by Keri Lake
My hands flew to his arm to break his unyielding grasp, my cheeks still hot with annoyance and embarrassment. Fear whirled inside my chest, shooting icy signals to my muscles and paralyzing them. Surely, he must’ve felt my panic pulsing against his hand. “I’m tired of your games. Let me go!”
“I’m not looking for your fucking sympathy. I’m not looking for another fucking therapist. And I’m sure as hell not looking for a fucking friend.”
The angry curve of his lips begged me bite them, to suck them into my mouth and kiss him until his rage throbbed inside of me, tearing through my body in a blaze of heat. The air between us thickened with tension and something else—some kind of electric energy. A magnetic pull that wouldn’t let me walk away from him if I’d tried.
I hated the way I wanted him. I was sick for craving the fire in my belly, the thrill of pissing him off just so I could touch the scalding flame inside, like a child reaching out for a hot stove. “Then, what do you want? A one-night stand? A quick fuck, and then you’ll discard me and move on to the next girl?”
“What are you looking for, Sera? A man to come save you from your father?” He ran his thumb over the racing pulse in my throat, his lips set to a mirthless smile. “To sweep you up into a perfect little house, with a picket fence and a nice fake life?”
“Fuck you, Ty. Fuck. You.” I spat out, and hiked my knee to kick him in the nuts.
With a jerk of his hip, he blocked my assault and pressed harder into my neck. “Is that what you need?” His hot breath scattered across my jawline as he nudged his way toward my ear, and goddamn it, it felt good, the heat across my skin. “Do you need to be fucked?”
“No,” I lied, the quiver in my voice giving me away. “I need you to let me go.”
“I’ll let you in on a secret, Sera. I’m the reason you carry around pepper spray and wear your keys between your knuckles. I’m the reason you twirl your hair when you’re nervous. Why you lock the doors when you’re alone. So, you tell me, why does a smart girl like yourself continue to go against your instincts? You so willingly accept my invitations every fucking time, like you want to be hurt.” Eyes rapt on my mouth, perhaps waiting for my response, he slid his thumb across my jaw and over my bottom lip. “Why do you make it so easy for me?”
For the first time, I’d begun to see what lay beneath all the charm. A dark and bitter poison looking to taint my blood. Some might’ve called it a sickness in him, but all I could see was pain. A vicious heart that craved destruction.
“You want to hurt me? Go ahead. Because I’m not afraid of you. I’m somehow drawn to men like you. I used to think it was a curse, but I’ve come to realize, it’s a disease.” A bitter laugh escaped me in all my frustration. “I’m sick. I feed off this shit, Ty. That’s the only explanation I can come up with.” I breathed hard through my nose, keeping my stare locked on his in challenge. “Every time I get hurt, I get stronger, more resistant. More fearless. And I can promise you, no man will ever leave his mark on me again. So do your worst.”
His gaze fell to my scar and back. The grip of his fingers loosened against my throat. “Who did this to you?”
“What do you care? What do you get out of it, huh? Amusement?”
His eyes screwed shut. “Tell me.”
The anger stirred in my stomach. “Skiing accident.”
“Bullshit. Tell me what happened.”
I tilted my head, pushing the scar into his face. “This is what happens when you’re the daughter of a ruthless son of a bitch.”
“Your father did this?”
“No. Someone made the tragic mistake of thinking there was a single man in this world who gave a shit about me. Happy now? I’ve bared another piece of my soul, and you’ve given me nothing.”
“You want to know what my soul looks like? You want a glimpse of the real me? C’mon. I’ll show you.” He tugged my arm, dragging me behind him down the stairs, until he came to a stop at a door on the landing. He stuffed his hand into his pocket, never relenting his grip of my wrist, and shoved a key into the lock.
The door clicked open onto a dark and mostly empty room.
I stepped inside, struck by the cold air that nearly stole my breath. Moonlight shone in on the small apartment, where only a mattress lay on the floor, the wrinkled sheets strewn atop of it. A chair set off to the side held a hard hat and a pair of jeans draped across the arm. To the right, a door sat opened, onto what I assumed was a small bathroom.
A crunch beneath my shoe pulled my attention to the floor, where small glistening specks of glass lay scattered about a smashed bottle of whiskey.
“This is where you live.” I turned to see him leaning against the doorframe with his arms crossed.
He pushed off, stepped past me, into the room, and spun around to face me, arms outstretched. “Home sweet home.”
The place stood nearly vacant and dark, nothing but a cold, hollow room where he slept.
“It looks temporary.”
“It is temporary. Everything is temporary, Sera. Homes. Life. Love. What’s the point of getting attached to anything, if it all ends the same?”
“Because that’s the beauty of life. It doesn’t all end the same. And even if it’s all temporary, it’s worth it.” I thought about the short time with my mother, how I wouldn’t have traded a second of it for anything else in the world. “Love is always worth it.”
“The pain is worth it to you? The struggle to wake up every morning and breathe, after you lost everything that ever mattered to you. That’s worth it?”
A shield of tears blurred him to an indistinct figure. “Every second.”
“So, if I fucked you tonight and walked away tomorrow. Would I be worth it? Would that be worth it to you?”
“Yes.”
His lip curled, as if my response had repulsed him, and for one brief moment, I felt like a whore for my honesty.
In the next breath, he strode toward me, scooping me up into his arms. I let my bag fall to the floor, as he carried me across the room to his bed. The repugnance from before still clung to his face, the veins in his neck pulsing an angry beat as his jaw ticced.
The soft mattress caught my fall, as he threw me down and unbuttoned his shirt. What little I could see in the gap showed a slim but athletic build. Not too bulky, but tight and carved with solid muscle. “We’ll see, Sera. I’ll make you regret every minute you ever spent with me.”
As he tore away my shoes and yanked my pants down, I wondered for a moment, if I should stop him. If I could stop him. Would he rape me? Hurt me? The unknowns swirled in my head, while I remained silent, allowing him rip away the outer layers from my body, tossing them to the floor, until I lay completely bare in front of him.
Exposed.
His brows tightly knitted to a frown, Ty fell to his knees, the thud of his weight hitting the floor startling my muscles.
I waited for it. The harsh slap. His rough hands. I waited to be torn apart by him. I craved it, even.
My heart thrummed with excitement and fear at the same time. In the seconds that passed, I accepted the shredded mess I’d be afterward, because I’d meant what I’d said—I’d rather have one moment with him than not at all. Even if it wasn’t beautiful and perfect. I’d take the ugly and messy just to feel it. To feel everything.
Lifting my head from the bed, I stared down at where he remained knelt at the foot of the bed, head bowed, as if in prayer. “Ty?”
“I didn’t think you’d be so fucking perfect. Christ, I don’t even want to touch you right now.”
“Why?”
Eyes brimming with conflict and torment, he shook his head. “My hands are dirty. Too dirty for you.” Rubbing his hands together, he looked up at me, and the shame in his eyes reminded me of a sad little boy. Perhaps a glimpse of the real Ty under all that hard steel he wore. “These hands have hurt others.”
I sat up on the bed and slid to the edge. I’d dealt with sadists, rough men, and though I’d classify myself more
of an emotional than physical masochist, I didn’t fear the things in which some found pleasure. Gripping his nape, I tugged him into me, tipping my head to guide his eyes to mine. “I want you to touch me. You won’t hurt me, Ty.” Snaking my hands inside his shirt, I slid the garment off his shoulders, and frowned at the white marks that pocked his skin, the scars across his body.
His throat bobbed with a swallow, as I examined the destruction scattered over his skin. “Now you see the real me.”
“How did you get these scars?” I hated the question, the same one I’d been asked for so many years, but it was different with Ty. The sight of his mutilation pissed me off, that someone in his life had hurt him that way. Surely not his father.
“Lot of ‘em I did myself.”
My heart burned with an ache, as my eyes scanned over his skin. The circles that looked as if they’d been put there with a cigarette. Cuts and small pinpricks like stabs. “Why would you do this?” I tried not to let the sorrow touch my voice. As if it were my skin he’d scarred.
“Some things I can’t tell you.” His jaw clenched with the flattening of his lips. “Things you’d hate me for. Things I hate myself for.”
Cradling his face, I looked into his eyes, soaking in the pain, wishing I could purge it from his body. “Whenever you’re ready. Doesn’t have to be tonight.” I slanted my lips over his, parting them with my tongue, and felt his hands slide up to my arms, to my neck, tangling in my hair.
He took control of the kiss in fervent, greedy lashes of his tongue. Angry and needy, but I didn’t care.
I let him kiss me that way.
A sting hit the back of my head, as he tipped my head back, exposing my throat to him. “You’re the knife in my skin tonight. The temporary pain that’ll make me forget everything else. I’m going to fuck you, Sera. I’m going to fuck you so hard that every time I think back to this night, I’ll feel the pain over and over like a scar across my memories. I’m going to have you in every way, against every wall, so that I can’t even breathe in this place without inhaling you. Until I’m suffocating in you. And that’s how I’m going to die. Because it’s all temporary. Like a fucking dream that never happened.”
“And I still won’t regret a moment of it.”
“You’ll hate me, though. I can promise you that.” Both hands smoothed up my shins, and I caught the tremble in them, as if it took everything inside of him to maintain his control. “Not even this can redeem me.” He urged me back onto the mattress. His chest rose and fell with his heavy breaths, and as he rubbed his hands across his skull, his expression told me he’d come unhinged. The vault had cracked open, the darkness that seeped out like a black cloud in my lungs.
Pushing against my shins forced my knees apart, and he spread my legs to him, putting me on display, the anticipation creating tight knots in my stomach. He dipped his head, and at the first brush of his tongue across my clit, I arched upward, fisting the sheets at either side of me.
He gathered me beneath him, pinning my thighs with his arms, and another long and lazy lick curled my toes, the urge to slam my knees together had me squirming, grinding my ass into the bed. I pushed the top of his head, as if to shove him away and stop the maddening little tickles of his tongue as they painted my folds, but stalled at his words.
“You taste exactly as I imagined … so sweet.” His gruff voice struck like bullets, stoking the flames he’d already set to my body.
“Please!” I didn’t even know what I begged for. Mercy? An end? Had I become so hungry for climax that I couldn’t bear the wait in between?
He groaned, and the vibration across my skin had me arching again, moaning in agony, as he sucked my flesh into his mouth. Pressure prodded my entrance, and his fingers speared the hole, curving upward in a delicious thrust, just like the night on his bike. In and out, he finger fucked me, while feasting on my clit.
My muscles tightened as my body fought to hold off the intense pressure—the inevitable climax building deep inside my belly.
He lifted his face from between my thighs, mouth glistening, and he stared as if transfixed by what had to be the wettest I’d ever been in my life. I could hear the sloppy gush every time his finger slammed inside of me, and the suction when he pulled out. “Christ, Sera. Do you hear how wet you are? For me?”
The unintelligible sound that flew from my mouth might’ve embarrassed me, if not for the first twinge of orgasm beating at my core.
The moment he removed his fingers, my body damn near bellowed with the missed climax. My hips flew up and swiveled as he flipped me onto my stomach, until my face burrowed into the cotton sheets that smelled like tobacco and spice. I opened my mouth to a scream that didn’t arrive, when he planted his face in my pussy, holding the back of my thighs as if I might try to wriggle away. I jerked forward, as he sucked and tongued, and literally ate me from behind.
Heat balled in my stomach like a meteor waiting to shoot through my body and explode.
It stopped before it could, and Ty held my ass cheeks apart, offering one more lick that extended up to the forbidden place where no man had ever touched me before. The sensation, alongside my humiliation, had me bucking away from him, but he dragged my body backward again.
“Tonight, I’m going to fill every hole with the regret you’ll feel tomorrow, for bringing me to this point.” The rattle of his belt had me craning my neck to see his pants pushed down, his cock sprung free. So perfect and thick, it stood at attention, while he smoothed a condom over it.
His tip prodded my entrance, and I clutched the sheets, waiting for him to slide inside. The pain came slow, delicious and powerful, as he pushed into me, my pussy stretching to accommodate his thickness.
Face planted in the sheets, I expelled a held breath that blasted across my cheeks, and rolled my head as he teased, in and out, in and out, never fully thrusting. I cried out with frustration, sheets crumpled in my fists, and writhed with his torment.
“You feel that? The urgency and excitement building inside of you? All that pressure in your muscles and the need to fucking rip something apart? That’s how I feel every time I’m around you. Can’t think straight.” He sank into me again with a shuddered breath. “This was going to happen eventually, Sera.”
I clawed the bed, as each drive of his hips pushed deeper than the last. Stretching me, molding me into his sex-crazed little nymph, craving the moment he’d fill me completely, bringing tears to my eyes. The guttural sounds he made from behind only fueled my need, and my heart pounded as the chuffs and moans of a desperate man goaded my surrender. They entranced me, and all I could think about, all I wanted, was to be consumed by his raw, sexual power. Like a frail kitten lusting after a starving lion. Even as ridiculous as that’d make me, an average girl pining after someone as wild and crazy as Ty, as ruthless as the jungle’s apex predator, I didn’t care. I wanted to be ripped apart, and to feel the damage as deep as my bones.
“I can stop. You can go home right now, and you never have to feel me inside you again. You can fuck someone else. Someone who won’t ruin you like I will.” He was taunting me, maybe even hoping I’d say yes.
“No,” I gritted out. “I want you.”
His fingers curled into my flesh, digging into me, and he gave one hard thrust, the pain as wicked as if he’d torn me in half.
He upped the pace, beating into me with a punishing cadence. Until it no longer hurt, and every slide begged for more.
Harder. Faster.
“More,” I croaked.
His arm banded around my stomach, lifting me higher, his thrusts going deeper, so deep I swore he’d split me in half.
“Oh, God, Ty!”
My lips parted with the orgasm building low in my belly.
Faster and faster. Harder and harder. The tingles zipped along my spine, and shot up across my back, out to my limbs, until they exploded at the back of my head. I cried out as he continued his relentless assault, seeking out his own climax as his hips jackhammered int
o me.
The pounding from behind came to an abrupt halt and he withdrew, but the skin-smacking sound told me he kept the momentum going on his own. I twisted to see the spent condom lying on the floor beside the bed, while he stood there, pumping his shaft.
He groaned and grunted, until hot spurts of seed hit my skin, pooling in the small of my back. Leaning over my hip until his forehead pressed against my neck, he smoothed his hand over the fluids, spreading his release all over me. “Every minute of this is a piece of my destruction.” His ragged voice sent a shiver down my spine. “You’re going to destroy me, angel.”
Without warning, his arms wrapped beneath me, and he flipped me up into his arms and carried me across the room. After kicking the bathroom door wider, he flicked on the lights to a small bathroom—simple, but clean—with a boxy shower stall, beside which he set me down. He cranked on the water, letting the steam roll over the top of it, and stepped inside, pulling me in with him. Once again, he lifted me, as if he couldn’t bear the thought of not having me in his arms for even one second, and held me with my back to the warm sprays, washing away his release there. Face resting in the crook of my neck, he breathed slow and easy, his fingers nearly bruising me as he tightened his grip.
“Tell me you hate me. Tell me what a bastard I am for using you this way.”
I wrapped my arms around him tighter, pressing my cheek to his, my mouth at his ear. “I don’t hate you.”
He let out a harsh breath and lifted his head, his eyes flaming and intense, deep pools of violence drawing me in. “Well, I hate you, Sera. I fucking hate you for these things you do to me. I hate that I want you again, after I’ve already had a taste. But what I fucking hate most is that I’ll want you tomorrow, too.”
I opened my mouth to volley another argument, but he pressed his lips to mine in a wet, reverent kiss.
My body slid down his, my bones soft and weak, and I held his biceps for balance. “Turn around, Ty. I want to wash you,” I whispered against his lips.
His tongue flicked out, stealing one more kiss, before he did as I asked.