Mine (Jenlisa)

twenty four.

Jennie's POV~

I woke up before Lisa in the morning. Her arm was curled over my shoulder and her lips grazed my forehead. When I shifted, she murmured, her lips moving against my skin like butterfly wings.

When I was a kid, I caught a butterfly in a glass jar. I remember taking it out and holding it in my hands. My mother scolded me.

"Its wings are delicate," she said, "Just brushing them with your fingertips will destroy them. It will never be able to fly again."

I felt the same way now. Without knowing, I had touched something delicate, something horribly damaged. I didn't know what to do to keep from damaging her anymore.

I do not want her to leave, but I do not know if I can force her to stay.

"Kitten," she murmured.

"I'm here," I said softly. The morning light had turned the room gray.

"You didn't leave."

"Your arm was kind of in the way."

She smiled and rolled over. I felt cold without the touch of her skin on me as she sat up on the edge of the bed. Had we really slept together like this? Like lovers, entwined like two strands of frayed rope amid the silken sheets?

Was I falling for this monster? Was she a monster?

My eyes refocused on her back and I saw that she was looking at me. I reached out and touched her skin gently. Imagining the belt. Imagining the bruises.

Don't touch the butterfly's wings.

"What do you want from me?" she asked.

"What?"

"Today. Do you want the same thing?"

I wanted to tell her the truth; that all I wanted... Was her. I wanted her to stay with me, to hold me, to pin me down, and torture me with kisses like she had the first time. God, I wanted all this all of these and so much more. But I could not let her know how much of a hold she really had over me.

Not for the first time, I wondered if this was all a trick. Then I remembered the photos of the girl and I swallowed my doubt. No, she was real. This is all real. The note of desire that crept into her speech when she talked to me, that was real too.

"What do you want?" she repeated, wearily. As though preparing herself for the Sisyphean task ahead; to try  not to kill anyone today.

"I don't know," I didn't say the things I wanted to say. Come to bed. Kiss me. Make me yours.

"How about a trade?"

She sounded so reasonable. So rational. As though I was a fair partner in this deal. She knew it wasn't true. But I finally understood a corner of that sorrow that had been beaten into her. I understood the need for her to pull a veil over what she was doing. She was not the only one her who was ashamed of the past.

"A trade."

"Question for a question."

"That means you're staying."

"That is part of the trade. But that also means you are staying with me," the hint of desire in the curve of her lip. I saw all of the little things. I saw them, but did she want me to see them? Was she twisting me around her again with emotion?

She wanted me.

I wanted her.

It may be delusion, but if it was, then it was the most delicious delusion I had ever tasted. Her touch sent shivers of sparks through me that danger alone could not account for. I wanted the soft part of her, yes, the lover, the charmer. The gentlewoman. But I also wanted the part of her that was raw and rough, the part of her that tied me up. The side that dressed perfectly because perfection was expected. I could not be perfect, I thought, looking down at my wrists. Of all the imperfections of my body, these were the ones that would stay forever.