by Finn, Emilia
“So you’re saying words are important? They mean something?”
His lips quirk up into a grin. “Wars have been fought because of words, Abigail. Didn’t you know that?”
I’m not the kind of woman who sleeps around with men. Or at all. I’m not even the girl who goes from man to man and kisses them. I’ve lived a life inside a bubble, shielded from so much, and if you’d told me I would be naked in front of Spencer Serrano tonight, I would have called you a liar. But here I am, and though my heart wants to give out on me, I still sit with a soaked towel pressed to my torso while I stare into his dark eyes.
“You don’t have to feel vulnerable around me.” I clear my throat. “I’m not important enough for that.”
Feeling brave again, he dips his fingertips into my water and draws patterns into the surface. “I’m not so sure about that. You look tiny and breakable, but for some reason, it matters to me that you don’t think poorly of me. Well…” He chuckles. “I mean, you can think a little poorly of me, like how I swear and stuff. But I don’t like that you ran out tonight. I don’t like that you missed out on that delicious catered meal, or the wedding cake, or the dancing. I don’t like that you left because of me, when all you had to do was slide your ass back into your chair and ignore me all night.”
Can mountains blush? I think maybe they can. He at least comes close to it as he says, “It would have been horrible punishment for me if you’d come back and literally talked to everyone but me. To have you so close, but publicly snubbing me so everyone knew I was a dick; that would have stung.”
“I didn’t want to come back,” I admit on a shaky breath. “Laine knew what we… And all of the people at our table were your friends. They would have teased us, which would have made me cry.” I reach up and swipe moisture from my cheek. “I’m one of those weird, emotional people, so if something is overwhelming, or I’m feeling vulnerable, I cry. I would have cried at that table, in public, which would have been way worse and turned into ugly sobbing, which would have perpetuated the situation until the whole reception stopped, and Jessie would have felt the need to comfort me.”
“She would kick my ass,” he chuckles. “If the wedding reception stopped because I made you ugly cry, and Jess was forced to come over and comfort you, nine months pregnant or not, she’d straight up mop the floor with me. Then everyone at my table would laugh at me because I was crying.”
“I doubt you’ve ever cried.” I wait for his eyes. “Right?”
Smiling, he nods and glances back to the water. My bubbles are receding fast, so now my thigh is visible, and his eyes latch onto a long-ago healed scar. “Right. I don’t remember ever crying in my adult life. I’m more of a swearer. If somebody pisses me off–”
He pauses when I wrinkle my nose.
“If somebody annoys me,” he amends, “I tend to go into fight mode. With my fists, with weapons, and when I’m feeling extra, with my wit and mean words. But I don’t cry.”
“You’re lucky,” I grumble. “It’s horrible being a crier, because it’s not always when I have hurt feelings. Sometimes I cry just because I’m overwhelmed, sometimes I cry when I’m angry. And if I’m angry and ready to fight, but tears come instead of something cool like a well-timed insult, then I look like I lost that bout, even if I didn’t really.”
“Well-timed insult,” he chuckles. “Have you ever zinged someone with something good? And I don’t mean using words like ‘coconuts’ or ‘zoinks’. Calling someone a poo-poo head doesn’t count, either.”
“No.”
I hold my towel tight when his finger reaches out and touches my thigh. “What’s this from?” His eyes move along my side and stop on my arm. “And this one?” My bicep is pressed to my side, which means he must’ve seen that scar another time. “What happened here?”
“I had surgery a long time ago. When I was young.”
“In both places?”
“No. The one on my leg was from falling off my bike when I was ten.”
“And the one on your arm?”
I fix my towel to better cover me up. “Long time ago. What happened here?” I reach out and touch his cheek, and when our eyes meet and his soften, I realize that I’m touching him.
I must be out of my dang mind.
I snatch my hand back and cross it over my stomach. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.” Smiling, he reaches out and breaks my hand away from its iron grip across my torso. Bringing my arm up and separating my fingers, he brings my pointer to his cheek and pauses. “This was from a knife fight.”
“Knife?” I gasp. “Someone had a knife this close to your face?”
He snorts. “They had their knife in my face. Drunk dude got a little mad at me, so he swung out and sliced me open like warm bread. Do you know how much face and head injuries bleed, Abigail?”
When I nod despite his question being rhetorical, he chuckles.
“I swear, blood exploded everywhere. It looked like a massacre. He swiped out so his dirty blade got me in one swoop, then he came back for another, but by then, I’d lifted my arm.” He continues to hold my hand to his face, so the pad of my finger strokes the smooth scar. But he lifts his left arm and shows a scar that runs from one side to the other. “He swung out again, and his blade cut right down to the bone. Through the muscle, through the nerves, right down to nick the bone.”
I’m sure my face turns green, because he stops and grins.
“Sorry. That’s just to say he got me good.”
He releases my hand and reaches down to his ankle. I don’t move away from his face, because I’m intrigued as all get out and don’t want to lose this opportunity to touch him. But when his hand comes back with a heavy knife with a silver and wooden handle, I snap my arm back.
“I got his knife, though. He never cut anybody ever again.”
“You took his knife,” I squeak. “Oh my gosh, you carry the knife that cut your face like it’s a button in your pocket.”
He spins the blade between his hands, studies the handle, and nods. “I took it. And I won’t ever give it back.”
“What…” I draw in a long breath, then let it out on a grunt. “What did you do to make that person so mad?”
“Well…” And there he goes, blushing a little. “Normally, I’d straight up announce my shit, because I’m not ashamed of who I am and I never care what people think of me. But this is you, and we’re back to the fact that I kinda care what you think.”
“I won’t judge you,” I whisper. “My opinion doesn’t matter.”
He tilts his head to the side and studies me. “I took his girl. I was drinking at a bar one night, saw him and her together, and decided I liked what he had, so I invited her somewhere private.”
“You–” My eyes pop wider and wider. “Huh?”
“I fucked someone else’s girl, then I handed her back like she was just on loan.” He grins. “You’re judging me.”
“No! I’m… wow.” I want to be sick. “Yes, okay. I’m judging you.”
He chuckles. “It makes me a little sad that I just put that in your head.”
“Why did you do that with a woman you don’t care about? With a woman you didn’t even know?” I sit a little taller, but drag my towel higher so I remain covered. “Why do you give that away when it should be special between a man and a woman?”
“Sex isn’t something I consider special, Abigail. Not really. It’s just something people do, like exercising together, laughing together, drinking together. It’s a social thing that stopped being special to me after my first time. Wait.” His face pales. “You’re crying?”
“It’s the overwhelmed thing.” I furiously swipe a hand over my eyes. “It’s just… I feel like it should be special. It should be an expression of one’s heart and soul. It should be an ‘I love you’ and a declaration of true feelings.”
“The rest of the world doesn’t think like you.” He snaps the blade closed on his knife and lowers it to the floo
r. Or to his sock. Maybe to his pocket. I don’t know where he puts it, since his lower half is hidden from me, but then his hand comes back up, and his finger twirls my water. “I think it’s beautiful that you think the way you do.”
“You do?”
He lifts a brow as though in confirmation. “I also think it’s naïve and unrealistic. You’ve missed out on a decade of fun because you’re waiting for this mythical creature to come along and make you feel something that isn’t real. There’s no such thing as soulmates, Abigail. There’s no such thing as love at first sight or finding your other half. There’s just two people who make the conscious decision to choose the other person before anything else. Do you honestly think Jess and Kane knew they were it for each other the very second they met?”
I hate the tears that slide over my cheek as my heart crumbles from his callous words.
“Yes.”
His scoff makes me feel like an idiotic child. “Do you think Jay and Soph were just walking down the same street one day, looked at each other, and shouted ‘there you are!’? You don’t think Katrina gave Eric hell for two years straight before she agreed to the first date? And do you think she and Eric didn’t fuck before that first date? They knew the truth.”
“The truth?”
He nods. “Fucking and love are not mutually inclusive. Fucking is something adults do together that feels nice. And if you happen to like each other enough to keep meeting up, then the love might come. But one doesn’t have to happen because the other did.”
“I want to believe they’re one and the same.” My breath hitches, drawing his eyes down to my chest. “I refuse to believe that the right people, if they were destined to be together, wouldn’t feel that thing between them when they meet.”
“I’ve met a lot of women, and I never felt a thing. And I think waiting for that thing that doesn’t exist could become a crutch for you, Priss… an excuse not to dirty yourself up.”
“But that’s just it.” I push damp hair off my face, and bring my towel higher. “You call it dirtying oneself. That’s the problem right there, isn’t it? If there’s love, it shouldn’t be dirty. If it’s dirty, maybe it shouldn’t have happened at all.”
He brushes me off with a scoff. “There is a whole subset of humans who seek out the filth. They pay for it, they crave it, they lust after it. There are Susie-homemakers on every street who have married up and think they’ve found the fairytale, that thing, but five years in, ten years in, Susie wants the filth.” His eyes slowly come up and meet mine. “There are entire industries that feed Susie’s not-so-unique cravings, and Susie funds that industry with her banker husband’s money.” Spence inches closer and digs his hand into my water so his fingertips brush over my thigh. “I haven’t met a single woman who said ‘no’ when I hurt them in bed.”
“Hurt?” My pulse skitters just as surely as I shoot away from his hand. “Hurt? You hurt women?”
“Not in the way you think, and not as an abuse of power. I might be bigger than you, and my hands will hurt you, but you’ll like it. They always do. You look at me right now like I smacked you on the chin. Those are your judgmental eyes, Abigail, but it’s not something you can know unless you’ve experienced it.”
“But why on Earth would someone volunteer to experience it in the first place? What woman wakes up one day and thinks ‘today might be the day I enjoy being hurt’?”
“You’d be surprised.”
With sure hands and zero hesitation, he reaches out and yanks me back to the middle of the bath so water splashes over the side. My towel remains in place, but it rides up higher to show off my thighs. My bubbles are all but gone.
I clamp my legs shut for modesty, but with deft fingers and seemingly no effort on his part, he slides his right hand between them, just like he did in a fancy bathroom just a few hours ago, and when his finger taps my most sensitive flesh, I shoot up with a gasp and send more water splashing over the side.
Hot water plays over my already sore area, made worse when he slides his finger in just like he did earlier. I swear I don’t mean to respond for this man, but I feel the lubrication just as easily as he does, and when he pumps his finger inside, my hiss turns to a groan, my hands holding rather than pushing away.
“Spencer,” I cry out. “No, I can’t–”
“Let me try this.” He leans in close enough that his shirt soaks through and his lips silence mine. His chest presses against mine, his spare hand braces most of his weight so I don’t have to hold him up. Water splashes everywhere, and it takes every remaining brain cell I possess to keep my towel on and my head above water. “Let me show you what you want.”
“No, it’s–” My body stills as his thumb moves over my clitoris and that peeing sensation washes through my body again. Never in my life have I felt the fire in my groin, the tingles in my blood, or the way I allow myself to pee. “Oh my gosh.”
“Mm.” His lips cruise away from mine and over my jaw. His teeth nip at my skin, tiny little bites that make me whimper while his hand works beneath the surface and draws my body more and more taut. “Don’t pre-judge, Abigail. Don’t come to me with preconceived notions, because the only person that’ll miss out is you.” His hand speeds as his lips come to my neck. “And if you miss out, then I miss out. Because I really, really want a piece of you.”
“I’m not a possession for you to collect and tuck away in your– ahh!” I shoot up when his teeth crunch down on my neck so painfully, I swear he breaks skin. But then he does something with his hand. His thumb. His finger. He times it all so it’s like a bomb detonates, and I’m nothing but a slave to the sensations he forces upon my body. “Oh my god, Spencer!” My sob is loud and in his ear, which results in another punishing bite as my release gushes against his hand, and my bottom half spasms in the water. “Oh my– Stop, I can’t–”
“It hurt didn’t it?” He slides his tongue over the place he bit in soothing strokes, then slowly, while my heart thunders in my chest, he pulls back and stares into my eyes. His are almost black, hooded, hungry. “Did I hurt your neck, Priss?”
I’m going to cry again. I think maybe I already am.
I nod.
“And yet you came.” He grabs my jaw and holds my face tight when I try to turn away. “You came when I bit you, and you’re the only person here struggling to accept it. You want to be filthy, Priss. You just won’t admit it.”
“Spencer.” I try to turn away again, if only to reclaim the smallest scrap of dignity. “No. I can’t– That is not how this is supposed to work.”
“Mmm. That’s two now. You’ve come on my hand twice in one night, but how many times have I come because of you?”
Fear skitters through my blood as I pull back. In my mind, it’s like he just demanded I do something for him I have no clue how to do. Like if I said no, he might force me.
I know it’s not true. He scares me half to death, but not because I think he might hurt me… that other way. He bites, but he won’t hit.
“Twice, babe.” My mind races as he flashes a wink, then he leans forward and drops a noisy kiss on my lips before he pulls away and stands.
My vagina throbs ten times more than it did when I first climbed into this tub. It throbs with pain. It throbs with residual pleasure. My brain throbs with confusion, but then he unsnaps his pants and pushes the zipper down.
“I wanted to jerk off a dozen times this week while I thought of you.”
My throat goes desert dry when he pushes his pants down a couple inches.
“I wanted to touch my cock and think of you, but it was so off limits. You were so innocent and untouchable – what, with your church girl clothes and aversion to cussing. I felt like a total pervert when I considered it. But it’s not actually like that, is it?” He pulls his penis out and strokes until my lungs cease to work completely. “You put up this front, Abigail, you pretend that you’re too pure for a mere mortal. But you just came undone for me, and it was because I bit you.”
“Cried out for me.” He strokes himself and continues to drag my eyes down to his hand. His penis is purplish and veined. It looks strong, and several times thicker than his finger. “You can use your words as much as you like. You can claim them to be truth, you can vow that words are all we need. But your body says something else.” He grunts as he pulls, and his strong hips jut forward. “Your body can’t lie to me, Priss. So you can talk shit all you like, you can pretend that it pains you to swear. You can wear your clothes, and play innocent for everyone who ever comes into your store, but you,” he grunts, “will,” he grunts again, “always,” and again, “come apart because of me.” He throws his head back and pants. “You will never, ever escape the truth.” He brings his eyes back down and pins me in place. “And the truth is, you come on my hand every time I touch you. You’re a closet freak begging for someone to dominate her. I found your thing, babe. It’s me. You want me to take control of your pleasure, because then you get to be dirty, but pretend it wasn’t your idea.”
“No, I–” I jump half out of the water when milky white liquid shoots over my towel. Spencer continues to stroke himself, but his eyes are scrunched closed, the muscles in his shoulders and neck bunched and tense. “Oh my gosh.”
“Fuckkkk.” His breath comes fast and fills his chest as his hand stills. I’m too shocked to move, too afraid to remind him I’m here. I don’t want to look into his eyes. I don’t think I can handle knowing what’s going on inside his brain.
Quietly, and without making any splashing sounds, I bring my hand up and cover my mouth. I want to scream. I want to cry. I want to shout. But underneath it all, I want to ask if that really just happened.
And if it did, was he truly thinking of me?
“It was my hand, Priss.” Spencer’s eyes slowly open and come to mine. He tucks himself back into his pants and slowly pulls the zipper up. “My hand, but you’re right here giving me the visual, so we’ll call it almost even. Next time, we’ll use your hand.”
“What– No! We won’t.”
A lazy grin slides over his face as his eyes travel along my body. “Yeah, I think we will. And what’s more, I think you’ll enjoy it.” He steps forward and doesn’t stop again until his knees touch the side of my tub. The water isn’t hot anymore, though I honestly couldn’t say when it turned cold. My bubbles are long gone, and my towel sits askew and shows off a little of my stomach. “You want me. And when I push you down to your knees for me, you’ll weep, but it won’t be because you’re sad. It’ll be because you found your thing. You weren’t holding out for love. You were holding out for a firm hand. For my hand.” He leans forward, but takes no offense when I cringe away. He slides the tip of his finger through a puddle that hasn’t yet soaked into my towel. It’s white and creamy. And I’m not naïve enough to not know what it is.