Chapter 36: Scars of the Past
The words hung in the perfumed air, a fragile confession that seemed to shrink the lavish room down to just the space between their naked bodies. Alex’s dark eyes, always sparkling with mischief or glowing with desire, now glistened with a sheen of naked fear. The playful, trickster energy that usually animated her compact, muscular frame had completely drained away, leaving behind a raw vulnerability that was more shocking than any carnal act.
Her hands, still cradling Lydia’s face, trembled almost imperceptibly.
“It was a few years ago,” Alex whispered, her voice losing its melodic, confident lilt. It was smaller. “Lasted almost two years, a record for me. She said… she said I was a blast at first. A shot of adrenaline. Said my confidence was sexy.” Alex’s throat worked as she swallowed. “But then it became ‘too much.’ My jokes were annoying. My energy was exhausting. My comfort with myself was ‘vulgar.’ By the end…” A single tear escaped, tracking a slow path through the fine hairs at her temple. “By the end, she said she hated the sound of my laughter. That my personality was a stain she couldn’t wash out.”
She blinked, and more tears fell, but she didn’t sob. It was a quiet, devastating leak of old pain. “She looked at me one night, over a dinner I’d cooked, in my own apartment, and told me I repulsed her. That she’d been trying to fix me, to calm me down, to make me more… palatable. And she’d failed.” Alex’s thumbs stroked Lydia’s jawline, a desperate, anchoring motion, a silent plea for Lydia to not pull away and leave her. “So I’ve been… I’ve been trying so hard with you, Lyds. To not be the chaotic mess that makes people leave. To not be ‘too much.’ And I’m fucking terrified I’m gonna do it wrong. That you’ll wake up one day and see me the way she did.”
Inside Lydia, a tectonic shift occurred.
The warm, satiated glow that had cradled her shattered. It was replaced by a cold, hard nucleus of fury that ignited in her gut and spread outwards like cracking ice. The intense, stretching fullness of the amethyst plug in her ass, which had been a background thrum of pleasure-pain, suddenly felt trivial. A distant buzz.
How dare she.
The thought wasn’t gentle. It was a silent, venomous snarl that filled her skull.
How dare that piece of shit bitch dare to hurt my Alex?
The possessive pronoun exploded in her mind, unbidden and absolute. My Alex? There was no hesitation, no internal debate. The answer was a visceral, bodily certainty. Yes. My fucking Alex.
Her stunning emerald eyes, fixed on Alex’s tear-streaked face, saw not just the muscular, naked woman before her, but the brilliant, unapologetic star that other woman had tried to extinguish. Alex, who wore her sexuality like a second skin of armor and celebration. Alex, whose playful confidence had been the first safe harbor in Lydia’s own turbulent awakening. Alex, who had just given her a vulnerability more intimate than any physical surrender.
Who would dare to do something to dim this beautiful, kind, bright, shining bombshell of a star?
The anger was a white-hot wire, twisting tighter in her chest. It was pure, protective instinct. It felt cleaner and more righteous than any emotion she’d felt since this whole nightmare with Dima began. This wasn’t about jealousy. It was about protection. A deep, violent need to shelter this dazzling creature from anyone who had ever, or would ever, try to make her feel small and worthless. The desire to protect, to love, to claim Alex in the face of that past cruelty built inside Lydia with the force of a storm surge. It felt primal. It felt right.
If she ever meets the bitch that dared to hurt her Alex, Lydia would fuck that woman up. The thought was graphic and specific. Not a vague threat, but a crystal-clear promise she felt in her knuckles, her teeth, her soul.
As these thoughts cycloned through her mind, a mask of unbridled anger and fury settled over Lydia’s features. Her full lips, still swollen from kissing, pressed into a thin, bloodless line. Her brows drew down, her stunning emerald eyes darkening from vibrant green to the stormy shade of a deep, violent sea. She was so lost in the roar of her own internal wrath that she didn’t see the change her expression was causing.
Alex saw.
The naked fear in Alex’s eyes twisted into confusion, then into a wounded panic. She misread the fury entirely. She saw Lydia’s rage and assumed it was for her. That her confession, her weakness, was the “too much” thing. That the disgust Chloe had planted was now blooming in Lydia’s eyes. Alex’s hands started to pull away from Lydia’s face, her body tensing to retreat, to curl in on itself. “Lydia, I… shit, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have—”
Snap.
Lydia’s eyes, those stunning, emerald storm fronts, focused with laser intensity. They locked onto Alex’s, and the connection was physical. It froze Alex’s body instantly and completely, mid-retreat.
Before Alex could move another muscle, Lydia’s hands flew from the floor. They clamped onto the dense, smooth slabs of Alex’s inner thighs, just above her knees. Her grip was like a vise, not meant to hurt, but to anchor. To keep her there. To keep her safe from her own impulse to run. Lydia’s long fingers dug into the incredibly firm muscle, feeling the powerful flex as Alex startled. Her own naked body trembled with the force of the emotion coursing through her, a slight shift that made the heavy amethyst plug inside her twist brutally. A shocking bolt of intense sensation—sharp, deep, a brilliant pain that stole her breath—lanced up her spine, but she didn’t flinch. She used it, let it fuel the fire in her voice.
She leaned forward, bringing her face inches from Alex’s. The heat coming off her was palpable.
“What,” Lydia snarled, the word a low, guttural sound ripped from a place Alex had never seen, “is the name of the skank bitch who hurt you?”
Alex flinched at the heat in Lydia's words, her tear-filled eyes widening. A shaky, disbelieving laugh bubbled from her lips as she finally understood the fury wasn't for her.
Lydia’s whole body quivered, her voice climbing to a near-shout that echoed off the velvet walls. “Tell me her name right now, because I swear to god I'm gonna find that bitch and beat her ass for daring to hurt my Alex!”