Hurt So Good: A Break So Soft Novel

by Black, Stasia

  I let out a low growl and thrust my tongue back in her mouth. I have one hand under her thigh to support her but I drop the other one down as well. This one I reach further around.

  And shove a finger up her ass.

  Her entire body reacts. It’s like I just jabbed her with a cattle prod, she’s so sensitive back there after I reamed her out earlier. Just the thought sends satisfaction rumbling throughout my body and my cock gets stiffer.

  So much for being cured.

  But as deep inside her as I am, I can’t give a fuck.

  So I shove a second finger inside her backside and love how her grasp around my neck tightens. It’s more like she’s holding on for dear life now.

  Like I’m her bouy in a storm—even though I am the storm.

  I lose it. Absolutely fucking lose it.

  I fuck her ruthlessly. And I don’t come quick. I draw it out. Long minutes fucking her up against the door. Five minutes. Ten.

  We’re both sweating. I work out five times a week and still my muscles are straining to the max but I don’t want to stop.

  I want to take Miranda there. To the brink. I want to push her. I want to hurt her. To break and remake her. I want everything she fucking has.

  I take her to the edge of coming and when she’s about to go over, I still all my movements, leaving her frustrated. Over and over and over until she’s crying and begging and exhausted with fucking.

  And then and only then do I give it to both of us

  In one last burst of strength, I pull back and then slam her repeatedly against the door, grinding my hips and swirling to give her the satisfaction she’s been craving.

  She comes with a high-pitched cry, tears streaming down her cheeks as she buries her head against my neck. I pump into her, finally allowing my own release as well.

  I’m all but dizzy as I use the very last of my strength to carry her back to the bedroom and we both collapse exhausted into bed. And I mean fucking exhausted. Worn out, soul spent, exhausted. But it’s a clean tired, which might sound funny, cause that sex was dirty and hot as fucking hell.

  But shit, I can’t even think any more, because I swear Miranda just sucked out my life force through my dick and I crash to the pillow.

  I thought after all that I’d be out like a light.

  And maybe I do fall asleep for a few minutes.

  Miranda is stroking her fingers through my hair. Somehow instead of ending up with her in my arms, I’ve ended up in hers, my head on her ample chest.

  Maybe some part of me is too wary of falling back asleep again, though. What if I have another nightmare? The second the thought passes through my brain, I instantly become more alert.

  I can hear her heartbeat thudding through her chest and it’s so… nice. Peaceful. I’ve never laid like this with a woman before.

  So many firsts with this woman.

  She keeps stroking my hair and I think any second she’ll stop, that she’ll drop off to sleep, but her breathing never slows or evens out.

  I settle in, soothed like a beast by her petting.

  “You’re good at that,” I murmur.

  She laughs and I love the way I can feel it rumbling throughout her body.

  “You have good hair,” she says, grazing her nails gently along my scalp before rubbing circles at my temples with her thumbs.

  We don’t say anything else for long minutes. Her touch is too soothing. It would be too easy to drop back off to sleep and I can’t fucking do that.

  The image of her holding her arm to her chest flashes through my head. Followed by another image—my sister, curled in a ball on her bed. I’m instantly more awake.

  Eventually her hand slows, she finally stops stroking my hair, and I hear her breathing ease.

  But I don’t allow myself to fall back asleep for the rest of the night. I checked the clock beside her bed. She set it for six-thirty. I slip out of her house at six-twenty-five after one last, lingering look at the woman who is far, far too good for me.

  If I were any kind of honorable man, I’d never look back.

  Chapter Eight

  DYLAN

  Three days.

  I make it three whole days without responding to Miranda’s text.

  I can’t imagine what she must have thought, waking up after the night we had and finding herself alone in bed.

  Hopefully she thought he’s an asshole who’s not worth my time.

  Her text came right when her alarm went off and she found me gone.

  It said, simply: Please don’t run.

  Followed a few minutes later by: I could be your safe place.

  That one text gutted me. Because fuck, I know it’s true. I felt it that night. I felt the kind of safety I haven’t since… well I’m not sure I ever felt as safe as I did last night. Certainly not when I was a kid. I could never truly relax in that house. I always had to be on edge for the next time Dad’s voice would be raised or time Mom screamed out in pain. Get the kids out of the house. Don’t let them see. Protect them. Protect—

  And look how well that worked out.

  I’ve been having the nightmare every night since I left Miranda’s. And it’s as vivid as the first time I lived through it all.

  There are the sounds I’ll never forget. Chloe’s screams. My fist banging uselessly at the door.

  Someone was hurting her. Violating her, and I couldn’t get through. Not in time to help her. Not in time to be any good to anybody.

  Of course the terrible, terrible truth was that I was years too late.

  Even though I’m at work and am wide awake, the flashbacks are so real I might as well be reliving them.

  I slammed my shoulder against the door a second time and the door finally gave way. Only to find my sister weeping on the bed, tugging down the skirt of her school uniform as the door to her bathroom shut behind someone exiting out the bedroom.

  “You son of a bitch!” I shouted, sprinting across the room and yanking the door open. The bathroom had two doors because it was shared between bedrooms and I ran for the other one. I’d kill the motherfucker when I caught him. I’d fucking kill h—

  I yanked the door open.

  Only to find my father in his dressing gown, standing with his hands out. “Dylan, now just wait a second. You—”

  “You sick fuck!” I shouted and ran at him.

  My first punch had him on the floor. He’d been a powerful man once but a heart attack last year had left him weakened.

  Not so weak he couldn’t still prey on his own daughter. I was going to throw up. How could—? How long had he—?

  I reared back and punched him again. He shoved at me even as blood spurted from his nose but I didn’t care.

  Chloe. Sweet Chloe. She was the best of us. The only good thing to come out of this house besides Darren.

  “Dylan. Dylan!”

  The shrieks from the other room came through my haze of fury only distantly at first but as soon as they registered, I dropped my father to the ground and stumbled backwards.

  “Chloe?” I turned and ran back through the bathroom to her room.

  She was still where I’d last seen her. On the bed, hunched over, except she’d pulled the blanket around her, only her head peeking out. It was something she used to do as a little girl when there was a thunderstorm.

  Oh God. Oh Jesus. What had he done to her. What had he done?

  “Chloe,” I said, my voice and my heart breaking as I went to her. She flinched back as I got close and I froze.

  Her eyes were red and puffy and she looked at the wall as she said, “Dylan, get me out of this place. No police. No custody bullshit.” Her eyes finally came to mine and they were just… empty. “Get me out of here and don’t tell dad or anyone else where you take me. Anyone. Do you understand me. Not Darren. Not Dad.” She shuddered.

  “Jesus, Chloe, I’d never tell Dad.”

  I took another step toward her and again she flinched. “Just get me out of here,” she said, eyes jumpin
g back toward the wall.

  She couldn’t even look at me.

  She knew.

  She knew I was like him. That even earlier this afternoon, I’d been thinking maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing. Jesus, I needed to throw up. I needed to kill my father.

  But I needed to get her out of this house more.

  I swallowed down the bile creeping up my throat. “Do you want to change or pack a bag?”

  Her eyes darted over to me and then away again. She shook her head. “Just get me out of here.”

  I nodded stiffly, trying for her sake to keep my shit together.

  She got up from the bed, still with the blanket around her. She held it like it was a shield even though both of us knew it had done nothing to protect her that day.

  Just like I hadn’t.

  “Dylan, what the hell, man?”

  I jerk my head up to see Darren standing in the door of my office.

  “You’re the one who called this meeting and you’re standing me up?”

  “Shit.” I look down at the time on my computer and realize it’s ten minutes after two. I push my chair back and hurry to my feet, looking around and trying to grab the appropriate papers. And my laptop. Shit, don’t forget the laptop—

  “Christ, slow down,” Darren laughs, coming in and helping me with the papers. “We’re the CEO and CFO. Believe me. The meeting won’t start without us.”

  I cringe. I hate to be that guy. The boss that demands a standard from everybody else he doesn’t adhere to himself. And I’m pretty big on punctuality.

  I swing my laptop bag over my shoulder.

  “Okay, I’ve got everything. Let’s go.”

  Dare just keeps shaking his head. “Slow down, take a breath. I know all the sudden you’ve decided to start taking a more active role in the company again, but the world won’t stop spinning if Dylan Lennox pauses to take a breath every so often.”

  He claps me on the back and I do what he says, take a big breath in.

  Yes, I do want to be more active again. Of course Darren noticed that I wasn’t living up to my end of the bargain when it’s come to being an equal partner in the company. I’ve walked around Lennex Brothers Corp like a zombie for years. But that’s all changing.

  Ever since meeting Miranda, it’s like I was asleep for a hundred years and I’m just now waking up.

  And it feels fucking terrifying. I’m not used to…feeling this much. To seeing this much.

  For example, Lennox Bros. is about to launch a new robotics board in six months. And we were all set to go.

  But we were going about it all wrong—playing it safe when we needed to be pushing the limits of innovation.

  Hence, the meeting I’d called and am now late for.

  I take the lead out of my office and head down the hallway to the conference room. All the usual suspects are there. Rob, Darren’s right hand man on the business end. Malik from engineering. Kayla from acquisitions. Natalie and several other reps handling the hardware bids. A handful of other people fill out the room. Water bottles are set out at each chair and a coffee tray steams on the back counter.

  I sit at one head of the oval table and Darren takes the other.

  “So,” Darren waves at me as soon as we’re settled. “We’re on pins and needles. What’s the reason for this meeting?”

  Darren kept asking for a heads up to what the meeting was about but I wanted to wait and do it here. I’m not like Darren. I can’t just talk off the cuff. I’m best when I have all my facts together and I’ve thought through the presentation I want to make.

  I take another deep breath like Darren suggested earlier and then begin.

  “Right now the robotics board we’re about to push in six months is using the same kind of processor the last ten boards have used. But Intel-based processors are the past when it comes to robotics. They’re slow and inefficient when it comes to the massive amount of real time data you’re dealing with in robotics.”

  I open up my laptop and go over the statistics from the past few years. It’s all clearer and clearer in my head the more I talk.

  I finally look up at everyone again. “We don’t want to just be another robotics company out there. That was never our goal. Lennox Brothers is about pushing the envelope, being the best robotics company in the Silicon Valley, always on the cutting edge.”

  I pause and look at each person, from face to face. “So I don’t think we have any other choice but to switch to a RISC based processor with our next launch.”

  Talk immediately erupts around the table.

  Kayla speaks up. “But we already have contracts in place with our current suppliers. We can’t just—”

  “We have bids from our current suppliers,” I correct. “I checked and know for a fact that we haven’t committed to anyone for the new line yet.”

  Kayla’s mouth drops open but then she closes it again, looking to Darren. She’s not the only one. About half the table is looking my brother’s way, like they expect him to put a stop to what I’m saying or put me in line.

  I frown. All riiiiiight. Apparently more has slipped in the past few years than I realized. I am still the CEO.

  But Dare has my back, just like always.

  “I’ve been hearing murmurs about the RISC chips here and there,” Darren says.

  “It’s more than murmurs,” I say. “RISC chips reduce consumption and can work up to ten times faster than the old style of processors. Half the community is already convinced RISC chips are the future of robotics, and if we can be on the frontier of integrating—”

  “What about the other half?” Rob cuts in. “Doesn’t that mean that the other half thinks they’re a bad idea? I mean, when did status quo become the bad guy? We did a seven billion dollar quarter last year. We should go with what we know works.” He lets out a huffed laugh. “You don’t gamble when it comes to seven billion dollars.”

  Who the fuck let this guy in here? This is a meeting about the product and he’s some asshole in a suit.

  “Yes,” I say, conscious to stay absolutely calm on the outside. “But the reason we did that seven-billion-dollar quarter is because of our product and brand. Because people know they can trust that Lennox Brothers Robotics are always at the forefront of the state of the art. Our brand is everything. If we lose that confidence by putting out a product they can get anywhere else that’s slower than our competitors, then—"

  “How about this?” Darren interrupts me.

  I glare his way but he puts out a pacifying hand and I can see from his look that he’s pleading for me to hear him out.

  Which is when I remember that yeah, while I’ve been checked out, it’s Dare who’s been steering this ship singlehandedly while I holed away down in in engineering and let the months and years pass me by.

  I nod toward him and take my seat.

  “My brother’s right,” Dare starts and I struggle not to smile at the reactions of the suits to his words. They all look like they’re sucking on lemons.

  “Lennox is all about consumer trust,” Dare says, “and we can’t break that by giving them anything other than the most superior product.”

  “But,” he raises a hand again when it seems like he’s going to get talk back, “we can only guarantee the most superior product if we can build it and get it working flawlessly. All the companies who’ve bid to have their processor used in our robotics board have sent along prototypes. So let’s do extensive testing and let the data speak for itself. Which processor gets the job done best in the fastest time? Let’s find that out, and then make our decisions.”

  And this is why my brother is the face of Lennox Bros. Dare is so damn good with people. I assume that when I produce facts, that logical action will follow. I know the RISC processor will produce the best results without jumping through all the hoops of testing it against the others. But Darren sees what I can’t—that to appease the suits, we’ll need charts and defensible evidence to prove their money will be safe.
r />   The rest of the meeting is logistics, organizing the order of testing the processors and which team leads will head up who, along with making a timeline. We won’t have long, three weeks or a month at most, but that will be pushing it if we want to keep to our current production schedule, six months out.

  Two hours later, the meeting breaks up and Darren shakes everyone’s hand and chats as they all leave. I stay seated, phone in hand. Now that the meeting’s over, I’m back to staring at Miranda’s text.

  I could be your safe place if you’d let me.

  I shake my head and shove my phone in the side of my laptop bag, then I stand up to stretch my legs. Darren turns to me when the last person is finally gone.

  “I could have used a heads up about this one.”

  “I’m sorry. You’re right. I thought it would—” I gesture at the table and shake my head.

  Dare frowns. “What?”

  “Well I thought switching to the RISC chips was such an obvious move, I thought the meeting would just be about how to implement them. I didn’t even think about pushback.”

  Darren busts out laughing at that. He’s still shaking his head when he comes over to me and claps me on the back. “Christ, Dylan. I know you’re my older brother, but I swear sometimes it’s like I’m the one shielding you from the way the world really works. Change freaks people out. You have to go slow and then convince them it was their idea all along.”

  “Jesus, I hate all that politicking bullshit.” I shake my head and take a swig from my water bottle.

  “Which is why you tinker and build the nice machines and I sell them. Now, enough about work. Anything happen with the babe in the red dress?”

  I choke on the water and spit half of it out.

  “Whoa, whoa!” Darren smacks me on the back and I cough until I can finally manage a breath.

  “Christ, that bad?” Darren laughs.

  I shake my head, swiping my mouth on my shirt sleeve. After another few coughs to clear my throat, I look up only to find Darren with an eyebrow raised.