes to stay open as he moves the towel along my ribs, my hips, my stomach, and back, drying off my body. “Why would you all of a sudden help me? You’re acting very strange right now. Too nice.”

“I’ve always been helping you, Gemma. It just might not always seem like it, especially when your emotions get in the way.” He pulls on the towel, moving to the front of me, and begins to wipe off my neck. “And I’m trying to be nice because you deserve nice.”

I swallow hard as his hand holding the towel wanders toward my breast. “Your emotions get in the way sometimes, too. You can be so hot and cold.”

He stares at my chest as he begins to dry it off. My nipples harden and a gasp escapes my lips, even though I fight it. “I can’t help it,” he says softly, moving his gaze and hands away from my chest. He wraps the towel around my body and secures it in a knot at the top. Then he moves back and holds his hand out. “It’s how I’ve been taught to be… detached.” He stops as I set my hand in his then he helps me out of the tub. “I can’t help it and I don’t want to help it. Besides, I’m beginning to believe that everything I was taught is bullshit.”

He’s being so cooperative and the surprising thing is that he seems genuinely nice at the moment. “I want to believe you,” I say. “But it’s hard to after everything that’s happened.”

“I know,” he says simply and then he winks at me even though he looks sad. “Give me time, though, and I’ll change your mind.”

“We’re always arguing, though,” I point out.

He winks again and this time a smile shows through. “Don’t pretend like you don’t like it—that it doesn’t get you all turned on.”

I don’t say anything because he’s partially right. We stare at each other for a moment and I can hear us both breathing erratically. Taking a step forward, he carefully backs me into the sink and sweeps a lock of my hair away from my face. When his gaze meets mine, my body nearly melts as electricity spirals through it. I decide that, despite whatever I said, I did miss it. A lot.

He leans in toward me, tracing my jawline with his fingers. “You bring it out of me, you know. Before you, I could completely control everything I feel, but you… you drive me crazy.”

“You drive me crazy, too,” I agree, my voice a lot less steady than his. “You make me so frustrated… and I don’t know if I should, or if I even can, trust you.”

I wait for him to get angry, but he seems to be very distracted by my neck, his gaze is glued to it as he sketches his finger back and forth across the healing teeth marks.

“Did it hurt?” he asks, pressing down on the marks.

I wince, but only because the contact of his skin makes my body flame hot. “Not really.”

His eyes glide up to mine. “Did it feel… good?”

“Honestly?” I ask and he nods. My breath falters. “It felt good, bad, and… confusing.”

His hands glide up the front of my neck, his skin agonizingly hot as it stops at the top. “Did you do anything else?”

“I don’t know.”

“Yes, you do.”

“I know, but I don’t want to tell you.”

He pauses and I feel his hand tremor. “I need to know. It’ll drive me crazy if I don’t.”

I swallow hard. “We kissed.”

His grip tightens on my neck, not enough to choke me, but enough that it’s intense. “Just kiss?” he asks and I nod.

He loosens his grip slightly, pressing his thumb against my pulse. “Does this feel good?” he asks in a husky voice. “When I touch you?”

I shake my head as hot tingles coil up my legs. “I don’t know.”

His other hand touches my knee and then slips up the front of my towel, his fingers delving into my upper thigh. “How about this?”

Unbearable heat spreads up my leg and causes me to tremble irrepressibly. “Maybe…” I fight to tell him the truth; that he gets to me in ways I can barely grasp. That no matter what happens, if he wants me, then he’ll eventually get me because battling my emotions and the sparks will break me down in the long run.

I unintentionally gasp as his breath catches, and then his hand inches higher. I lean back against the mirror. “Alex… what are you ….”

I drift off as his fingers touch between my legs without slipping into me, merely resting just outside. I bite down on my lip as every single one of my nerve endings blaze with fiery heat and every thought inside my head dissipates

“I can’t take this anymore,” he says in a breathy whisper as he leans in closer, his eyes glossed over. “I want to be angry with you, but I can’t stop thinking about how I need