Hurt (The Hurt Series, #1)

by Lydia Michaels

  The first brush of his engorged flesh against her tender folds unleashed a blood-curdling scream that had no end.

  His fist slammed into the side of her head, and her lungs collapsed as he entered her with brutal force. Her inner walls burned at the intrusion, but he didn’t relent. Impaled, her breath filled her like water, wheezing, suffocating, choking. She was drowning. There was no air.

  Empty yet full. Shattered yet trapped. He gored a permanent hole in her, punctured every part. He split her in two, stabbed so viciously that when she finally felt the slightest moisture soothe the pain, she feared it was blood.

  Her eyes squeezed shut. Her mouth gaped in silent horror. How long would it go on? Time no longer mattered. He was killing her, yet she breathed, groaning through the agony, as he took what could never be returned.

  Why? No, no, no, no...

  The world silenced, but it had always been a lonely place. His disgusting grunts as his body sawed into her filled her mouth with vomit.

  She choked on her own bile until it dribbled over her lips into her hair. Harder he pushed, like he hoped to kill her.

  Her vision blurred into a siphoning hum. Blood or puke trickled from her nose, clogging her throat in a bitter mix of disillusion.

  “Please,” she sobbed in a voice she didn’t recognize. “Please...”

  Her arm went numb, only sharp shafts of pain with each jolting thrust.

  His hissed breaths beat against her neck, covering her in an invisible filth she’d wear the rest of her life. He was going to break her arm if he pushed any harder. He was breaking her.

  Already broken.

  Her mind fractured, splintering into shards that cut away at her sanity. Gouging, cleaving, stabbing.

  Again the rollercoaster of pain gutted her, and this time when she vomited, it went everywhere, spraying into her eyes and drowning her cries.

  Her legs gave out, and her body sagged. No more...

  “Stay still!” Something slammed into the back of her skull. Her jaw collided with something wet and hard, but her eyes wouldn’t open. Couldn’t open.

  He pried her body apart when it fell limp, the searing pain cutting right to her heart. Her broken cries ricocheted in the shrinking room until she couldn’t scream anymore.

  Her world narrowed to the point of a pin. The bones in her hand snapped with an agonizing crunch, but she was too beaten to do more than whimper and spew the burning saliva she could no longer swallow.

  Excruciating pain blasted up her arm. The fire he put in her scorched her womb where her babies should someday grow. He burned through her like acid, a hot poker, lurching the contents of her hollow stomach until another bout of vomit burst past her lips.

  Her hair and face lay in her own waste as she tried not to choke on her cries. Cruel, intrusive, piercing thrusts bulldozed through her with relentless stabs until every fragile objection withered into dull acceptance.

  Tissue scorched and countless invisible scars formed, each one carving deep. His ruthless force desecrated her soul. Annihilated her dignity. Eviscerated any future of intimacy.

  He violated every sacred inch of her being.

  He ... raped her.

  Forced into a quiet corner of her mind where denial grew, she somehow found a safe place to hide. Her body broadcasted every cruelty, but she wasn’t there. This wasn’t happening to her.

  And as his body jerked hard, grunting and spoiling her to the last drop, annihilating her sense of security forevermore, smashing the lingering pieces of her that still thought like a little girl, and snapping the reed-thin confidence that allows women to rise, he let her fall to the floor like unwanted garbage. He demolished her. No longer human, just a receptacle for pain. His filthy finish seeped past her swollen abused folds and wet her battered thighs.

  Shame enveloped her, more agonizing than any physical ache. Eyes unfocused, her tongue silently caressed the word no.

  No.

  No.

  No...

  The hollow mantra offered no protection.

  The phantom weight of his body still clung to her as she folded like a broken doll, a marionette cut from its strings. Lifeless.

  She wrapped her arms protectively around her gored center, unsure if this was the end or the beginning. Perhaps he’d murder her next. He’d already stolen the life out of her.

  His shoes squeaked over the marble, pointing in her direction. She cowered like a beaten dog. Would he kick her? Humiliate her beyond what he’d already done?

  If she thought of what he’d done, the pain became unmanageable. She didn’t know how to navigate it, how to not think it, not feel it.

  Pressure crushed her chest as her heart slammed against her ribs. Her body shook uncontrollably. Her unsteady hands closed around her head as she whimpered like a wounded animal.

  Breath jerked in and never seemed to let out. Her throat and eyes welded shut as she braced for whatever he planned to do next.

  He won. She couldn’t beat him. She had no defense against such savage brutality. She just didn’t want to hurt anymore.

  “No more,” she begged. “Please.” Face wet with tears, she repeated the plea. “N—no more...”

  Sometime later the silence registered in the stormy aftermath of her tremors and fear.

  Time passed in immeasurable chunks of confusion. Not seeing him was somehow as terrifying as seeing him.

  It took a long time to trust he was truly gone. And then the fear of being alone tortured her anew.

  Her dungeon now protected her from every terrifying reality on the other side of the door. She wished she had the strength to block that door, but it was so far.

  Bile and wasted tears clung to her hair and clothing. Her stomach roiled with regret, sadness suffocated her, snuffing out any flicker of logical thought.

  She mourned things she couldn’t name, things she didn’t remember but innately knew a girl should always protect. They were all gone. She was gone. Just a husk of a woman left behind. Desecrated.

  Everything hurt. Her thoughts, her body, her lips, her feet, her nail beds, her teeth, her gums. Flesh held her together, broken bits shattered within.

  Her sluggish mind took its time to form a chain of necessity, simple enough for her body to follow.

  Find help. Call the police. Get somewhere safe. Her thinking had never been so naked. Stripped. Bare.

  Rolling to her hands and knees, her tender stomach lurched, her crushed hand a useless claw, incapable of supporting her weight. She tried to crawl and crumbled.

  A pained sob tore from her ravaged throat, and she collapsed, protectively cradling her battered fingers. Her shaking arm folded against her chest as she rolled onto her back and swallowed down the ache.

  The metallic taste of blood bloomed in her sinuses. She pressed her cheek to the floor, cool and calming, and simply breathed.

  Determination to escape winked at the periphery of her mind. Stillness won. Time passed in uncountable measures. She needed to move, but her fear and wallowing shock kept her down.

  Some innate part of her commanded she rise. Beneath the wreckage of her body and soul, an indignant voice shrieked for her to pick herself up off the floor and find help.

  Dizzying pain engulfed her, but somehow she crawled to that door. Somehow she rose to her feet. Somehow she stood and stayed standing. Somehow, she got the hell out of that bathroom.

  Find help...

  Chapter Nine

  Saratoga Springs, New York—America

  Present Day

  Callan gripped his face and growled, staring through his fingers at the hotel entrance where Marco dragged the buffer over the marble floor. The car was warm. He should just go. She was perfectly capable of taking care of herself.

  Jealousy. That’s what this was. He was behaving like an utter tit.

  He wanted to slaughter the fucking prick who’d been hovering around her reception desk most of the night, but he had no right to stop anyone from speaking to her. No claim to her t
ime or her beautiful smiles. And he never would.

  “She doesnae fuckin’ belong te you.” His glare narrowed as he stared at his battered reflection. “And she’d be crazy te waste a single smile on you.”

  If he knew how to shut off this volcanic upheaval inside of him, how to mute the imprisoned passion, he might be able to one day let her go. For now, he was trapped.

  She was everything. The essence of delicate grace. Skin as soft as a summer peach. Body as lithe as the baton of a willow. And he was nothing. Lost to her perfection like a candle to the sun.

  He shut his eyes and sighed. Time to drive away.

  He shouldn’t have touched her tonight. He was getting sloppy when he needed to be stronger. He’d been so good about keeping his hands to himself. Nothing since he’d slipped last New Year’s Eve. But tonight, when she cast her eyes away from him, he couldnae bear it. He was the one who had a claim to shame, not her.

  He’d forgotten himself, forgotten his vow not to touch her. And in a moment of weakness, lost in the endless voyage of barren opportunities that was his life, he caressed her.

  As his hideous fingers appeared against her flawless skin, rage filled him. He wanted to break his own hand to save her from such filthy contact. She was clean and pure, and his hands had been washed in blood.

  It wasnae totally his fault. When she spoke, the air turned to wine, and his senses drank her in until all inhibitions were lost.

  Locking his molars, he pulled the gearshift to reverse but left his foot on the brake. His glance returned to the lobby doors. Marco still had the buffer going, which meant she’d already gone to deliver her papers.

  He threw the car into park and hesitated, his eyes flicking to the rearview, scanning the overflowing parking lot. They were at maximum capacity.

  Something wasnae sittin’ right in his gut. Perhaps it was the awareness that so many drunken men rested under one roof.

  His gaze skipped to the dashboard clock. 2:52. He should have been home by now.

  He gripped the key in the ignition but left the engine running.

  “And what excuse will you have for comin’ back te work after the bar closed and you’ve already left?”

  He banged his head into the seat. He could tell her his battery was dead or maybe that he forgot something. He could pull a few wires to make it look legit—

  “Jesus.”

  Shutting his eyes, he tasted the desperation of his thoughts. But what if his hesitation was a sign he should stay?

  Or maybe it was just his dick, wantin’ what it would never have. “Fuck!” He slammed his hand onto the steering wheel and yanked the keys free.

  Climbing out of the car, he crossed the parking lot. The lack of empty spaces added to his concern. These were special circumstances.

  The moment he stepped under the carport, he pivoted, marching back to his car. “Idgit,” he mumbled, still gripping his keys. “What the hell are ye thinkin’? Go the hell home where ye belong. Yer fuckin’ pathetic is what ye are.”

  His hand fell on the handle of the car door, and he paused, his gaze again pulled to the illuminated doors leading to the lobby. His stare lifted to the numerous guestroom windows. The majority were dark, but some were still lit.

  Marco pushed the buffer across the tile. Still no sign of Emery. And why would there be? He’d seen the size of her checkout pile tonight.

  “Fuckin’ Christ.”

  Pocketing his keys, he stormed back to the hotel, not stopping until the automatic doors parted and he had no choice but to show himself or look like a total dolt wandering back and forth in the cold.

  Marco spotted him and pulled his headphones off one ear. “¿No vas a casa?”

  The few things Marco said to him, Callan could usually translate. Casa. Home. “I forgot something at the bar.”

  “Ah. Bueno.” He covered his ear with the headphones again and returned to buffing the floor.

  Callan pulled a chair from a table and removed his journal from his back pocket before sitting down, body angled toward reception. Lifting his hips, he unearthed a pen but did nothing more than tap it on the leather cover of his book and stare at the elevator doors.

  This needed to stop. She’d turned into an addiction, and that was never the plan.

  He wanted her more than his next breath, but he would never have her. To lay even a finger on her would be a sin.

  His gaze dropped to his deformed hands. Burned. Broken. He’d bludgeoned, strangled, and snapped countless bones with these hands. Covered mouths as they desperately pleaded for mercy. Stolen several last breaths.

  A crimson sea of carnage lay in his wake, and to invite her into his life, risk sullying her perfection with his vile past would be a greater crime than any other he’d committed.

  It was his honor to watch over her—no one else seemed to take the job. But it was also his duty to keep his distance.

  Of course, he wanted to slaughter anyone who looked at her. But he’d resisted so far. Blind men noticed her beauty. And his jealousy got a nightly workout every time some hard up fuck glanced her way. They even smiled when their wives were with them.

  Looking out for her was one thing. Stalking was another. She wasnae even at her desk and yet, here he was.

  What the bloody fuck was he doing there? One night. He gave her one night a week that belonged completely to her. Friday was that night.

  The rest of the week she was stuck staring at his mangy face while he waited for her shift to end just to see she got safely to her car. She dinnae seem to mind him lurking, but she also never—not once—asked him to stay.

  After the New Year’s slip, he’d made the Friday rule, promising each month that passed he’d add another night until he eventually followed his schedule and left her to fulfill hers. But winter melted into spring and spring warmed into summer, and here he was, already in fall, and not keeping his word to leave her be, even on Fridays.

  “Fuckin’ pathetic,” he mumbled, flinging his journal open and paging’ through the ramblings and various sketches that kept him sane.

  His gaze fell on a doodle of Emery and calm washed over him. His thumb traced the inked lines of her profile.

  He dinnae know what it was about her. But the moment she walked into his life he was gone, enchanted, trapped under some sort of spell.

  She was a wisp of a woman. Naturally slim with fair skin and the eyes of an angel. Soft brown hair with blonde threaded through. She always wore it twisted into intricate styles, and he loved trying to figure out how she held it in place. When he sometimes spotted a hairpin, his fingers itched to pull it free.

  Her legs went on for days. A wee thing next to him, but womanly. She was what inspired artists to chisel into rocks. She was a masterpiece of immeasurable beauty and soft-spoken sweetness.

  She was good and kind and patient with everyone that walked into the hotel. And when she looked at him, he could feel her stare before he even met her gaze. She was magnificent. But she was a woman.

  Women were delicate. They were breakable. They made a man vulnerable.

  He’d loved two women in his life and lost them both. But his feelings for Emery were far from familial. He had no comparison. His life before moving to the States overflowed with violence, lacked everything else, everything tender.

  He dinnae know what to do with his feelings, dinnae want to chance finding out. He knew better than to get close to someone as fragile as Emery.

  Women were breakable. Men, unfortunately, were not as delicate. He’d have died a thousand deaths for his sister, Innis. Perhaps he already had. Not a single one actually killed him.

  He knew how to hurt. He knew how to maim. He knew nothing about touching a woman and had even less business experimenting with one to find out.

  He dinnae have any decency left. His crimes were too many to name. His sins too evil to forgive. His mind too dark to open. And his heart... His heart was far too battered to love. Emery deserved to be loved, right and proper.

&nbs
p; Marco killed the floor buffer, and the lobby silenced. Callan’s eardrums vibrated with the brash echo of the machine’s droning buzz. He glanced up from his book and frowned at the elevators. What the hell was takin’ her so long?

  He watched Marco wind the long cord. Time slowed to a snail’s pace. Pushing up the sleeve of his coat, he checked his watch. It was already after three. She should be back by now.

  His gaze traveled to the scars on his arm. Each carved tick denoted a tallied secret. A vindication. A token. A receipt from Satan himself for an evil soul collected.

  His eyes returned to the elevator. Marco was gone.

  Callan thought he heard something down the hall, probably the custodian onto cleaning the restrooms. Who knew what Marco did when he wasnae polishing the floors?

  An elevator pinged and his head snapped around with short-lived relief. Not her. He dinnae catch the face, but the broad build sliding into the lift definitely belonged to a man.

  His fingers returned to the sketch. He should go. This longing needed to fade before it swallowed him whole. Maybe it already had.

  He never wanted anything the way he wanted her—so much so that it scared him, kept him at a distance he’d probably never cross.

  The dichotomy of his longing could be paired down into two parts. One that was lush and pure and devoted to Emery. And another that was dark and vile and fixated on revenge. It would be impossible to have both.

  His laughable inexperience was another reason to keep his distance. In the three years he’d known her, she never once spoke of havin’ a boyfriend or lovin’ someone. When men paid attention to her—which they often did—she played coy, claiming she wasnae interested. The thought that she might be as untried as he only endeared him to her more.

  A fantasy. Emery was far too kind and pretty, and he was far too scarred by reality to practice naiveté. But, in this case, he allowed the foolish assumption—if only to calm his own lust and ego, subdue his often-raging jealousy.

  She was younger. Just past twenty. And while he wasnae delusional enough to believe a woman as beautiful as Emery might be a virgin, she still struck him as somewhat innocent.