Even so, pleasure fills me. I know exactly what I do to him—but even if I didn’t before, I hear it now in the lust-filled husky voice. I see it in the bulge of his loose-fitting sweatpants.
I turn to give him a view from behind, dropping low and working my way back up so he can see the darker skin between my legs. When I turn back to meet his eyes, he still looks haunted. Maybe more so. I’m turning him on, but it’s not enough to chase away whatever demons found him tonight.
The carpet is plush on my knees, so much more forgiving than the concrete in the VIP rooms.
I half expect him to push me away when I kneel. This isn’t on his terms anymore. It’s on mine. He lets me run my hands down his body, over the ridges of his abs and the hollow spaces pointing down. His cock flexes at my touch, and I push the loose band down to free him.
Only when his cock is in my hands, bared and dripping wet, does he speak again. “I thought I could fuck you and not feel anything again. I thought I could have you and forget you. But that was impossible from the start. I’ve never been able to forget you. And you make me feel everything, Lola. You make me feel alive.”
A soft sound escapes me before I silence it on his cock. My lips press against the head, half kiss, half caress. His whole body jerks, and I grasp his erection in my fist.
“That’s right, gorgeous,” he groans, cupping my head in his large hands, guiding me. “Make me yours.”
I obey him, and this doesn’t feel like a punishment. It feels like praise, like pleasure, especially when Blue shudders as if helpless. I pull back long enough to coax him, letting him hear the hoarseness of my voice, made raw from sucking him deep. “Come down my throat,” I tell him. It’s an offer and a plea.
“Yes. Fuck yes.” He doesn’t come right away. He lets me work him, holding him out. His cock is slick from my mouth and throbbing with every firm, knowing stroke.
His voice is rough and urgent in the dark, surrounding me. “Take me, baby. Fucking take me. I can’t let you go after this. I can’t let you go at all. You know that, don’t you? You’re mine now. Learn the taste of me, the feel of me, because this is the only cock that’s going to be in your mouth. I’m the only man you’re going to fuck.”
I shouldn’t feel turned on by that, by the possession and the crudeness, but I am. I squeeze my legs together to ease the ache between them.
“Touch yourself,” he urges, more breathless. He’s so close, and I can taste salty precum on my tongue.
No. I can’t get off like this. The words are useless with my mouth full of his cock. And they’re a lie anyway. When I shove my hands into my folds, I find them wet. A few slick rubs and my clit pulses with need.
I rock my hips, grinding my pussy against my hand. He takes over the blowjob, holding my head steady while he gently, inexorably fucks my face. I relax my throat and let him invade me, let him use me while I use him right back, fingers rubbing hard, juices spilling over my hand.
His come is a shot of salt against the back of my throat, surprising and so damn hot I come a second later. He keeps thrusting, using my tongue to drag out his orgasm while I fuck my hands to do the same.
When he’s done, he pulls away carefully, his hand tight in my hair.
It’s the same dark eyes that look down at me, the same severe expression. But there’s no anger in his voice this time, not even a threat. Only surety and a hint of sadness when he says, “You’re mine now, Lola. For better or for fucking worse. You sent me away all those years ago, but there’s nothing you can do to me now.”
Chapter Fifteen
When I wake up the next time, sunlight streams through the window, lighting the heavy arm draped over me. His breaths are even and steady against my cheek. His leg is slung over mine, pinning me down. It feels both suffocating and sweet, like the tight hug of quicksand.
My body tenses without meaning to. I don’t have time to prepare. There’s no makeup or stilettos to shield me here.
He makes a sleepy snorting sound that’s endearing. His hand brushes over my body and cups my breast, giving it a gentle squeeze. “Stay,” he mumbles.
I don’t know if he’s fully awake, if he knows what he’s asking.
The answer is no.
My breathing becomes shallow as I prepare for some kind of maneuver to slip away. I don’t mind him touching me. I don’t mind him fucking me. But I mind very much the possessive shit he said last night. I mind him thinking he has some kind of claim over me. What we’re doing is an apology, a nostalgic trip down fucked-up lane. It’s not real. And it’s sure as hell not forever.
I only get as far as the edge of the bed before he grabs my wrist and hauls me back. My legs splay awkwardly, the opposite of sexy. I freeze as his hand finds my thigh. Calloused hands smooth up the inside of my leg, heading for my sex.
He finds me wet.
His groan is pure approval. “Every morning,” he says, fingers slipping inside.
The words are like ice to the heart. I jolt up from the bed, hopping and fighting to get away from him.
He blinks, his eyes still cloudy with sleep. “What the fuck?”
“I have to go,” I say, stumbling over to a pile of clothes on the floor. “I have to…have to leave.”
By the time I have my skirt on, he’s sitting up. He doesn’t leave the bed, but I don’t underestimate him for a second. If he wants me to stay, he’ll make me stay. He could be out of bed in two seconds flat. His hand would be on the door, blocking me in, just three seconds after that.
There’s no sleep left when he narrows his eyes. Only intense focus. “Want to tell me why?”
I’ve gotten hundreds of proposals.
It’s a professional hazard, common enough if I’m doing my job well. The thing people don’t know is how real the proposals seem, how earnest they can be when a man is horny and desperate and sad.
And none of them have meant a single thing, not nearly as much as those two words.
Every morning.
He comes to me like it’s inevitable that he’ll have me. He presses his forehead to my chest like I can stave off the world. The nakedness, the money—they wrap us in a cocoon that’s strangely meaningful. At least for two minutes in time. I’m used to being promised more than I’ll ever get, which is a fat tip if I’m lucky. I don’t want any more than that. I can’t have any more than that.
“Mrs. Owens needs me. Needs someone,” I say, stumbling over the explanation. Technically it’s true, but it’s not why I’m running. Judging from the way his eyes narrow, he knows that. “If I’m not there when she wakes up, she worries about me.”
“All right,” he says slowly. “Give me a second to throw on some clothes, and I’ll come with you.”
I take a step back. “Why?”
He stands up. “To spend time with you.”
“That wasn’t part of the deal. I said I’d come here, said I’d fuck you. That’s all.”
He shrugs, completely undisturbed. “Then fuck me there.”
“In front of Mrs. Owens?”
He grunts. “You don’t have your own room?”
“That’s not the point. I live there to take care of her. Not to bring customers back to her house.”
It’s like waving a red cloth, watching a bull’s eyes widen and his nostrils flare. He charges me, backing me up against the wall before I can even protest. “I’m not a client,” he says softly, his face inches away, eyes locked in mine.
Nervousness makes my breath come in pants. I wish I had on cherry-red lipstick and a tight skirt. I wish I were Lola, able to seduce and to manipulate. I wish I were anyone but me. “You can’t come over,” I whisper.
His jaw clenches, a muscle in his jaw flexing. “I meant what I said last night. You want to be Lola, I’ll call you that. You want to strip at the Grand. I’ll put up with that too, if it fucking kills me. But you’re mine. That pussy, that mouth. Every inch of you.”
“This is insane. You hate me. You despise me.”
“Yes,” he says slowl
y, as if thinking it through, wondering. “I do hate you. I hate what you did. I hate that you take your clothes off for other men, showing them what should be mine. I hate that you’re trying to walk out of here as if I mean nothing to you, the same way you sent me away all those fucking years ago.”
I close my eyes as he leans close. I don’t know what he’ll do to me. Hit me? Bite me? He seems almost feral enough to do it. So the soft press of warmth to my eyes is a shock. His lips. He’s kissing me, one after the other. Another kiss on my nose. And lower, on my mouth.
“But I want you too, the same way I wanted you back then. Your body, your heart. The way you look after Candy. The way you take care of Mrs. Owens when you don’t have to.” His smile is half-sad, half-dark. “The way you gave yourself to me so sweetly.”
My voice is hoarse. “That was to say I’m sorry. It’s over now.”
He shakes his head slowly. “No, gorgeous. You gave yourself to me because you wanted this as bad as me. It’s not ending now. It’s not ending ever. It took me five goddamn years of fucking my hand, of dreaming of you, of hating you, to find my way back. And now that I’m here, I’m not letting go.”
“It can’t work,” I say, but that’s a lie. I want it to work.
I want him to make me be with him.
“It will be hard. It kills me to see another man look at your body, your breasts. To watch you dance for him. I don’t know how I’m going to do it. All I know is that I need you.”
My breath catches in my chest. “I hurt you, Blue. I lied about you. I sent you away.”
He’s silent for a long moment, his eyes dark with pain and fury. And regret. “I held on to the anger, but I think in some way I was holding on to you. Anything was better than letting go.”
“So you’re just going to forgive me? How can you?” Especially when I haven’t forgiven myself.
“I think I already have,” he says, almost thoughtful now. “I know what things were like, how hard things were for you, moving from house to house, all the asshole foster kids fucking with you. Including me.”
“You weren’t like them,” I say, fierce.
“Wasn’t I?” he says sadly. “Every boy in that house wanted under your skirt. I wasn’t that different.”
He was completely different. “You didn’t deserve what I did to you.”
Even if I’d only done it to save him.
“I don’t want to live in the past anymore. Give me a future, Lola.”
I shove against him, but he’s immovable. A mountain. “You don’t deserve a stripper for a girlfriend. You don’t deserve a shitty job at a strip club either. You’re better than all of this.”
His eyes take on a painful light, a raw intensity that’s reflected in his voice. “That’s where you’re wrong. All this time, all these years, I’ve been nothing. Only when I’m near you am I anything at all. I don’t deserve you, but not because you’re a stripper. I don’t deserve you because of what I did to you, how I’ve treated you. But even knowing that, I can’t let you go.”
“I can’t,” I say brokenly. I can’t be with him, can’t pretend we’re okay. I can never tell him the truth about that night long ago, and that means we’ll never be together. “Please. Let me go.”
For the first time, doubt enters his eyes. He can be demanding and forceful. He can be cold. The one time he asks for something, when faced with the answer no, he doesn’t look mean. He looks at me with longing, as if I’m miles away instead of trapped by his body. As if I’m years away—because really I’m still just a scared little girl with no one to turn to.
* * *
The sun is already high by the time I reach home. In broad daylight it’s clear how much I haven’t done. I can pay the taxes and the water bill, but I can’t bring the plants in the flower box back to life. I can’t turn this run-down house in a scary neighborhood into home.
For now.
Blue’s parting words echo in my head, relenting for the moment, promising so much more. I don’t know how to tell him why we can’t be together. And sometimes, when his hands are on me, when his scent is in my lungs, I don’t know myself. But then I see this house and the Grand. I remember who I am again. I’m the unwanted child and the cheap slut.
I’m everything men told me to be. All the men I’ve known except Blue.
The sidewalk has a thousand cracks, the concrete pieces slanted. It’s like there’s been a tiny apocalypse on the ground of this neighborhood, leaving only rubble. As many times as I’ve walked home, I have to watch my step. I have to choose each step carefully, gaze trained to the ground.
I see the shadow first—something swooping in. A bird overhead, that’s my first thought. Only there’s a hand on my wrist. There’s a rough voice in my ear. Then I’m tripping, falling, landing in the rubble where I belong.
“Little bitch thought you could ignore me?”
I gasp as a hand circles my throat. It’s hard to speak, to breathe, but I force out the words. “What…are you…”
“Then you sent your guard dog after me.”
He drags me along the sidewalk. My feet kick against broken rock.
Attacked. I’m being attacked.
I’m in broad daylight. My gaze whips over the neighborhood, but it’s empty. The middle of the day and it’s fucking empty because everyone here is like me—working nights and sleeping days, hiding inside as much as possible. I think a curtain moves behind a window across the street, but I don’t have hope that they’ll come help.
I don’t even know if they’ll call the police. Cops are crooked enough to bring their own kind of trouble, and the people here know that.
Which means I’m on my own.
I land against the slatted wood panel on the side of the house. The world is spinning, but I push up, ready to fight. One look behind me and my eyes go wide. “You?”
It’s the client from the club, the one who hurt me. The one who waited for me.
And apparently followed me home.
Travis’s eye is swollen, and his lip is split. Then you sent your guard dog after me. Who did that to him? But I already know the answer. It’s Blue.
I clench my hands into fists. Blue is taller than me, heavier. Stronger. He could beat up this man and not have to worry. I’ve never had that luxury. I’ve only ever had my tits and my ass and the clench of my pussy to win them over.
Judging by the look on Travis’s face, he’s not looking for a lap dance.
He sneers. “You think you’re too good for me?”
I swallow, mind racing. How the hell am I going to get out of this? I’m not, though. I’m not getting out of it this time, just like I didn’t that night long ago. “No,” I say, voice low and trembling.
Good. Let him think I’m afraid.
Doesn’t matter if it’s the truth. He’ll underestimate me, and I need every advantage I can get. I may not get out of this, but I’ll go down fighting.
“Think you’re too good to suck my dick, but you’ll spread your legs for that fucker?”
I flinch at the mention of Blue, the realization that he could be in trouble. Because of me. Fucking history, always repeating. If Travis told on Blue to the police, that could cause trouble. If not with the cops, then definitely with Ivan. It doesn’t look great if the head of security gets arrested. Ivan may get involved with some shady stuff, but the Grand has always been by the book.
Maybe that would be the best, if Blue got fired. This kind of neighborhood, this crazy man? Blue shouldn’t have to deal with any of that. And I know now that he’s here because of me. He came back for me.
My voice trembles. “I’ll make it up to you.”
His smile is cruel. “I know you will, sweetheart. I fucking know.”
Five years later and I’m back in the same place, under the thumb of another man. Five years later and I’d still do anything to keep Blue safe.
The same fucking place.
“On your knees,” he says.
Oh God, I can’t do thi
s.
I have to do this.
It’s an impossible choice, a war against myself. I hate how familiar it is, like a well-worn sweater. This is who I am—and this is why Blue and I could never have been together.
Slowly, painfully, gracefully, I sink to my knees. My lips move into a pout. “Whatever you want.”
I can be Lola for him, in a way I never could for Blue. She was made for this.
The blow to my face isn’t a surprise. He doesn’t want to get off. He wants to hurt me. He wants to humiliate me. I land on my hands. Pebbles and old metal cut into my palms. My cheek is burning with the pain of impact.
“Look at me,” he demands, and I do.
It’s seductive and angry, sensual and fucking depraved. “You’re a pig,” I tell him, because that’s part of the game.
He laughs, his yellow teeth shining in the sunlight. It’s twisted, being attacked in the middle of the day. Twisted and just right for a woman who makes her living at night. “Yeah, I’m a pig who’s going to come down your throat, so what does that make you?”
The same thing I’ve always been—a whore. A fuck doll. I’m nothing at all.
So why did Blue want me? It hurts that he might want me, as if he doesn’t know who I am. Imagining the shock and disappointment he might feel when he finds out.
“Is this how you give it to that fucker?” he asks. “Out back when you’re on break?”
Something inside me turns to ice. This isn’t how Blue treats me. He’s rough and hard and even mean, but he’s never made me suck him off while I’m on break. He could have. I would have let him.
Or he could have made me, by pushing me down, by punching me. By forcing me, like this man.
Except I’m not going to let him.
“No,” I say. “I give it to him at his apartment, in his bed. Like we’re a goddamn couple.”
That makes him laugh again. He thinks it’s part of the game. He doesn’t realize I’m done. All my life I’ve chosen survival over dignity. I’d let a man fuck me if it meant staying safe.
Being fucked by those men wasn’t safe.
Dark Romance Collection: A Sexy, Dark Bundle Page 54