“Open your mouth, Lola,” he says softly.
I’m already open to him in every way possible. My legs are spread as he fucks my pussy. He’s already kissed and licked and fucked my mouth. What else is there to do?
The light in his eyes tells me I’m about to find out.
Hesitantly, tremulously, I open my mouth. It’s awkward like that, mouth open with nothing inside. I’m meant to be filled with him, but he lets me sit that way, his gaze dark with anticipation. It’s terrifying to think what might excite him like that. What might humiliate me enough to please him.
One large hand gathers my wrists above my head before I can think to protest. His other hand cups my jaw, opening it wider.
He bends his head—for a kiss?
A rough sound comes from his throat, and then he slowly, methodically spits into my mouth.
It lands wetly on my tongue, surprising and foreign and tasteless. I swallow reflexively, and then it’s gone—but the aftereffects linger, the shame in my belly and the heat in my cheeks. A shudder racks my body, and his eyes flicker.
“Fuck,” he says. “Everything I do to you makes me want you more.”
I close my eyes. I don’t know how much more I can take.
My hands are still above my head when he reaches between our bodies, where we’re joined. His other hand rubs my clit, and I’m way too tender. I let out a shriek because it hurts.
“Shhh,” he says, rubbing harder.
I struggle to get away, to get relief, but I’m well contained, completely under his control.
It takes me a minute to realize what he’s doing, that he’s wringing spasms out of my body, that he’s clenching my inner muscles around his cock with every harsh stroke of his thumb on my clit.
He finally releases my hands so he can cup my breast, and that too is for him. Not me. He’s not trying to make me feel good, he’s just using me—my pussy, my breasts, my mouth. Every part of me a soft place to wrap around himself, to rub off on.
His face twists in ecstasy, and he finishes himself off in three fast, hard thrusts. Hot seed bathes me inside, stinging all the skin he’s rubbed raw.
Even then he doesn’t let up rubbing my clit.
There’s a wet sound as he pulls out. He dips two fingers inside my pussy and scoops his come out. With a cold glint in his eyes, he pushes those fingers inside my mouth. Salt and arousal spill onto my tongue, made rough by the calluses of his hands. I know for sure it’s a punishment now, and it’s working. I want to repent, but all I can do is lick his fingers clean and come against his other hand, choking and gasping his name, too garbled to understand.
I collapse back on the bed, spent from my tears and my orgasm, boneless.
Time passes, and I drift on the waves of pleasure and degradation. They’re more alike than I would have thought possible. He must think I’m sleeping, because he moves a lock of hair from my face and tucks it behind my ear.
“How much more?” he mutters as if to himself.
And maybe that’s the scariest part, that even he doesn’t know where the hard edge is. He’ll just keep pushing and pushing until I fall. And I’ll let him, because all my life, I’ve craved that wind on my face.
* * *
I wake up feeling warm and safe. It’s strange, like something out of a dream—only I don’t feel safe in my dreams. My eyes blink, adjusting to the darkness, focusing on the unfamiliar shadows.
This isn’t my room in Mrs. Owens’s house. It’s not a room I’ve ever had. I’ve had twenty-four bedrooms that I can remember. Some of them shared with foster siblings, some of them no bigger than a closet. This isn’t any of them.
I grow very still. There’s an arm slung over my hip. My heart begins to race. Where am I? Who the fuck is this? And since I know I’d never agree to sex with one of the creeps at the club, how did I get here?
Then I remember.
Sleep is a cold bastard, holding me underwater only to laugh when I sputter. How could I have ever forgotten, even for a second? I’m the enemy, someone to be hated and pitied. Someone to be used and fucked. Never loved. Never again.
It’s Blue’s arm slung over me in a cruel parody of protection. It’s Blue’s chest rising and falling at my back. Blue’s cock hard and hot against my thigh. He’s sleeping now, but I don’t know how long that will last.
Carefully, slowly, I slip his arm off me. I immediately feel cold without its presence, especially when I leave the shelter of his body and stand up.
He doesn’t stir.
His face is painted with shadows, darker where scruff covers his jaw, lighter where his eyes are closed. He looks peaceful this way, no longer angry. How will he feel when he wakes up to find me gone? He can’t expect me to stay. Or maybe he can. Maybe that is part of my punishment, to be near a man I’ll never have.
I put on my clothes quickly. Undressing is my job, both ritual and art form.
Dressing is simply the aftermath. It’s rolling up the mat or cleaning the brushes. Putting things away.
I give myself one last look at him, his strong body still curved around an empty space. He’s beautiful and terrifying. He’s everything I loved and everything I’ve come to hate—a man who takes what he wants. Even if what he wants is me.
In his kitchen I find a notepad with some groceries scribbled down. Milk. Peanut butter.
My heart clenches. It’s ordinary and somehow sweet.
I use a blank sheet to start a note to him. Same time next week.
I’m all the way to the door of his swanky apartment, one hand on a brushed-nickel doorknob, before I stop. One night of fucking can hardly make up for the lie I told, for what it put him through. Nothing can ever make up for it. It’s a sick penance—as sick as sending him away had been back then. Two wrongs don’t make a right.
I walk back to the counter. I tear off the note, crinkle it up, and toss it in the trash can.
Which means I need a new note. I pick up the pen and write, I’m sorry.
This time I only make it two feet away before I stop. And turn around. And throw the note away.
One last note. This one will stick.
The pen feels heavier this time as I write, We’re done here.
Chapter Twelve
I’m back to my old self again—sexy, sultry, men eating out of the palm of my hands. I’m everything Blue accused me of, but I’m not ashamed. This is my job, and I’m damn good at it.
“So hot,” the man slurs, staring at my breasts.
I give him a secretive smile. “Want to see what else I’ve got? We can go to the VIP rooms.”
He’s already reaching for his wallet. Hook, line, and sinker.
Suddenly I see the whites of his eyes and a shadow darkens him. I whirl to see what’s spooked him. There’s Blue, looking like he’s ready to pound someone into the ground.
Me, probably.
“She’s on break,” he snaps before dragging me away by my wrist. I’m too shocked to even protest at first. It’s one thing to fuck around in private. Entirely another to interrupt work. Everyone here knows what we do. Everyone knows time is money.
“What the fuck was that?” I yank my arm away and rub my wrist.
“What the fuck was that note?” he counters.
I flush. “You got plenty out of me in one night. That ought to cover you.”
“Well, it doesn’t,” he says between gritted teeth. “You’re coming back next week.”
Anger rises up, swift and righteous. “Why?”
His voice goes soft. “Why what?”
Even the sound of the club seems to dim, like a forest quiets when a predatory is near.
We’re tucked into a corner. There’s no way everyone is seeing this, but they feel it. Unease makes my throat dry, but I force past it. There’s too much at stake. “I know what I did was…” Wrong. Terrible. “Inconvenient. But come on, you went into the military. You became a fucking war hero. And your job here is obviously lucrative, judging by your apartment. No mat
ter what I did, your life didn’t turn out so bad.”
“Not so bad,” he says, his eyes glinting dangerously. “You threw me in a fucking ditch, gorgeous. The only reason I’m not still in it is because I clawed my way out. Want to know what I did in the six months between getting accused and enlisting?”
I don’t want to know. “Where?”
“In county lockup. The judge didn’t know where to put me. He thought I was guilty but knew the charge wouldn’t stick, so he fucked up the paperwork so bad I was basically convicted and sentenced without a trial. The public defender couldn’t do shit and didn’t care anyway.”
I shiver. I hadn’t known any of this. “I’m sorry,” I whisper.
He laughs, hollow and cold. “I would have preferred to get sent to prison. County lockup is a revolving door. I was stuck in a cell with a different fucker every night, most of them drunk, all of them violent, sleeping with my back to the wall and a sharp plastic knife in my hand. Still think I had it good, gorgeous?”
Tears are in my eyes, imagining him like that. The hard man he is now would make any man think twice. But for all that he’d been tough back then, for all that he’d already killed someone, he was still just a boy then. And he’d been thrown to the wolves.
I’d thrown him to the wolves.
“The honorable judge made a deal with me that he’d let me go if I enlisted. I signed the army paperwork while I was still in a cell. And when I got overseas, it wasn’t much better. I got to huddle in a tent and walk around the fucking desert and hope I wasn’t stepping on an IED. When other soldiers got care packages and naked selfies from home, I had nothing. Nothing but the thought of how I’d make you pay.”
“I can’t.” My hands are tight fists. I want to fight every person who ever hurt him. I want to fight him. I want to take on the world, but I’m helpless—just like I’ve always been. I can put on lipstick and heels, but I can’t change that one painful fact.
“One week,” he says flatly. “I want you under me again in one week. I’m going to get what I’m due if I have to drag you there with my bare fucking hands. Don’t cross me, gorgeous. I’ve been waiting too long to be denied.”
* * *
It’s been three days since Blue confronted me in the Grand. He’s been ignoring me ever since.
If you don’t count the way his gaze follows me everywhere.
It’s a relief to be out of the club, to be free of his intensity and his desire. It’s also strangely a disappointment, almost as if I miss him. That can’t be true. I can’t miss the way he hurts and humiliates me. I can’t miss the way he hates me.
I walk home from the grocery store, both hands full. I speed up along the cracked sidewalk as plastic presses into my fingers, cutting off circulation. My fingertips are already red, but I don’t like leaving Mrs. Owens alone for too long. Especially when I’m not working.
My next shift is tonight, in about two hours. I’m hoping I can give her dinner and put her to bed, as long as she doesn’t wonder too much about why it’s still bright outside. That way I can dance without worrying about her.
I manage to turn the doorknob with my hands full and shoulder my way inside. I’m busy dropping the grocery bags—gently, slowly, there are eggs inside. So I don’t see someone else at the dining table until he speaks.
“Hi, Hannah.”
I stumble, almost tripping over the bags. “Blue? What the hell are you—”
The question dies in my throat as I see Mrs. Owens, her face flushed and smiling, a light in her eyes that’s becoming more and more rare.
“I didn’t know you had a gentleman,” she says, sounding positively charmed.
I manage not to laugh at the term. Gentleman? Hardly. I think he wants to tear me apart. He wants to fuck me, to bruise me. He definitely doesn’t want to pull the chair out for me.
She comes from a different generation, a time when chivalry wasn’t dead. And she wants the best for me. She believes the best of me. She has no way of knowing he despises me. No one could tell that from the way he smiles at me, as if he’s genuinely pleased to see me.
He stands. “Let me help with those.”
“Sit,” I snap. I have no idea why he’s here or what the hell is going on, but the last thing I need is him looking through our bags, seeing the bags of noodles and the cheap store-brand stuff. Only the tea is expensive, imported, because it’s the only thing Mrs. Owens still remembers.
“Let me pour you some,” she says, reaching for the teapot in the center of the table.
“Allow me,” Blue says.
And I watch, dumbfounded, while he lifts the delicate china pot and pours water into a teacup. I’ve walked into some warped parallel universe where big, surly, pissed-off men have tea parties in the afternoon.
“We couldn’t get the stove to work,” he says as if that explains anything.
I sit down in the chair—because I need to. My legs are giving out. Confusion and a strange emotion like tenderness presses down on me. “I unplug it,” I respond, almost absently.
“Huh.” With one blunt finger, he pushes the saucer and cup in front of me. “This works just as well. And won’t keep you up at night.”
“Here here,” Mrs. Owens says. “I’m always telling this girl not to stay up so late. Sometimes it’s the middle of the night and I can’t find her anywhere.”
My gaze snaps to Blue. His expression doesn’t change, but I feel his awareness. Of course Mrs. Owens doesn’t know what I do for money. She doesn’t even know I pay the bills—or that we have bills. Most of the time she doesn’t know anything that doesn’t relate to her tea.
And apparently she does look for me at night. My heart clenches.
“I’m sorry,” I murmur, taking a sip of water. “I thought you would be sleeping.”
She waves her hand. “I’m sure I do plenty of that too. And then sometimes I’m sitting there in the middle of the day, thinking, how am I going to make tea? The stove never works. So I go and look for you, and you’re sleeping. At two o’clock in the afternoon.” She looks at Blue. “What do you think of that?”
Blue’s expression is serious. “I think she must work too hard.”
That seems to please Mrs. Owens. “You’re right. You’re absolutely right.”
Warmth spreads through my chest, forbidden pleasure and regret rolled into one. “You can wake me up anytime, Mrs. Owens. I’ll make you tea whenever you want.”
“Of course I’m not going to wake you up. You need your sleep. If I could only figure out that darned stove.”
I bite my lip, on the verge of tears. I don’t want to cry in front of her. And I sure as hell don’t want to cry in front of him.
“Excuse me,” I manage before shoving away from the table.
I leave the groceries on the floor of the kitchen, waiting to be unpacked. I leave the teacups filled with water. I leave the strange man at the table, both hateful and kind, a symbol of everything bad about me—and a beacon of hope all at once.
The hallway is a blur, and I almost run into the wall. Hot tears sting my eyes.
I push into the small bathroom and shut the door, leaving the light off.
There’s only a second of peace before I hear footsteps.
He doesn’t call my name. He doesn’t even knock. He simply comes into the bathroom and shuts the door behind him, locking us inside.
“Why are you—”
I don’t have a chance to finish my question. Why are you here? Why are you being nice to Mrs. Owens?
Why are you being nice to me?
Before I can get the words out, his mouth is on mine, his hands are in my hair. He’s breathing me in, sliding his tongue against mine. I let out a shocked breath before my body betrays me—returning the kiss with the same ferocity, the same hunger. It feels almost like an apology, this visit, this kindness. This kiss. Like he’s sorry he was cruel to me, but he’s not planning to stop.
“This is why you dance,” he breathes against my lips.
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It’s not a question, so I don’t answer. I pant against the wall, waiting for him to make me strip, make me touch him, make me get on my knees and suck him off. That’s the only reason to be in a dark bathroom with the door closed. That’s the only reason he’d follow me here, the only reason he’d be in this house at all.
He runs his hands over my shoulders, my arms. My breasts. The touch is sexual and possessive but also sweet, as if he’s assuring himself that I’m all there. That I’m all right.
That he didn’t hurt me too bad.
“Wednesday night,” he says gruffly. Then he’s gone. From the bathroom. From the house. Gone from Mrs. Owens’s memory just minutes later.
Leaving only an empty teacup to prove he was ever there.
Chapter Thirteen
The same doorman greets me at the shiny apartment building. There’s no sneer in his smile, no coldness in his eyes. I see a lot of men, most of them with wads of cash in their pockets. It’s strange to see one with any amount of respect.
He must think I’m Blue’s girlfriend.
My stomach twists, fast and hard. It’s a mix of embarrassment and guilt and a hope that will not die. There’s a part of me that wishes that were true. The doorman doesn’t know that Blue would never date me. He wouldn’t even be seen fraternizing with me at the club. The only reason he lets me come to his place is because it’s more convenient for him to fuck me here.
The elevator ride feels way too short. Before I can breathe again, I’m standing in front of his apartment door. It doesn’t open on its own this time. He’s not there to push me away and drag me back. It’s only me standing there, only me deciding to knock. Only me waiting for his footsteps with dread and anticipation.
He’s wearing a T-shirt again, well-worn and snug around his chest. He’s got jeans and no shoes—perfectly comfortable at home. There’s something deceptively casual about what he wears and the way he holds himself, so distinctly different than the hard, intimidating front he has as head of security of the club. And yet I know this man is more dangerous to me, more willing to hurt me in ways he wouldn’t at the Grand, more pleased to see the results of his work.
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