Leave Him in Pieces

by August Red

  “No,” she says, coughing. Judas doesn’t like the sound of her coughs becoming more violent, more rough. “No… Judas… don’t take this on yourself… This is… my fault. I—” Belle starts to cough harder. He lays her hand back to her side, clasping it with his. "Don't... Don't make me bite you, Judas Bane," she manages to say, squeezing his hand. "He didn’t rape me because of you... I’m still here… because of you."

  “Even after everything that’s happened, you’re still amazing,” he says, shaking his head slightly, his half smile failing to hide the misery that drowns his eyes.

  Sorrow tinges her face. "I… God, Judas, you think… you think staying out of my life is… going to keep me safe but I need you to keep me safe,” she says, almost angry with him. Her eyelids fall halfway, but she fights to keep them open. God, he loves the fight in her. “Don’t leave me," she says, her voice barely audible. And then her eyes finally close. "Don't leave me again, Judas… Don’t ever leave me again… You’re my world…”

  Her body goes limp. Her chest stops rising and falling. He can’t hear her breathing. He can’t feel her hand holding on to him anymore.

  “No… No, Belle, please, I need you. I can’t live without you… I can’t…” He no longer cares to keep his emotions hidden from the world. Tears stream down his face as he realizes…

  He is losing his Little Bit.

  Looking down at how fragile Belle looks underneath him, something clicks inside of him.

  Right here, in the attic, he had been the one dying. She not only saved his life that night, out of the kindness of her own heart, but she saved him from the demons of his past, and his future.

  He finally has the answer he’s been searching for.

  “I’m never gonna leave you, Belle. You hear me? Never. I was wrong when I said you could never be a part of my world.” He brushes his lips against her forehead and whispers, “How can that be true… when you’re a part of me?” Her eyes don’t open and his heart sinks. “Belle? Belle, did you hear me? Wake up. Don’t fall asleep on me, you have to stay awake. Wake up, Belle!” Belle’s breaths come in tiny gasps and her eyes open slowly. A shiver courses through his spine as relief washes through him. “I’m giving it all up,” he says, quickly, wanting her to know how he feels before it’s too late. “The money, my title—all of it. I don’t care about any of it. I only care about you… Just you.”

  “Wh-Why?” He can feel her body getting colder and colder by the minute.

  “Isn’t that what you do when you love someone, Belle? You make sacrifices for them,” he says, quoting her. He strokes the swell that rises on her cheek. He loves the way her eyes light up like two emerald jewels in sunlight.

  “When my mom died…”

  The pain he suffered the day he watched his own mother beaten and strangled to death at the hands of his father, it all comes flooding back to him, and for a second, he thinks he can’t go on. But when he looks down at his beautiful, brave, Belle—he feels he can do anything.

  For Belle. Anything.

  “All I’ve ever done is look for the wrong in the world. But with you, Belle—with you, all I want is to look for the right.” He watches her lips part just a little, but enough for his eyes to twinkle in return. “So fight this; stay with me. Because I’m damn-well not going anywhere this time.” He squeezes her hand, scorning himself for having let her go in the first place. “I’m never letting you go. You’re mine.”

  Nothing compares to Belle Dela Cruz.

  Judas needs to give her a reason to fight, to not fall into an endless sleep. Smiling down at her, Judas pours his heart out. "We're both messed-up, Little Bit. But in our own twisted way, doesn’t that mean we’re meant to be with one another?"

  He feels like everything is going to be okay when he sees the answer in her beautiful eyes. His heart is running wild, and for a second, he wants to lean in and kiss her with all his heart. But he settles for smiling at her, content she is close by. Close to him.

  “If I don't… make this—”

  “Don't say that, Belle. You’re gonna make it through this. You’re a fighter. So just hold on a little longer. For me. Can you do that? Just hold on, Belle.” The circle of moonlight around them begins to fade as a dark cloud begins to move across the Moon.

  Where the hell is that ambulance?!

  “Judas… just know… I want you to know… I don't regret a single moment with you…”

  “Neither do I,” he replies, his whole center falling at the seams as her hand falls limp in his hand.

  “You think… we… can make it?” Her eyes remain shut when she speaks. She’s losing consciousness.

  “You and me against the world, Little Bit. We can do anything.”

  “Where… will we go?” Her voice is so faint, he can barely hear her.

  “Somewhere… far and light,” he murmurs, as the moonlight diminishes from the attic.

  “I love you… Judas… Never stop saving me…”

  “I love you, too, Belle,” he says, whisper soft, into the darkness. “Never stop saving me.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Nearly a year later...

  SHE MADE SURE TO ORDER IT IN WHITE.

  White on her, for some reason, it drives Judas crazy.

  Belle adjusts the straps on her halter dress, the one with the crossover bust and empire waist. It fits like a glove over her body accentuating every curve. There are satin diagonal inserts that flow from just under her bust and the dress hits slightly above her knees. The back is made up of crisscross straps and a cut-out oval shape dips just above her buttocks.

  Belle's always kept in shape by running, but since attending Judas’ strict regime of one-to-one self-defense classes, which almost always end with steamy shower sex, her body has tightened-up in all the right places and she’s never felt so sexy in her life.

  Entering the cage-lift, she exits the top-level apartment floor of the warehouse conversion she and Judas share together. It's not a luxurious mansion that Judas would be used to, but it's their first home and they both treasure it. She especially adores painting on the balcony, looking out on the view of the harbor and the open water. It's a stark difference to painting in a dark attic, hidden away. Now she paints out in the open for all to see. Judas loves to watch her paint, but then again, he loves to watch her do other things in the privacy of their bedroom too. And she loves to be watched by Judas.

  The lift passes the main floor: Bane’s Boxing and MMA Gym. Judas has worked hard at building his highly-successful business from the bottom-up with help from Tate.

  The lift finally stops at the basement and she steps out into the rowdy crowd. The place is rammed pact. They're here for one reason.

  To see Bane—the number one favorite to win—fight in the quarter-finals of the Spartan Championships.

  One of Judas’ security guards greets Belle and escorts her over to the VIP area, forcing the crowd to part like the sea. She doesn’t know why there are a thousand butterflies fluttering around in her stomach. She doesn’t understand this queasy feeling. She’s been with him numerous times before and tonight will be no different.

  But tonight is a special occasion. It marks exactly one year since the night Judas broke into her home and took refuge in her hiding place.

  Belle smiles to herself. Tonight is going to be different. She knows she is crazy about him. She loves this man, she lives for this man, she would die for this man, and she’s going to spend the rest of her life with this man.

  Belle hasn't seen him for seven days, and one day without him, feels like a hundred. But a leading agency interested in signing him had flown him and his manager, Tate, across the country. He'd rung her as soon as the deal to a million-dollar sponsorship was signed and sealed.

  The future looks bright for Judas and she can't wait to see him shine and share that with him. She herself just sat her last exam for the semester at one of the most prestigious colleges in Canada for medicine, where she’s ranked in the top five s
tudents of her year. It seems they have a lot of reasons to celebrate tonight.

  A sudden eruption of a thunderous roar disrupts her thoughts and her eyes dart to the other side of the boxing arena. Judas finally graces the crowd with his rock-god presence. The assemblage begin screaming and jumping as he struts his way to the ring. His long tight body is pact full of lean muscle and her blood simmers as her eyes settle on his bulging biceps. A hot, wild shiver tickles her very center knowing he is all hers and she will have her own private showing tonight.

  His dark eyes scan the crowd and even though she isn’t yelling for him like the other infatuated girls are, his eyes swing in her vicinity and like magic, he finds her. Only her. Heat spreads under her skin, like flames of fire are licking all over her.

  As his face turns away from her seconds later, she takes the chance to observe him—strong, masculine, so amazingly sexy, his presence hits her straight in her sex. The girls behind her seem to think so too. From amongst the hollering, she makes out their obscene shouts.

  As Judas struts toward the ring, one hand brushes all the way back through his thick sexy hair. The heat and sweat make it stick out even more crazily than usual and he looks completely irresistible.

  Seven days too long…

  Belle bites her lip as he finishes his saunter to ringside. He scans the crowd again before he jumps over the ropes and she feels those bedroom eyes wash over her. He has a way of looking at her that makes her feel like no-one else exists in the world, even if a crowd is around her. Add that to the sexy curl of his lips and she has a man who ignites her with just a glance. He’s igniting her now even as he sits in the corner while Tate hands him his water and any last piece of advice for the match ahead. Judas never takes his eyes off her.

  Eyes that tell her… he’s coming for her.

  Something sparks low in her tummy. She flushes and smiles as those amazingly intense eyes hook onto hers and he winks. Those silly women behind her start squealing that he’d winked at them before he moves his attention back to the fight ahead. His opponent, Dean ‘Minotaur’ Romero, enters the ring.

  For the next half-hour, Bane dominates every round, the whole club even, with his alpha-male presence. She watches, in awe, at the man who had come to mean so much to her. Somewhere between hiding from the world and a broken heart, Judas shifted from an intruder to a lover and then to someone who made a permanent fixture in her life. In her heart.

  A cheer goes up from the crowd as Bane shifts his weight and circles toward his opponent in the final round. Shadows from the beams above dance on his face.

  God, he is so breathtaking when he fights. His movements are graceful but explosive. Belle almost gets lightheaded from watching him, drinking in his whole package, drinking in his low-riding shorts that take all her attention to the prominent V-lines that dip right into where—

  Bane lunges, his fist catches Minotaur’s jaw. Bane is quick. Skillful. Strikingly impressive. Bane shoves his elbow into the other fighter’s chest who strikes out and punches, landing it on Bane’s jaw who reels back. But Bane lives up to his reputation; he recovers insanely fast.

  Bane grabs his opponent’s shoulders and slams him into the ring-floor, where he lands a few solid punches into Minotaur’s gut. Bane’s victory is so close as the other man seems to be quitting, but then, somehow, Minotaur forces himself out from under Bane and slams him into the ropes, wrapping his hands around Bane’s neck.

  Belle’s breath catches in her throat, but then Bane smirks, and before the crowd knows what’s happening, Bane swings his arms up and smacks them down on his opponent’s elbows, forcing Minotaur to let go. That’s when Bane goes in for the kill, punching him, hard, with his infamous Insane-Bane punch. Belle swears she hears the crunch. Blood sprays everywhere from Minotaur’s nose and he falls backwards. He doesn’t get up. Bane’s adoring fans go wild, chanting his name: Bane.

  Judas.

  He has become Belle’s constant, her reassurance; the one thing that she knows is going to be there when she wakes up in the morning. He is Judas, just Judas, and he is feeling everything she is feeling, walking the same steps with her. And just when she thinks she can't love the man anymore than she already does, she’s proven wrong. Her heart bleeds and her body aches to touch him. To be touched by him.

  Despite the crowd going crazy for him, he doesn’t stay and drink up the worshiping at his feet. Instead, he jumps out of the ring and heads straight for her.

  Every part of her—the nerve-endings, the tiny membranes attached to her thoughts, her every day emotions—are somehow connected to the man who dominates her sight at this moment.

  When she laughs, she feels him. When she cries, she feels him. When she wakes up in the middle of the night, screaming from her nightmares, scared and hurt with images of her and Emmett alone in the attic, Judas is always there to comfort her, telling her she's okay, and that if anyone is out to hurt her, they’ll have to go through him first.

  The image of Judas Bane sauntering toward her, his muscles even more defined and pumped from the fight, is so vivid, it robs the breath from her body, steals her sanity for a momentary lapse that is a moment too great to hold on to reality.

  She’s sure the girls behind her are shouting their undying love for him, but they’re just a buzzing noise in her ears now. She is completely captivated by Judas’ undeniable beauty and something wild and primitive tugs at her center. Her limbs seize in awe.

  Dripping with sweat, he looks incredibly hot. Fantasies of being wet against his slippery firm flesh infest her mind as beads of sweat trickle, slow and fast, down his body. She has to stifle the urge to run her tongue over each and every drop she can see on his sexy bronzed inked skin, when he finally reaches her.

  “You look stunning,” he says, breathless. He angles his head down, wraps his elbow around her neck and pulls her tightly to him. His hand strokes the side of her neck and she groans at the feel of his calloused hands. The pleasure of his touch and caress stimulates every nerve-sensory she has as his lips claim her like a raging storm.

  A few wolf-whistles holler out amongst the buzzing crowd. Suddenly, nothing matters, except this moment. Judas deepens the kiss, his hand moving to caress down along her spine with just the right amount of pressure to send her into ecstasy. He pulls away reluctantly, biting his lip.

  “I couldn’t focus on the fight with you teasing me in that... Jesus Christ, Belle. Every man is looking at you in that dress.”

  “Judas—”

  “Gimme ten minutes. Then we leave. Don’t know how much longer I can hold myself back from not fucking you right here.” She can only nod her reply, still on fire from the kiss.

  Once Judas showers and changes, they head out through the entrance on the first floor. They waste no time mounting his Dyna and riding into the night ahead.

  When they’re alone, the world falls away and they can just be. Together. Just like in the attic, when no-one was around and he’d finally gotten past her defenses; they had connected in a way that still lingers with her. There is no running from something that is unexplainable but senselessly real.

  And Judas Bane is her real.

  The obstacles, roadblocks, that deterred their bond, were inconsequential next to what they share now. From two different worlds, two different walks of life, with nothing in common but this fierce attraction, that somehow never would have happened if they’d met under any other circumstances.

  She was pure.

  He was so tainted.

  Maybe the line between their lives never should have been crossed, but Belle can’t regret him as much as he can’t regret her. Regretting him diminishes the effect he has on her life, the light and joy he brings, and that’s something not even death can force her on her knees to do. Judas draws out the soul in her, an element of her she never thought twice about bringing into existence.

  But that life, before Judas, is not the same life as now. Neither is she the same person. She is stronger, more capable, she doesn'
t hide behind her shyness, and she is no longer handcuffed to the shame her secrets from the past caused her for so many years.

  Judas keeps on riding until they reach the edge of the south coast. Helping her off the bike they walk, hand in hand, and amble up the mountain path.

  “Where are we going?” she asks.

  “Tate told me about this place. Babe, you’re gonna love it.”

  An unusual humming sound vibrates in the air. It sounds like a swarm of bees. Then the buzzing transfers to the rock beneath her feet. It travels through her body and she feels a tingle run up to her fingertips. When they round the corner, the source of the sound reveals itself. The view takes her breath away.

  “Judas… it’s beautiful.”

  He doesn’t take his eyes away from her when he replies, “It is.”

  It's an enchanting waterfall and at this distance, it looks like silver tear-tracks on the wrinkled face of the mountain. The Sun is only just setting and she can see the waterfall plunging into the depths of a paradise blue pool. As they begin to get closer, it growls and rumbles, its pounding strength reminding her of the man by her side.

  "Are we going in?" she asks.

  He just nods his reply with a cocky smile as he takes his boots and socks off. She steps out of her heels and begins to pull down her straps but Judas stops her. "No. That dress isn’t coming off. It's my right as champion to fuck the most beautiful woman in the world in the most beautiful dress—in paradise."

  God, this man is too much. It really turns her on when he takes charge of her, displaying his masculinity, his pure animal side. Her pulse leaps as something powerful sparks in his eyes and it rushes through her body like lightning.

  Judas takes off his leather jacket but keeps his white collared shirt and jeans on as they enter the pool and head toward the waterfall that foams into lather at the base. Placing his hands on a large rock behind the cataract, he leaps up before picking Belle up from the waist, bringing her to his side.