He's a Brute (Tough Love Book 1)

by Chloe Liese

  “Yes, I am, but Elodie, it’s a disaster waiting to happen if I go down this road again.”

  She leaned closer. “That’s not true. Not to mention, what if this is the only road that you can ever be on, Nairne? What if this is how you are, and denying yourself that means all that’s left is no road at all? You really want that?”

  He’d given me that list, and then the bastard had asked me if I was wet. And I had been. I hated what he’d made me see. My old self, the idiotic girl who’d played with fire and gotten burned.

  I’d come home from dinner after looking at that list, throbbing, and tried not to touch myself as I sat in the shower, wondering how the fuck we’d ended up where we had, Zed and me. My clit had had a pulse and I’d tried to ignore it. But as my body relaxed, one hand had slid between my thighs, the other pinched my nipple until I shook with orgasm. That edge of pain and pleasure had always heightened my release.

  Back then, I hadn’t known the labels and lifestyles out there. I’d known what I liked, and I’d found and taken it. And then I’d paid for it. But now, Zed was asking me to embrace an identity. Nairne, the masochist.

  I couldn’t stomach it, that I even liked his domineering side. I liked when he came with an agenda. Invited me to answer yes or no, not generate ideas. My mind was crammed with plans and pivot tables and pages of research notes already. When he chose the diner and ordered burgers, I liked it, because I didn’t give a shit. Explaining that made me sound apathetic to some, depressed to others. But to Zed, it made sense.

  Not that I fucking cared what other people thought. I cared about what they did with that information. How they could use it against me. How that weakened and exposed me.

  “Nairne?”

  I refocused on the screen. “What?”

  Elodie’s nose scrunched. “You were rambling.”

  “I said all that out loud?”

  She nodded thoughtfully. “You need to separate what happened when we were younger from what you’re contemplating as an adult. So, let’s try this. Tell me what your ideal relationship is.”

  “Not having one.”

  She sighed. “Seriously? You don’t want a man to curl around you at night? To talk over life’s questions and make important decisions together? To cook you eggs and toast, to make you come and kiss you like you’re the center of his world? Who cares for and protects you? None of that appeals?”

  I groaned and scrubbed my face. “I’d rather do it myself. I can protect myself fine, meet my needs, and have none of the risk that will come with being in a relationship like that.”

  Elodie squinted, tilted her head. “I don’t think you can go the rest of your life playing it safe, Nairne. It’s not who you are. Zed sees that and you don’t like it. Give yourself some time to acclimate to it, ma belle.” She sighed once more. “Hopefully, you won’t lose him before you do.”

  It was straight out of the Sopranos, but creepier because it felt too real. For once, being alone, parking, and taking as much time as it did for me to assemble my wheelchair, transferring, and moving down the empty sidewalk, had me feeling small and exposed. Like the shell-less crabs I’d chased as a child along the sand, as they skittered feverishly toward shelter.

  The internet had told me his birthday. December 2. The air was frosty, and my breath puffed ahead of me in billows of steam. Teo must have lifted my number from Zed because he’d texted me to tell me where they’d be. A restaurant in the North End, Boston’s Little Italy. Lupo’s. I stopped in front of the façade. Old brick. Black awnings. Twinkling lights strung about. An ornate and rather beastly logo of a wolf encircled in a sphere of blood red.

  “Si dice sempre il lupo più grande che non è.”

  I jumped in my seat and glanced over my shoulder.

  Teo smiled and flicked what smelled like a blunt to the curb. “It’s an old saying. Means a little lie makes the story better.”

  I swallowed and took in the place again. Heard laughter and that ubiquitous Italian guitar music. “True enough. We have similar expressions in Scotland.”

  “I’m surprised you came. Zed won’t talk about you. He exercises compulsively and sulks like a cranky old man at Sunday dinner. Which meant, I deduced, that you two were still on the outs.”

  My hands went along my push-rims. Forty-five degrees right, back to zero. Forty-five degrees left, back once more. “I owe him an apology.”

  “Why?”

  “That’s between us.”

  Teo smiled, shoved his hands in his jeans, and shook his head. “Not how our family works. If you hurt him, you’re answerable to me.”

  “Well, I don’t know what to tell you, Teo. He tried to talk to me about the…lifestyle, and I lost it on him.”

  Teo frowned, crossed his arms. “He told you?”

  I scrunched my nose. “Why wouldn’t he tell me?”

  His laugh echoed in the empty night, and when his chin dropped, his eyes were hard. “He barely talks to anyone about it. A few friends and I know. No one else but for the partners he trusts. Thing is, he hasn’t touched them since you. And before them, he didn’t mix public dates and his private life. You’re his first.”

  “First what?”

  The door burst open and Zed came out, cigar in hand, tumbler in the other. Black suit. White button up. His hair was disheveled, a sexy mess of curls and waves, and his shirt was unbuttoned three. Olive skin. A dusting of dark hair. The curve and shadows of his pecs. He stumbled a little and frowned at me.

  “Ah, Jesus. Not you.”

  He sounded drunk. A woman came outside and wrapped her arms around his waist. Patted his flat stomach with beautiful hands and fire-red nails. Bile crawled up my throat and my fingers itched. She was stunning. Sophia Loren in midlife. Big brown eyes, dramatic black liner. Flawless golden skin. Tits to her chin, sinful hourglass body, and four-inch red stilettos. I hated her. Because she touched him. Because he leaned on her and he was vulnerable in her arms.

  “Nella, why don’t you go back in?” Teo was staring at me curiously. “I’ve got him.”

  Zed stepped forward and walked slowly. Ashed the cigar onto the pavement, then took a deep hit while he stared at me. The ember glowed and lit his eyes. There were deep purple circles beneath them, and their normal sunlight glint was missing. He looked even more like shit than the last time I’d seen him, at our previous board meeting. He’d kept his gaze from me at both meetings. Answered brisk, and matter-of-factly. I’d felt my insides curdle and ache, and known then I couldn’t do this, keep myself from him. Losing his eyes had been like losing the sun.

  “What are you doing here?” His voice was flat, hoarse from smoking the foul-smelling cigar.

  I shifted in my seat. The woman—Nella—was glaring at me, hands on her hips. “Questa è la puttana?”

  “Nella.” Zed bit her name into the air.

  She spat on the ground, threw open the door, and turned into the restaurant.

  “I’ll be right inside,” Teo said.

  Zed and I stared at each other.

  I broke the silence. “Zed—”

  “Answer me.” He stepped closer, drank deeply from his glass, and held it loosely in his fingertips. “Tell me why you’re here.”

  “I came to say I’m sorry. I was hasty. It was…a lot to take in, and I lost my temper.”

  He sniffed and finished his drink. Sucked deeply from the cigar again. Didn’t say a damn word.

  Two weeks I’d spent searching myself, trying to come up with a justification for my resistance to him. Other than irrational fear given the Dark Days, and prejudice toward a kind of sexuality I had to admit to myself I desperately wanted, I had no fucking reason. Zed was right. It was consensual. He respected me. I respected him. We’d be brilliant together. And for bloody once since my life had fallen apart in Europe, I felt safe to loosen up and be happy again.

  I rolled until my feet hit his shins. Stared up at him because he was someone worth craning my neck for. “I didn’t mean what I said, t
o judge you like I did. You…intimidated me. Confused me. I felt conflicted, even though you’re right about me. I didn’t like that.”

  He stared at me, still smoking. But he still said nothing, so I pressed on.

  “I came because I owed you an apology, and I felt you deserved it in person. I’m…my life is on the move, as you know, and I’m in a poor position to offer myself to someone who’s firmly rooted in one place. But I wanted to say that if you want me, while I’m here…I’m yours.”

  His fingers tightened around the empty glass, but it was his only tell. Face unreadable. Body still. He was a model in restraint.

  “It’s tempting.”

  But. That was the word that hung silently between us. But I wasn’t worth it. Wasn’t worth the headache. The fight. I’d pushed him away. Hurt him too much. I didn’t blame him. “I understand. I’ll go.” I turned and moved down the sidewalk.

  “Nairne,” he called.

  I glanced over my shoulder.

  “If you do this, you’re mine. I won’t battle you about it any further, and I won’t share you.”

  I smiled and shrugged. “Doesn’t sound so bad.”

  He grinned and hid it behind the cigar. “My place, tomorrow. Be there by noon.”

  I nodded and turned to go.

  “Oh, and innamorata?” He exhaled a wide ring of smoke into the air. “Don’t bother packing any panties. You won’t need them.”

  Twenty

  Zed

  She showed up wearing head to toe black, and a bare face that had my cock aching the moment she smirked and rolled over my toe in her signature greeting.

  “Your place is really lovely.”

  “Thanks. Please, get comfortable. Something to drink?”

  She waved off the offer, staring at the painting of Mom. “Thank you, no. Zed, who did this?”

  I walked a few feet to her right, sidestepping both her and a direct answer. “It’s my mother.”

  “I know that.”

  I balked. “How?”

  She smiled, gaze still trained on the painting. “You have her eyes. The first thing I noticed about her, too. She was beautiful.”

  I shook my head. The day of the board meeting, Nairne had thrown it in my face that she’d been chosen unanimously. I’d reasoned Mom had to have signed off on her, at least on paper. “You talk like you met her.”

  “I did. She came in for my final interview. You were traveling for a game, and she sat in your place, made the executive decision.”

  “What?” My voice was strained. I couldn’t process the idea that my mom had met Nairne. Looked at her. Approved. It was another intersection of too many internal roads.

  Nairne finally turned and looked at me. “She was a lovely woman. I liked her. She told some joke that made me feel at ease. Said my wheels were fancier than hers.”

  Mom had been weak at the end. She didn’t walk the last month of her life.

  “What did she say to you?” I wanted every moment. Every word she said. Memories slid through my sieve of a mind like fine sand. I hated how much I’d lost already.

  Nairne smiled at the painting again. “She said patience was required for the position. Compassion for those whose life had charted a different course than mine. If I was willing to learn as I went, open my heart…” Nairne cleared her throat. “Your world will never be the same. That’s what she said.”

  Mom had been intense about her intuition. Believed she had the Sight—a sense of what was to come, an ability to see deep into others. She said she’d been shown her death when she was thirteen, known her name meant sorrow for a reason. I hated it. I hated it when she’d been proven right.

  “Since I met you,” Nairne said, “sometimes I’ve wondered if she wasn’t just talking about the board.”

  I tugged my hair. “Yeah, she tended to have that effect on people. She liked to stir up unease and leave you with more questions than when you started.”

  Nairne nodded. “Who painted her? It’s rendered…brilliantly.”

  My hand slid over my mouth, scraped against my scruff. “Me.”

  She did a double take at me. “Sweet lord, man. Oil painting Zed, really?”

  I nodded toward the charcoals. “I like to sketch, too, but yeah, oils mostly.”

  Nairne snorted. “Right. Well, I’m duly impressed. And I feel like a roaster.”

  “A what?”

  “A roaster. Means I made an arse of myself. I just…I feel poorly, for my words to you still. People are more complicated than I like them to be, and what I said—”

  “Nairne.” I sank down to a crouch and ran my hand up her thigh. Touching her was taking a hit of my favorite drug. “I get it. I was asking you not just to accept me, but also to accept what you recognized in yourself.”

  “Yes,” she muttered. “So, here I am, a masochist at your pleasure.” Her hands went through my hair as her eyes went from emerald to dark evergreen. “Am I allowed to kiss you?”

  I smiled, pressed my lips to the pulse in her wrist. “That you are.”

  She tasted like cool water and mint toothpaste. Her tongue and her mouth were endlessly fascinating to me. I took over the kiss, fisted her hair, pulled her close. Her arms wrapped around my neck and she hummed against my teeth.

  I broke away, breathing unsteadily, and set my forehead against hers. “There’s a room past the kitchen. Use the restroom if you have to first, then strip to nothing and lie on the bed, however is comfortable for you. I’ll give you twenty minutes.”

  “Twenty?” She looked at me uneasily.

  “Something unclear about the number?”

  She shrugged and bit her lip. “Seems like a while.”

  Anticipation turned her crank. I had to start with what I already knew, then learn her as we went.

  “Yep.” I kissed her on the corner of her mouth and stood. “See you then.”

  I took twenty-five because I was a bastard, and because I could. I wanted that cunt throbbing for me. I wanted her so wet, the sheets were damp. I closed the door behind me, mildly surprised she’d done as I asked.

  The space looked like a sunroom. Thick glass insulated the room with floor to ceiling windows that overlooked the river. In the warm months, people sailed in their boats, ran along the trail. But in the colder season, there was just a spare hardcore cyclist here and there, flying past despite the frigid temps.

  I kept the temperature at eighty degrees, since if you were in this room, you were naked. The glass was treated, so no one could see in. I had a little exhibitionist streak in me that didn’t jibe with my inability to share. No one saw what was mine, but playing the fantasy was a powerful indulgence. She lay there on her side, legs bent, with a pillow between her knees. Her legs were thin but still muscular. She likely had to work her ass off in PT to keep that much tone. I knew enough about the injury from growing up a neurosurgeon’s son to understand that with paralysis, muscle atrophy was inevitable.

  Her hair was dark auburn against the white sheets, and her ivory skin glowed in the filtered light that spilled in. My cock already pressed against my jeans. I had to get my shit together. Be in control. One step at a time.

  “I’ve been trying to figure out how you treat the glass, keep it so light yet opaque from the outside.”

  I rolled my eyes. Of course, she was weighing the chemistry involved. And she’d known I wouldn’t leave her for prying eyes to consume. I was too possessive.

  Her eyes slid to me and she smiled. I had a nice view of her cunt and it was fucking gorgeous. Pink and smooth and swollen. Definitely aroused. She liked this waiting. The peace and quiet of the room. Her breasts rested softly to her side and I had plans for those full tits.

  “You know your word.”

  “Yes. Gadzooks.”

  We both smiled and I shook my head. “That one. That’s your safe word. You say that, I stop immediately. As we go, I’ll ask you questions. Questions you should be able to answer—your birthday, your name, the color of the sky. That’
s my way of checking in without breaking the moment. If you don’t answer soon enough or I’m concerned with how you sound, I’ll slow down or stop.”

  She nodded slowly, shifted to her back, and I had to bite my cheek. Her knees fell apart as she lay totally open for me—wet sex and waves of mahogany hair against white pillows. Rosy nipples and flushed skin. Her chest rose unevenly, and she licked her lips. “I understand.”

  I sat on the side of the bed, drifted my fingers down her belly.

  She shuddered.

  “What positions hurt your back?”

  She turned to face me. “Flat like this is a wee bit uncomfortable. It’s better when I’m elevated. On my side feels good. On my stomach. Bending over, though I just need to go slowly, give my muscles time to stretch.”

  I nodded as my fingers slid down to her slit and traced her entrance. Wet. Warm. Fucking perfect. “Okay. Turn on your stomach.”

  She did, hooking an arm under her knee to rotate her leg, and shifting until she looked like a starfish. My hand drifted across her gorgeous little ass. Another part of her that was smaller than it would have been before the injury, but still beautiful. Soft yet firm. “What do you feel?”

  She shifted. “It’s uneven. You can be rough. It won’t hurt more than it would anyone else. May feel odd until I get used to it. Just not my scar. That’s a bed of raw nerves.”

  I stared at the line that went from her lower back to tailbone. Traced my fingers around it, giving the raised white skin a wide berth. “How’s that?”

  I’d read a little. That point of injury with SCI could turn erogenous. It was worth exploring at least. The back was a significant part of play, chock full of nerves that could convey loads of heady pain and pleasure. I didn’t want to rule it out until I had to.

  “Um.” She squirmed a little, shifted her head. “Weird. Kind of good.” I trailed a little closer and she groaned. “Intense.” She sighed. “But good. Really good.”

  That was enough. I swatted her bum softly and kissed where I’d just traced around her scar. She arched into the bed and bit her lip. It was a damn good start.