Dark eyes scan me from the blue eyelet blouse to the white skirt with bold-colored flowers.
No surprise shows at all. “You look gorgeous,” he says in that same conversational way he’d tell me nice set or be careful out there. The same voice that means he thinks the opposite.
“I didn’t have time to change.” I don’t tell him where I’m coming from, that I just spent four hours on a cramped plastic seat while Mrs. Owens gets dialysis. There are places that’ll come to your home and nurses that work around the clock, but stripping doesn’t pay for any of that. It just keeps us warm and dry and fed.
My life isn’t about luxury. It’s about survival.
He stands back, leaving the door wide open. “You hungry?”
My stomach chooses that moment to grumble. “No,” I lie.
He raises one eyebrow but doesn’t say anything as I walk past him.
The dining table is set for two. I freeze, staring. Uncomprehending. Actually I’m starving. The last thing I ate was a package of roasted peanuts from the vending machine at the dialysis place. Mrs. Owens doesn’t like to eat after she’s had it done, so I settled her into her bed at home and came directly here. The idea of eating sounds amazing. The idea of eating with Blue, that he would have set up some kind of meal for me, that he would have planned this, feels like a dream.
I whirl on him. “What is this?”
His expression is unreadable. “Dinner. If you want it.”
“Is this some kind of date?”
“Does it look like a date?”
I look again at the place settings for two, the low candles in between. My mind rejects that, like an optical illusion that you can’t stop seeing. “It does, but I know that’s crazy.”
There’s a pause where he seems to weigh how much to tell me. I don’t know whether he decides to tell me a lot or a little, but when he answers, his voice is grim. “It’s just food. Something to keep up your strength because you’re probably going to need it.”
There’s the Blue I know and fear. Of course you don’t need candles to eat. “Is that all?”
“What else would there be, Lola?” His lids are lowered, his mouth set in a flat line. The displeasure on his face makes it clear how dumb my idea about a date would have been.
“Nothing,” I say, feeling sullen and hurt even though I know he’s right. He never promised me anything. Actually he did promise me things. He promised to get me back. And that’s what he’s doing. The disappointment shouldn’t feel like acid on my wounds.
“Then get in the fucking chair.” He nods to the far end, where I guess I’m supposed to sit. And be served food? His expression turns hard. “And take that fucking top off. I want to look at your tits while I eat.”
* * *
He made lasagna and warm breadsticks. He pours me wine. It’s the most romantic thing anyone has done for me. And through it all, my bare breasts make it painfully clear that this is not a date. This is not because he likes me and wants to please me.
This is for him—either to fulfill some fantasy of his or simply to humiliate me.
Maybe to him, those are the same things.
“How do you know Mrs. Owens?” he asks.
My gaze snaps to him. I don’t like him asking about her. I don’t like him even knowing about her. She’s personal. Far more personal than my breasts, which men see all the time. Hell, he sees them all the time, even if it’s only part of his job. “How do you know her name?”
One large shoulder lifts in a half shrug. “Simple to find out.”
“So you were snooping.” I can’t help but make a face. Emotion is showing weakness, and he is my kryptonite. “If a guy at the club did that, you would kick them out.”
Amusement flickers across his face. “Guess that’s a benefit of being in charge.”
My eyes narrow. “Speaking of that, why did you decide to work at the Grand? You knew I was working there.”
“Had to do something after I left the army.” His expression hardens. “I imagine it’s for much the same reasons that you work there.”
I snort, looking at the crown molding and modern chandelier above us. He was obviously doing very well, not counting pennies to make the mortgage. Strippers made a lot but supporting even a small house and medical bills was expensive. “I doubt that.”
Something shifts in the room, and in him—an alertness that’s too subtle to see. Only feel. “She’s not your mother.”
Foster kids learn not to share much about their pasts with whatever new foster brother or sister is around. It makes you vulnerable to people who have their own issues and may very well lash out. Besides, you’ll most likely get shuffled around soon.
I was pretty much the same, except with him. I told him how my mother had died, the way she’d braided my hair and let me play at her makeup table. I told him how my father had been in a motorcycle gang and gotten himself thrown in prison. So when she killed herself, I entered the system. There was one important detail I hadn’t told him.
“My mother was a stripper.”
Shock reflects in his eyes for seconds, so swift I wonder if it was even real. For half a second it looked like he cared. I expect him to ask if that’s why I strip, even though the answer must be obvious. So maybe he’ll just mock me for it, a verbal version of humiliation to match the nakedness of my breasts. I’m flushing, my neck and chest pink from embarrassment of what I’ve already admitted.
It’s not much of a legacy she left me. It’s all I have.
Instead he prompts, “So Mrs. Owens?”
He’s like a dog with a bone. And well, I’m the bone. “One of my foster moms.”
That alertness again. “After?”
After he left, he means. After I sent him away. After I lied. “Before. I would have stayed there longer, but she was already old. I was the last foster she had. They removed me after her official diagnosis.”
“Kidney disease?”
My hands clench. He’s done more than a little snooping if he knows about that. “Dementia was the main problem. She’d forget to go to the store, forget to meet my caseworker.”
So they’d removed me from the home, but no one had thought to help her. It was a wonder she’d survived as long as she had before I’d turned eighteen and found her. Though the heat had been turned off and rats had made nests. I’d gotten the biggest paying job I could find—at the Grand—and moved in to help her ever since.
She may not have been very capable by the end, but she’d genuinely cared about me. Don’t let them get you down, she’d tell me when I came home with bruises on my arms and a split lip. They can never touch you on the inside.
She didn’t know I sought out boys like that, ones tough enough to protect me. Even if that protection was just a twisted form of ownership. A dog with a bone—like Blue.
“I’m sorry,” he says, his voice soft enough to be sincere. His eyes hard enough to make me shiver.
“She’s doing fine.” Despite what the doctors say. “She’s stronger than they think.”
Those cold eyes soften by a small degree. “So are you.”
It’s strange to be talking about any of this while I’m naked from the waist up, while he can see my breasts—even if he’s mostly been looking directly into my eyes, as if he can see deep inside, as if he’s uncovering my secrets brick by brick. Even after all the time I’ve spent naked, being exposed, I’m still not comfortable this way.
“They always think I’m strong,” I tell him, lumping him in with every client, every man. “I’m not like Honey was, or even Candy now. Men come to me because they know they can be rough with me and I won’t break.”
The words hang in the air between us, a challenge I didn’t mean to make.
His lids lower. “No, you won’t.”
My breath catches at the promise in his voice. Mine comes out as a whisper. “I’m doing everything you ask me to.”
Sometimes I don’t know why I’m doing that, but the fact is that I am. And
this is a form of asking for mercy, of placing myself in his keeping.
His gaze flickers to my breasts. “Yes, I think you’ve been very obedient. You’ve been sweet, even. That’s what I thought about you all those years ago. Did you know that?” He laughs. “That you were sweet.”
A current of shame runs over my skin, making goose bumps appear over the hills of my breasts, turning my nipples into tight buds. “I didn’t mean to—”
“Enough.” His eyes are ice now, a dark lake solid all the way down. “You’re doing everything I say? Then get on the table. We’re done eating. It’s time for dessert.”
Chapter Fourteen
There’s no room on the table. That’s the excuse I tell myself as I stand very still, staring at the plates and the candles and the strips of dark wood where he wants me to sit.
“Go on,” he says, the spider to the fly.
My stripper persona has deserted me now. Lola is nowhere to be found. I’m almost Hannah now. I don’t know how he’s stripped me down this quickly. A little kindness, a faux date, and suddenly I’m reduced to the girl who’s scared and naked and turned on when she shouldn’t be.
“I can’t,” I whisper.
“Do you need me to help?” he asks almost gently.
It’s his hands I focus on, the way they clasp the back of his chair, how large and strong they are. Something about them makes me feel secure, even knowing how much they can hurt me. Even knowing how much they will.
A jerk of my head. Yes.
I need his help with so much more than this task. I need him to forgive me, to redeem me. I need him to hurt me at the same time as I fear it. That’s why I’m here—as much for me as for him. I shake with wanting it, with needing him, with longing for release.
I watch his hands clear the table, steady and competent. Gentle enough on fine china not to break it. Hard as iron when he turns them into fists. He even takes a dish towel and runs it over the wood, leaving a shine in its place.
“How do you want me?” I ask.
“On your back.”
My throat feels tight when I swallow. On my back is how he wants me. It’s the only way he wants me. So why shouldn’t I give it to him? Why shouldn’t I be what he wants? It feels good, even twisted and perverted and wrong.
I push the skirt down my waist. My panties follow.
Lola would have a sexy striptease. Hannah can only shove them rough and fast, keeping her eyes averted from his. He’s seen all of Lola’s moves anyway. He’s never seen this.
I stumble and almost fall onto the table. He doesn’t catch me. Just watches, arms folded, muscles straining at his T-shirt, jaw set in hard square lines. Then I’m awkwardly sitting on the table, legs dangling off, feet not touching the ground. Small like a child.
The only sign that I’m not is the bulge in his pants.
He steps close and runs his hands along the outsides of my thighs, so light my skin pebbles. “Lie back,” he says softly.
And I do.
The table is cool against my back, smooth and hard. His hands are hot on my thighs as he spreads them wide. Air rushes over my tender flesh, making my private muscles clench. A small sound of protest escapes me. “What are you—”
“Shh,” he says, his large hands smoothing over my inner thighs. “This part isn’t going to hurt.”
His eyes hold a promise, and I know what he means to do. Heat pulses in my clit, anticipating what’s to come. At the same time, I’m afraid. Being pleasured by him is almost scarier than being hurt, like the dinner and candles in the form of sex. Being licked by him might damn near kill me.
He doesn’t lick me—not at first. His head dips low, just his warm breath kissing my skin. I try to hold myself still, to let him direct me. I don’t want to be eager, not for the pleasure I don’t deserve. Not for the pleasure that will only draw me closer to him, bind me harder. But my body shakes, almost vibrates with tension and arousal, like a tuning fork humming his song.
“Blue,” I whisper.
“Gorgeous?”
The word makes my breath catch. I know it’s only skin-deep. He doesn’t think I’m gorgeous on the inside. No one thinks that. No one cares. Even so, this is different than before. Not as hateful. More like I imagined regular sex would be, if I had ever let myself have it.
“I’m afraid.” The admission is about more than oral sex, and he seems to know that. His lids are low, eyes a million years wise.
“No one’s ever licked you here?” He doesn’t give me time to answer before he shows me exactly where, a long and slow lick from the base of my slit to the very top.
Heat courses through me, and I stifle the groan I would have made. “No.”
“Or sucked your pretty little clit?” he asks.
And just like before, he shows me exactly what he means, his lips warm against my most sensitive skin, his suck hard enough to bring my hips off the table.
“God.”
His voice has gone low and husky, thick with something like hunger. “No one’s ever fucked you with their tongue? No one’s tasted your cream?”
My inner muscles clench at his words, already anticipating, already pulsing and slick with cream for him to taste. His eyes close as he shoves his tongue against me, as if he’s doing something incredibly pleasurable, as if he’s getting off as much as me.
His tongue feels foreign and impossibly good, my whole body suspended between ache and orgasm. Between pain and what comes after, the precipice razor thin.
“Why?” The question slips out, more admission than wonder. “Why are you making me feel good?”
This is supposed to be punishment. If it’s not about hurting me—then what?
He doesn’t answer right away. I think he won’t answer at all. His mouth is open, kissing and licking and sucking me, languid and slow. Only when I’m shuddering on the brink does he pull back. “I never stopped wanting you. I fucking dreamed about tasting you. Even when I was overseas, when it had been years since I’d seen you, when I fucking hated you, I still wanted to lick your clit until you came, until you poured your cream on my tongue.”
The admission shouldn’t surprise me. Isn’t that what Candy has been telling me? And maybe I always knew. It wasn’t an accident that he ended up at the Grand. He came to make me pay, and there was only one way to do it. I always recognized the lust in his eyes, even though it made me feel different than every other man. More afraid, more helpless. More strangely hopeful.
It isn’t his desire that surprises me, though. It’s the fact that he admitted it, that he made himself open and vulnerable. The way he almost humbles himself as he focuses on my clit, sucking and licking until I’m moaning, as he shoves his fingers inside and curls, as he seeks my pleasure with every part of his body.
My orgasm slams into me like a tidal wave, powerful and devastating. I rock through the spasms, crying out his name. And he answers me with soothing touches, soft sounds while I collapse on his dining table, spent and utterly limp.
In the Grand I’m always active, always working, always dancing and twirling and shaking my ass. At the club I’m a sex object, something plastic—like a dancer in a jewelry box made to dance whenever it’s opened.
Blue turns everything upside down. He doesn’t make me dance. Doesn’t let me do anything. He turns me into a woman again, one who’s hurt and betrayed him, one who’s been hurt and betrayed. This is the last thing I wanted—to feel again. Physical pain I accepted, almost craved. What he does to me is deeper than that. He roots out every old wound I have. And the salt is the tender way he kisses my mound, an intimacy that has everything and nothing to do with sex.
* * *
I wake up in the dark, warm and naked and alone. Satin sheets enfold me, still cool against hot skin. Sleep swirls around me, threatening to drag me under again. It’s too comfortable here, as if I were tucked in. Except that would be a dream. No one has ever tucked me in. Until now. That’s the only way I could have gotten here, carried by the man who’s st
ill here.
There’s another presence in the room. Enough nights spent hiding in the closet have taught me to tell when I’m alone or not, have taught me to measure a threat in the feel of the air.
I don’t feel threatened, but it’s not a surprise to look sideways and see Blue there.
The way he’s sitting, though—that’s a surprise. He’s shirtless, his broad back curving as he rests his elbows on his thighs. His head rests in his hands. He looks defeated. It’s the pose of a man vanquished, and I ache to see him that way.
“What’s wrong?” The question pours out of me without thought, like water rushing to fill a void.
His awareness of me fills the air. I think he stiffens slightly, the broad muscles of his back shifting beneath shadow-dark skin. He doesn’t answer me. Doesn’t respond.
I push up and throw the covers off. Nakedness doesn’t bother me. The way he looks bothers me. A man bent too far.
Broken.
He doesn’t move as I approach him from around the bed. He doesn’t even look up.
Every time I’ve stripped for him in this apartment, I’ve been rushed and afraid. The opposite of how I am in the club—confident and sensual. Here in the dark, I find a new way to dance. It’s not quite Lola, the seductress. And it’s definitely not the scared Hannah from before. It’s someone new that slides my hands down my body, moving for him, touching myself.
I know what moves he likes from watching him at the club. From watching him watch me.
I cup my breasts and plump them like an offering. His head lifts only enough to watch me through hooded eyes, the angles and shadows of his face severe. I take my nipples between thumb and forefingers, pinching until it hurts, twisting until it feels good again.
“What you do to me,” he mutters, and it doesn’t sound like a compliment.
Dark Romance Collection: A Sexy, Dark Bundle Page 53