He doesn’t want to tell me. I can see that much. “It depends on if there’s a trial or not.”
This isn’t a trial. It’s just a hearing to figure out if I should be left at the house or removed. Blue probably has a hearing just like this one. Of course Matthew won’t have one, because he’s not a foster kid. He’s one of the actual kids who live at that house.
“There won’t be a trial.” I don’t say it like a question. I may be young, but I know that much. I’m just a stupid little girl from the wrong side of the tracks. A girl whose daddy ended up in jail. A girl whose mother took too many pills and never woke up.
Girls like us, we don’t get trials.
The judge looks down at his papers. He shuffles them around. He doesn’t want to tell me the truth, but he doesn’t want to lie. I appreciate that, at least.
His voice is severe when he repeats, “Hannah, we need to know who hurt you.”
“It was Blue,” I whisper. “Eugene Blue.”
If I say it was Matthew, they’ll remove me from the home. And Blue too. But they won’t be able to prosecute Matthew. He won’t go to jail. He won’t be punished in any way—except by Blue.
He’ll go back and finish the job. It took two of the older boys at the home plus Matthew’s drunk-ass dad to pull Blue off him. And I’m grateful. They’re the only reason Blue isn’t standing trial for murder.
It doesn’t matter that he’s a minor. There’s no way they’d let him off a second time. And if they let us out, Blue will finish the job. He’ll get himself in prison—I know it.
If I say it was Blue, if I say he hurt me, they’ll send him away. Far away. Exactly where he wanted to go.
He won’t be able to come back.
I already know he doesn’t want to.
* * *
The whistle of a belt coming off follows me into Blue’s bedroom. My breath stutters in my chest. I hear the threat of the movement, the speed and power behind it. It’s more than a man getting undressed.
There’s a hundred ways a belt can be used to hurt me. I know them well.
I turn my head to the side, addressing him but showing deference too. It’s an instinct now. It’s survival. “What are you going to do with that?”
“I’d rather show you,” he says, approaching me, prowling around me.
I don’t want him to hit me with that belt. Not because I can’t take the pain. I know I can, because I’ve done it before. I don’t want him to hit me because I might start hating him.
“Wait,” I say.
He doesn’t wait. One hand takes my wrist. Standing behind me, he leans close. “What do you think I’ll do with this? Make your pretty skin all red? Make you cry?”
I tense, twisting my arm. It only hurts me, and I’m still held tight. “Don’t.”
“I’m going to do both of those things before we’re done here, Lola.” He pauses, loosening his grip slightly. “But I’m not going to whip you with this.”
There’s only a second where I can feel relieved before I feel him drawing my other hand behind me. It’s a mistake to relax around him. Whatever I’m thinking, he’s doing something different. However much I brace myself, it’s still going to hurt.
He wraps the soft leather around my wrists, binding them together behind my back. It pushes my breasts out in front of me. Cool air brushes over my skin, tightening my nipples.
There’s weakness in this pose, being held, being open.
And there’s strength too, the pride of being wanted, the power of desire.
“On your knees,” he says so softly I almost don’t hear him.
I don’t know what he’s thinking. Whether he sees me as an object he can use or as an enemy he can conquer. I’m a little off balance, lilting to the side as I sink to the carpet. His hands cup my arms, helping me down, guiding my gently. It feels more like worship than anger, more like kindness than cruelty.
At least until the sharp sound of his zipper rips through the air.
His voice follows. “Candy doesn’t think I’ll hurt you.”
I shiver at the foreboding underneath the words. “Yes.”
He undresses slowly, methodically, exposing rough skin and dark hair and a thick, jutting cock.
I have seen his cock before, but only in the dark, holding it in my fist while I jerked him off, shadows and motion. Now I see the skin like the dark side of a peach, almost the color of a bruise. I see the curve of a vein underneath. I see the head of his cock, fat and proud and already glistening at the tip.
I see everything clearly because the saturated late-afternoon light still streams through his window. Our hours are all backward and twisted. Where another woman would do this at midnight, would expose her shame to the moon, mine comes open at five o’clock.
“She thinks you’re safe with me because I protect the other girls.” He approaches me, his cock near my face, his eyes looking down on me. “I even protect you.”
I choke out the words. “Because only you get to touch me.”
He nods approvingly. Candy doesn’t understand, he means. I understand. He’s showing me that we’re together on this, like some perverted joint mission where I agree to be hurt. And haven’t I? I showed up here of my own free will. Maybe I do want what’s coming to me.
And still, there’s a part of me—a weak, scared little girl curled up on a flea-infested bed from the past—who wants it to stop. Who digs her heels into the train tracks as if that might fortify her, as if that might stop the train that’s speeding closer.
“I never meant to hurt you,” I say because it is the awful, painful truth. Because I failed.
Because I’m weak and scared, and if he knows I never meant to hurt him, maybe he won’t hurt me.
He tastes the words, letting them roll on his tongue. “You never meant to hurt me.”
I’m already on my knees, hands bound behind me. Naked. All I have to protect me is his mercy, but I’m afraid he doesn’t have any where I’m concerned.
I am sure of it when his hand lands in my hair, squeezing tight, pushing my head back. His eyes meet mine, and I see there a dark promise. A quick shake and I’m backed up against the side of the bed, fallen against it and unable to right myself.
“I’m just wondering when exactly that was.” He brushes the head of his cock against my lips. “When you told me you’d be my girl, when you held my hand and smiled at me, was that when you didn’t mean to hurt me?”
It’s a trick question; I know that. It’s designed to tear me apart. I know that too. And still I answer, “Yes.”
When my mouth opens on the word, when my lips are parted, that’s when he shoves his cock inside.
“When you decided to fuck another one of your foster brothers, was that when you thought to yourself, I don’t want to hurt Blue?”
My head shakes no—and I’m not sure what it even means. I wasn’t thinking about him in that moment. I was trying to protect myself, and maybe that’s worse, the selfishness of fighting for me instead of us. Maybe that split second was why I lost him after all.
He pushes his hips forward, and his cock slides over my tongue. It leaves a trail of salt and musk, something to follow him down my throat. He’s full and large. My head jerks back, but he’s got me in his grip. The sharp pain on my scalp brings tears to my eyes. Then I’m being choked, throat fucked, by the man—the boy—I once loved.
“I guess it was later,” he says conversationally, as if his cock isn’t down my throat, as if the flat plane of his abs isn’t bumping my nose with every deep thrust. “When I walked in and found you with your panties down, bent over the bed. That was when you decided you didn’t want to hurt me.”
He’s moving faster now, and it’s affecting his speech, words coming on a punch of breath. It’s a sharp contrast to me, those rapid breaths, because I can’t breathe at all. My arms are aching, twisted back and wrapped in leather and pressed against the wall of metal and mattress. My jaw burns from being stretched open. My throat feels bruis
ed from the invasion, and he only digs deeper.
“And I was worried. That’s the worst part, that I thought he might be hurting you, might be forcing you, because it looked that way. And because I believed you wouldn’t cheat on me.”
He presses in deep, stealing all my air. I can only open my eyes wide and look up at him.
“But it turns out you just like it rough, isn’t that right?”
I’m not looking at him anymore. I’m looking at a kaleidoscope of him, his face in a million shards, swirling sideways through my tears. I never liked it rough, and I never wanted to hurt him. Those things are true, but of course he wouldn’t believe me. Couldn’t believe me, after it all ended.
“I just didn’t give it to you hard enough,” he says, stroking my hair while he leaves his dick pressed deep. “So that’s probably why you decided to tell everyone that was me with you. That’s why you decided to tell everyone that I raped you. So that I’d be sent away without you even having to break up with me. Because you didn’t want to hurt me.”
The lights dim, at least in my mind. I’m a second from passing out when he pulls back. I cough and sputter spit and precum onto his abs. He presses my face against the wetness, against his heat, soothing me as I breathe again.
“Is that right?” he asks softly. “Did I explain it right? Is that why you did it? Is that why you got me sent away from the last fucking foster home I had? Is that why I ended up in a goddamn interrogation room, wondering if I was going to jail for the rest of my miserable fucking life, all because the only person I thought gave a shit about me was a liar? Is that why I spent the next four years in the army, always looking over my shoulder, wondering if your lies were going to finally catch up to me?”
I can’t tell him why I did it. He knows it doesn’t really make sense, but he can chalk it up to my being young and stupid and awful. “Close enough,” I say.
He nods. His voice sounds a little sad when he says, “I thought so.”
His hand clenches tight against my scalp. That’s the only warning I have before he lifts. I stagger to my fight, legs weak and wobbly. With a flick of his wrist, he sends me facedown on the bed.
Then he’s on top of me, body heavy and hot, cock pressed against the soft flesh of my ass.
“Then it’s lucky for you I can be harder now. Rougher now.” His cock pushes inside me, splitting me open. I gasp against the bedspread, and he laughs low. “I had a lot of time in a fucking war zone to think about how I’d fuck you when I got the chance.”
A whimper escapes me as his cock impales me and his weight crushes me. Even my face is pressed to the bed, smothering me, making it hard to breathe. “Blue.”
“I know,” he says, stroking my back. “I know it hurts. I’d tell you to hold on, but I think your hands are tied at the moment.”
The fabric by my face becomes hot, then cold as tears slide down my cheeks. “Blue,” I say on a choked gasp.
He pulls out and shoves back in, and it feels like tearing. It feels like coming apart. “Just hold on to me instead,” he says, and then his hands are holding mine. Even tied up by his belt, even fucked hard, he’s holding my hand, and maybe that’s what hurts worst of all.
I don’t know how long he fucks me. It feels like forever that he’s sawing in and out of me, his hands harsh on my hips, his breath hot on the back of my neck. Long enough that I should burn up from the friction of us, set alight by the strike of his cock, turned to ash where I stand. But I’m not dry, I’m not dust—I’m drenched. Wet from fear, from shame. Is that possible? Our juices trickle down the inside of my thigh. I feel the tickle of it despite the pounding he’s giving me, my skin oversensitized, my body attuned and alert.
He pulls out, and my body doesn’t know what to do. It clenches around nothing—and it hurts. It hurts to tighten like a fist, to hold on to something that isn’t there.
He rolls onto the bed, taking my body with him. Then he’s lying flat, and I’m above him. Being on top means control, except when your hands are tied behind your back. He has to be the one to line up his cock and push inside. He’s the one to slap my hip and tell me, “Ride.”
My eyes close, hiding me, shielding me, but I do what he says. I roll my hips in a movement I know too well, fucking him. I jerk him off with my pussy the same way I could with my hands or my mouth. I ride him to the peak until he’s grunting on every downward slide and following me with his hips when I lift up.
And then it does feel like control.
I’m still at his mercy, hands behind my back, breasts bouncing on every rocking movement, lips open on hungry breaths. But it’s him who’s looking up at me with fierceness, with longing. It’s him who’s groaning as if his world is breaking apart.
His eyes are half-glazed with pleasure now, and I know his orgasm is minutes away—seconds. He reaches for my neck, and for a moment, with his large palm against my throat, his fingers wrapped around, it’s like he’s choking me. He is choking me, using my neck to hold me still while he fucks up into me.
But then he reaches around to the back of my neck and pulls me down. It’s a kiss, unexpected and tragic, that makes the tears finally fall. It’s the sweetness that makes me come. It’s the rough groan against my mouth, vibrating through my lips, over my skin, running all the way down to my clit, that tells me he’s finally let go.
Chapter Eleven
His breathing evens out. Mine too. He’s quiet long enough that I think he’s sleeping. My hands are untied now, but I haven’t run away. I’m still here. His hand is heavy just below my breasts, a possessive claim, a junkyard dog with a bone he’s keeping.
“When did you leave?” he asks. “After me?”
I tense, because anything to do with him leaving is an extremely sore subject. It’s just another opportunity to attack me. He got sent back to group and then shipped off to the military. Meanwhile I got to stay in the foster home, one with enough food and clothes to go around. He thinks I screwed him over—because I did. He’ll never let me forget. He’ll ruin me, remembering.
His hand strokes my hair gently, almost absently. Maybe he’s just curious.
“Just a few months after,” I manage to say, wondering how much I’ll reveal. Wondering how much he’ll make me reveal.
He stiffens beside me. His eyes snap open, intent and questioning. “Why’d they move you?”
“They didn’t. I left.”
Silence for a beat. “You didn’t turn eighteen for another year.”
I shrug, wishing I felt as nonchalant as I sound. “I didn’t feel like sticking around.”
“So where did you go?”
“Here and there. Nowhere.”
I give him enough to figure it out. Where did I live? The street. What did I do to survive? Everything. I don’t really want to talk about it, least of all with him.
His voice is low when he speaks again. “Did you get your diploma?”
No. My cheeks burn. “It’s no big deal.”
“It’s a big deal from where I’m sitting. You were all about school when I was there. You knew it was your ticket out.”
I laugh darkly. “I think we both know how that turned out.”
He runs a hand through his hair. “Fuck, Lola. Why did you run away? You had a good thing going there. I thought…I figured you sent me away because I was too much in your business. More into you than you were into me.”
My breath catches. It’s like a stab wound, hearing him talk about my deception so casually. But what twists the knife is that he’d somehow rationalized it, like I might have had a quasi-self-protective reason for doing it.
“It wasn’t like that,” is all I can say. I don’t need the excuses he’s giving me. I don’t want them.
His voice is musing. “But if you left right after…”
My heart pounds. I can’t let him figure the rest out. I can’t let him know the truth. He may not have hurt me, but someone did. That’s the only reason I’d have chosen the cold regard of the streets over a w
arm bed. That’s the only reason I’d have danced on a pole for food instead of grabbing an apple from a kitchen counter. He lived that life with me. He knows what can happen to a girl unprotected. He just never knew it happened to me, that it happened while he was there, all along.
No, it would break me for him to find out. It would ruin me more than rough sex ever could.
I distract him the best way I know how. The only way I know how. With my hand on his cock and my breasts pressed against his side. He responds instantly, growing hard and still.
“We aren’t here to talk,” I whisper.
“We can do both,” he says, but I already hear the lust in his voice. I already feel it creeping over his curiosity like thick, choking vines.
“This isn’t about catching up,” I say. “It’s about saying goodbye.”
His breath catches, and then he’s turning me over, spreading me wide, agreeing without words that this will be over soon. That the truth would only hurt us both. That some secrets are better left unspoken.
It should be impossible, but he’s rougher with me than before, fucking me harder and faster and deeper. He pushes moans out of me. I’m caught in a whirlwind, his whirlwind. It feels like a punishment, as if he’s angry at me for telling him that much. As if he’s angry at himself for asking.
He slows suddenly, pupils large and dark, almost alien, as he stares down at me. “How much will you do for me, Lola? How far will you go?”
I thought it couldn’t get worse than before—the humiliation of him inspecting me, fully clothed. Fucking my mouth with my hands behind my back. I thought that was the most he could degrade me, the worst he could do.
Apparently not.
I whimper on a powerful thrust. “How much do you need?”
I don’t mean it as an offer. It’s a plea. I can’t believe he wants more from me. And I know it will never be enough.
His smile sends a sliver of fear to my gut. God, it shouldn’t be handsome when he looks at me that way. He should have two horns on his head and a tail. His skin should be red. Instead he’s every dream I’ve ever had, my own perverted guardian angel.
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