by Hill, Joey W
The man held a frozen slab of meat against the side of his face, nursing the mother of a swollen eye and nose. The way he protected his side suggested bruised ribs, his reason for taking his time. As he shifted to lean on the door, Ben recognized the semi-hunched walk, the symptom of very sore balls.
“You did this,” he accused Peter.
“No, asshole.” The tenant gave him a grumpy look. “He came by, took a look at me, said he needed to bring someone else by to gawk. Paid me twenty bucks to open the door again. Otherwise I’d have told him to fuck off. I’ve already lost a day’s work this week, and I ain’t no salaried suit. If I don’t show up, I don’t work.”
Ben blinked, looked at Peter again. “You didn’t do this.”
The corner of Peter’s lip curled. “Nope. Wanna guess who did?”
The bear looked between the two of them. “Oh fuck. You two know that crazy bitch?”
“Hey.” Ben took a step forward, but Peter put a light hand on his shoulder. It didn’t stop Ben from saying what was on his mind though. The guy’s hands were the size of tennis rackets. “You popped a woman in the face who weighs less than a buck thirty. Have you lost your mind? You could have just picked her up over your shoulder and tossed her off the property.”
Bear-guy looked at Peter incredulously, as if they were allies, then came back to Ben. “Sorry, is there something you missed about this steak on my face and the ice I’m having to put on my nuts? I could have picked up a porcupine easier than that bitch.”
“You should stop calling her bitch,” Peter said mildly, but with enough steel to warn the guy they weren’t buddies. Even so, Ben knew he was still here to be his leash. It rankled, because he was feeling a little thwarted and conflicted. He remembered overhearing Marcie in the break room, telling Janet she didn’t work out in the usual girl ways. She did MMA and strength training. At the time, he hadn’t given any more thought to that choice, assuming that, like most women, she did it to maintain her toned and entirely hot body, not for functional purposes. He could almost hear her reaction to that.
Once again, sexist pig assumption triumphs over reason and logic.
“Okay, okay.” The security employee held up his hand. “Hell, a little sympathy here. She cracked two of my ribs over a ream of papers.”
“No, because you punched her,” Peter said patiently. “She was defending herself.”
“Fine. Listen, I don’t want any crap for hitting her. Hell, if I brought assault charges, I’d not only lose my credibility, but a judge would look at the two of us and laugh me out of court. It doesn’t change the fact I’ve taken easier beatings when I was a bouncer at a strip bar. Fuck, guys, she was caught red-handed, going through our garbage.”
“If you throw something in a Dumpster in a public alley, there’s no guarantee of privacy,” Ben said automatically.
“Figures that you’re a lawyer.” The guy eyed Ben like he was a cockroach who’d crawled up on his mat. “Is that what this is about? You guys here to bring a suit against me or something?”
“No,” Peter said, deadpan. “My colleague is thinking of hiring her for his own security needs.”
The bear-guy relaxed considerably, grunted. “You’ll have to stand in line. My boss says if she ever wants a job, he’ll pay her twice what he’s paying me.”
* * * * *
Back out on the street, Ben stopped at a lightpost. Peter leaned on the other side of it, pulled out a candy bar and broke it in half, offering. Ben shook his head. He wanted a drink.
“Can’t wait to tell Dana about this,” Peter commented. “She’s been looking for a sparring partner more her size. Maybe I’ll ask that guy, since Marcie may be out of both our leagues.”
“Yeah.” She’d taken on a guy probably three times her size and come out on the winning end. Because she’d been level headed, prepared for what she faced. It was way different when an attack came from a blind spot, from someone she trusted. She’d let him tie her up, beat the living hell out of her, and came back asking for more, because she believed he’d never abuse the faith she put in him. The friendship she believed they’d shared. The fact they were family.
Yeah, she’d been kicking on a door he’d intended to keep shut, a place she had no business being, but for him to blame that on her made him more of a shit than he already knew he was. “I’m fucking going home.”
“No you aren’t.” Peter chewed on nougat and chocolate. “You just think you’ll ditch me if you tell me that.”
“I don’t need a babysitter.”
“It’s girls’ night. Dana’s out late. I’m lonely.”
“Well, as much as I love being your substitute cuddle toy…” Ben drifted off. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. “The girls were all at Cass’.”
“Yeah. They took care of her, man. She’s all right.” Now Peter’s expression changed from that neutral calm into something sharp and way more focused, though he kept his voice mild. “What the hell were you thinking?”
Nothing. He’d stopped thinking, which was why it had happened. If he closed his eyes, he saw her there again. Master L touching her, Frank undressing her. When he’d taken over, ironically he’d still been in control then. The practice of a lifetime had taken him through that session, every move choreographed, monitoring her stress level, her arousal, though something inside had been cold and numb. Then he’d hauled her outside and she’d hit him. That blow, the pain of it, and something had exploded. He’d just reacted, all that shit boiling up and over, all over Marcie.
Moving to the curb, he dropped down on it, to hell with whatever grime his custom tailored slacks were accumulating. “Fuck.”
He was suddenly really tired. Nothing and nobody to be pissed at, other than himself. Nowhere to go. Just an empty place, and an empty hole inside himself.
When his head dropped into his hands, he felt Peter approach. “Don’t fucking touch me.”
That large hand settled on his shoulder, making him scoff. “You think I really deserve to be comforted? I hurt her, Peter. Just like I told that asshole. She weighs half of what I do, and I threw her up against the car like a doll. There’s no coming back from this.”
“Yeah, there is. It’s just a hard road.”
“You know what?” He shoved Peter’s hand away, got back up. “I’m really sick of you all having that fucking tone with me. You don’t know what a hard road is. Not with what you have in your corner. It’s fucking Christmas every fucking day for you.”
What the hell was happening? He was shouting, his voice was hoarse. What had happened to him tonight? He was Ben O’Callahan, a lawyer with K&A, a sexual Dominant who always held control. He always kept his shit together. He was the fucking foam on the latte that rose above all of it. He’d been there for them whenever they needed him, always. He hadn’t let his friends down. But at this moment, he resented the hell out of every one of them.
“I’m going. Get the hell away from me.”
Peter rose as he was walking away. “You know, Jon said something pretty interesting the other day.”
“Doesn’t he always? The guy never shuts up.” Ben came to a halt though, bracing himself against another lightpost, fingers gripping it hard, the peeling paint over the metal.
“Yeah. He said that our women—Savannah, Cass, Rachel, Dana—when we met them, each was in a situation where she really needed someone’s help. Someone strong to stand at her back. I’d say damsel in distress, but the lot of them would tie me down and pour acid on my manly parts.”
Ben lifted his head. Peter met his gaze, those gray eyes as steady as the rock embedded in a cliff face. “Jon said maybe you were different. That maybe Marcie’s supposed to rescue you.”
“Yeah right.” But he couldn’t move, something keeping him rooted to this spot, listening to this bullshit.
Peter took another couple steps forward. “You’ve been alone a long time, Ben. You have us, but it’s not the same. You don’t think we all see it? You’re struggling. You’re going to go of
f somewhere, get drunk tonight. That’s not the answer.”
“When you don’t know the answer, it works as good as anything else. What I do in my personal time is my business.”
“Yeah. That works, if you were just a coworker. But the five of us are a hell of a lot more than that.” Peter closed in another step. “We love you, man. We always have, we always will.”
“Don’t do this.” Ben felt like a vise was closing over his rib cage. Something was going to crack. “I’m not worth loving and you know it.”
A look of pained compassion passed over Peter’s face, but then it was gone and he shrugged. “Well, tonight you’re not. You’re pretty much a piece of shit. But lucky I’ve seen you on better days.”
“That moment at the limo…I wanted to hurt her, Peter. Not like when I have her tied up and want to make her ass red. Not the good kind of hurt.”
“Why did you want to hurt her?”
“Because she makes me want things.” Things he’d taught himself not to want, viciously hammering down any yearning for them, because those things couldn’t be trusted. They didn’t stay, didn’t last, and if he made himself vulnerable to them, they’d become a black hole that would swallow him up.
“Look at her, Peter. She’s young, and perfect…” Unspoiled. She was the face of what love was supposed to be. He knew everything about her, from every letter, from every word she’d spoken, every expression he’d seen cross her face. He didn’t even deserve to be in the same room with her. “What if I had really hurt her?” Ben couldn’t believe it, his voice broke. “I didn’t mean to hurt her, Peter. I really didn’t. Goddamn it, I wish Max had broken my fucking neck.”
He wished he’d died on the streets before he’d ever picked Jonas Kensington’s pockets, anything to avoid the shame of what he’d done tonight, becoming exactly what he’d spent his childhood facing. Ugly faces, screwed up with hatred and anger, hard fists, grasping hands. All of them wanting the same thing. To drag everything down into the muck with them, to confirm that life was a living hell, nothing perfect out there they couldn’t trash and destroy.
There was no such thing as love and compassion, light and hope. Not on the streets. And once the dirt of the streets was ground into his soul by the heels of everyone he’d encountered, by supposed friends and unexpected foes, he was tainted.
Jesus, what the hell was he doing? He walked away, straight into an alley. When he realized he was facing a brick wall, he sat down on a pile of discarded packing pallets. Using the heels of his hands, he rubbed viciously at something that was dust in his eyes, damn it. His hands were shaking. No, he wasn’t going to do this. He wasn’t.
He pushed back the noise, the memories, and when he surfaced, gasping like a swimmer, Peter was sitting next to him. Just a few inches between their hips and shoulders, but not touching.
No. He wasn’t a fucking victim, someone who deserved compassion. He had manhandled a twenty-three-year-old girl, stomped on her spirit with the intent of crushing it. He saw himself shout those unforgivable words at her, saw each one hit her like bullets. Then he’d left her bleeding, all for the crime of believing herself in love with him.
“I don’t want to be around her anymore. She pushes my buttons too hard. What if I hurt her again?”
“Then we kill you, dump you in the swamp and be done with it.” Peter laid a hand on Ben’s shoulder again, though Ben refused to look up from the hole he was staring into the filthy concrete ground. “If you truly believe that’s a risk, you get help. Lance the boil, let the past come out and deal with it. Dana’s counselor is a woman who’s worked with countless vets with PTSD.”
“I’m not—”
“Yeah, you are. You think because it happened when you were a kid on these streets, instead of in a desert a few thousand miles away, that it’s so different?”
Ben swallowed. He really didn’t want to have this conversation. Everything in him was pulling away from it, but something kept him rooted. Marcie’s wounded eyes, the fear he’d put in her eyes. The past two years, the nights when nothing filled the ache except things he knew weren’t the answer, things that merely made the ache worse in the long run.
“Asking for help is the hardest thing for one of those guys to do. How can some fucking shrink sitting in her safe office, piping in Enya music, help you deal with the blood, the screams, the fucking noise in your head? The staring eyes of the dead, of the ones you feel like you let down? Of what you’ve lost? But she can, Ben. Dana used to have nightmares all the time. Now she doesn’t. We all have battlefields we’ve survived, but until we make peace with them, we don’t leave them behind. And your kind of battlefield? It can haunt you forever, keeping you from what you deserve.”
Peter gripped his shoulder hard, drawing his eyes up to his face. “Your parents didn’t abandon you because you weren’t worth loving, Ben. They abandoned you because they were assholes.”
He definitely heard a rib crack from the pressure inside. When Peter sensed it, moving his touch to his nape, rubbing there, Ben swallowed. “Get off me, you homo.”
“Yeah, you know I’ve always wanted to suck your monster dick.”
“Good of you to finally admit it.”
Peter eased up on the touch but stared him down. “If you love her, if you want her, you do whatever you have to do to deserve her. Because she’s gone to an awful lot of trouble to prove she wants your sorry ass. Got it?”
Rising, Ben rubbed a hand over his face. “Don’t know where I am on that. I’ve got to go…to move. Don’t follow me this time. I mean it. I need to work this shit out.”
“If you make me a promise.”
“What, we’re girls now?”
When Peter shifted, blocking his way out of the alley, Ben sighed. Yeah, he could get into a major brawl with him, but he’d have to fight dirty to win, because fighting Peter was like facing a tank. Probably why Matt had sent him, knowing he was the only one Ben couldn’t easily beat up. “What?”
The gray eyes were steady, implacable. “Tell me you’re not going to do anything stupid.”
“I’m not that kind of guy, Peter.”
“Not usually, no. But I’ve seen the look you’ve got in your eyes. A guy so consumed with his demons he’d throw himself on a mine to escape it. Then they send the little polished medal home to the people who love him. You’ve got a lot of people who care about you, Ben. Don’t do that to them. If you don’t trust yourself tonight, then let me shadow you.”
Ben sighed, looked back out in the darkness. “Fine, but keep a distance. I don’t want anyone to think we’re dating.”
“No chance of that. I wouldn’t be caught dead dating an ambulance chaser.”
Yes, these will make your ass bigger. But they will be worth it. Remember, a good friend will always tell you the truth. A great friend will validate your decision when you decide to do something stupid anyway.
Ben’s note on a box of homemade truffles for Marcie’s birthday
Chapter Thirteen
Marcie woke at two a.m. She vaguely remembered being carried up to her bed by Lucas when he’d gotten home and the party had broken up. She’d almost immediately returned to a deep sleep, but it had been short-lived. A bad nightmare had sent her bolting out of the bed and practically into the wall. Cass was in the room with her in a flash, helping to calm her down. She hadn’t had a nightmare in ages, but she guessed it made sense that it had happened tonight. She still hated it, because she didn’t want anything about Ben tainted with that.
Her sister was still there, sleeping next to her, arm around Marcie’s waist. Marcie studied her face, then leaned over, kissed her forehead. “I’m going downstairs to get a snack,” she said.
“Mmph. Need help?”
“No. You go back to Lucas. He misses you. I’m all right now.”
“S’okay.” But Cass slept on. Marcie smiled. Lucas would undoubtedly come find her himself before long. Slipping out of the bed, she pulled on her robe and slippers and shuffled
down the steps, wincing only a little at the shock to her joints.
What surprised her was seeing Savannah asleep on their comfortable wide sofa, a body pillow firmly clasped between arms and legs. An afghan had been laid over her. In sleep, her face was far more relaxed, approachable. Remembering that earlier job offer, Marcie felt a frisson of warmth. She had great friends.
Because she saw Savannah, she was less surprised but not sure how to feel about seeing Matt in the kitchen. His laptop was open at the kitchen table, along with a couple files, but he was heating a kettle of water at the stove, three mugs laid out on the kitchen island.
It was rare she saw him in more casual attire, but it wasn’t an unpleasant experience. The jeans fit well, the dark blue T-shirt stretching over his broad shoulders.
“I thought I heard you up,” he said. “Want some hot chocolate?”
“I didn’t figure you for the hot-chocolate type.”
“One’s for you and one’s for Savannah. The third will be for Talia. She’ll arrive as soon as she smells chocolate, no matter how deep she’s sleeping.”
Marcie chuckled. “You know us pretty well.”
Matt gestured to a stool at the kitchen island for Marcie to make herself comfortable. “How are you doing?”
Marcie shrugged. “I’m fine, Matt. Really. Is Ben okay?”
When he glanced up at her, his brow furrowing, she dropped her attention to one of the mugs, turning it in her hands. “I know you know what happened tonight. I also think… It would help if I understood more.” She remembered again that glimpse of darkness in Ben’s eyes, of a deep well that could swallow a soul whole. “Savannah said you might talk to me.”
“I’m certain she didn’t mean tonight.”
“Well, I’m not doing anything, you’re sort of not doing anything. At the moment.” She knew she was treading on uncertain ground, but that rarely stopped her. She met his dark gaze. “I can research a lot of things, but it’s not the same as getting information right from the mind and perspective of the person who probably knows him best. You.”