Better When It Hurts

by Skye Warren

  In the moments when Blue would be crushed, when he’d be killed, he suddenly spins and turns. A blow to the side sends red-and-black silk into the cage just a few feet away from where I’m clutching the side. The impact shoves me back. Hands catch me before I hit the concrete.

  The crowd goes wild, their sound like a physical assault. It bears me down, and I can barely see, barely move. There’s just a glimpse of Blue’s hand being raised in the air, worn glove and all.

  The man behind me pushes me into the crowd.

  “Hey, what are you—” I look into the face of Oscar, another one of the bouncers at the Grand. Shit.

  “Blue won’t be happy you’re here,” he says, too low for me to hear. I have to read his lips. It’s easy because I already know what he’ll say. Of course Blue won’t be happy to see me. He’s never been happy to see me since five years ago. That much will never change.

  We’re almost to a door at the side—the dressing rooms?—when I tear myself away from Oscar and look back. Blue is still onstage, but he isn’t looking at the crowd. He’s looking at me, his body terrifyingly still. For once our roles are reversed. He’s the one in the spotlight, and I’m just a girl looking on.

  I wonder if he feels powerful now. I wonder if he feels safe.

  I wonder if this is why he stepped into that ring tonight—to kick other men around in a way that’s socially sanctioned and almost legal.

  A girl in a bikini top and short shorts wraps herself around him, and just like that the spell is broken. Oscar drags me into a room that turns out to have lockers and benches. There’s a couple making out in an open shower stall, but Oscar bangs on the lockers with his fist and they make a run for it, half-dressed.

  “Stay here,” Oscar says grimly.

  Then I’m standing alone in a room, waiting for a man. Just like every night of my goddamn life.

  Chapter Six

  There are no other exits.

  I know because I check the entire locker room after Oscar leaves me here. I’m sure he’s standing guard at the only way out. There are three shower stalls with only bricks dividing them—no doors or curtains for privacy. The urinals are also out in the open, up against the wall. Lockers line the other two walls with benches made of scarred wood and dark metal.

  The door slams open, and Blue strides into the room. A burst of sound follows him in the seconds before the door swings shut. I shrink back against the lockers before I can help it. That doesn’t stop him. It doesn’t even slow him down as he steps right into my space, just inches from my face, still breathing hard.

  “What the fuck are you doing here?” His eyes are still wild from the fight, violence and victory mixed together.

  I try not to flinch. “I wanted to…to talk to you about something.”

  “How did you know I was fighting tonight?”

  I’m not going to tell on Candy, even if he’ll figure it out as soon as he sees her here. Instead I bite my lip and try to remember the speech I was going to give him. “Congratulations?”

  That wasn’t it.

  He shakes his head. “No, Lola. This isn’t one of your little games. I’m not one of the men you can lead around by my dick. Not anymore.”

  And then I do flinch, because the reminder of our past is too painful not to. “I’m not trying to lead you anywhere,” I whisper.

  His lips curve into a cold smile. “No? You brought me here, didn’t you? Just you and me and the rest of the world locked out. You made that happen.”

  Something pricks my eyes—tears. No no no. I can’t possibly cry in front of him. I don’t know why I’d cry at all. This is my life. I’m long past wishing for something different, aren’t I? I look down at the concrete floor so he won’t see me struggle.

  Of course he doesn’t accept that. His fingers—sweaty and gloveless—lift my chin. “Why’d you come here, Lola?” His voice is suddenly lower and strangely seductive. Maybe that’s how fucked-up I’ve gotten, that cruelty turns me on. “What do you want?”

  My fingers fumble as I pull the wallet from my back pocket. It’s still warm from my body as I hold it up. “This is yours. I stole it. I—I took it by accident.”

  That wasn’t what I’d meant to say at all. I’d meant to explain the situation like it happened—that I’d woken up with the wallet in my bed. That I had no memory of it, but obviously there had been a mistake. I’d taken nothing from the wallet, no harm no foul.

  Instead I’d stuttered like I was thirteen again, stealing everything I could slip into my pockets, confessing to my foster dad before he whipped me with his belt.

  Blue takes the wallet from me, his expression speculative. It’s almost as if he’s never seen it before, even though I know it belongs to him. I rifled through his things, touched the stone-faced plastic image on his license. And he knows I invaded his privacy that way, just like I invaded his pocket when he brought me home.

  He tosses the wallet onto a bench behind him, dismissing it. His hand lands on the locker beside me, blocking me in. His eyes meet mine. “You still steal.”

  “No,” I say, but his wallet calls me a liar. Naturally he’d remember the worst thing about me. I’d helped him remember. “Not anymore. Not usually except…I must have been drunk or something.”

  “You didn’t used to drink.”

  “A lot’s changed.” I used to hate the taste of beer. It reminded me too much of foster brothers with groping hands and tongues. I still couldn’t touch the stuff, but every now and then I used alcohol to try and numb the pain. It was just a shame it never worked.

  His gaze scans my body, unapologetic as it measures me, probes me, demands all my secrets. “I can see that.”

  I shrug, pretending to be unaffected. No, I am unaffected, damn it. “You see more than this every night.”

  “Less. When you’re naked up there onstage, that’s what you show to every man.” His eyes are hooded. “This is what you wore for me.”

  My breath catches. I’d picked a white tank top and jeans because I’d had no idea where Candy was taking me. If I’d been to see any other man, needing a favor, apologizing, I’d have played up the sex-kitten act. I may have been the one on my knees, but he’d be the one begging. With Blue, I knew better than to try. There would be no power for me. Sex was just another tool he could use against me.

  “Please don’t tell Ivan what happened, okay?”

  One eyebrow rises. “Getting drunk?”

  I snort. “As if he’d care about that, especially since Candy is the one who got me that way. He’d probably pay to watch.”

  A smile curves those cruel, sinful lips. “Doesn’t he?”

  Any amusement I’d felt fades away. “No. He doesn’t. No one gets to see me that way.”

  I didn’t fuck around. Not for any amount of money.

  Blue leans close, so close I can smell the sweat and heat of him, so near that his bulging shoulder blocks my view. His mouth is inches from my ear. “Not even if I tell Ivan you stole from me?”

  I stiffen. “Are you threatening me?”

  “I’m just figuring out the boundaries here.” His other hand slides over my hip and cups my ass. I let out a gasp before catching myself. “I want to understand exactly what you’re offering.”

  “I’m not offering a damn thing,” I snap.

  His laugh is low and sexy and frustrating as hell. “I think that’s exactly what you’re doing with those tight jeans and your tits like fucking heaven. You think I don’t see it? You think I’m fooled?”

  I want to insist he’s wrong about me. I want to tell him to go to hell. But I can’t because he’s right. Even if I hadn’t dressed up for him, I would have for some other man. I’m exactly the kind of girl he thinks I am. I’ve already sunk that low.

  So I let myself sink against the cool metal lockers behind me. I press my heavenly tits up toward his face. He wants a taste of this? Fine. Then maybe he can feel better about the fact that I stole his wallet, even if I gave it all back. And maybe then
he’ll feel better about what happened all those years ago.

  Even if nothing can ever make that right.

  He grunts in approval. “Gorgeous. They look gorgeous naked and gorgeous with clothes on. How fucking unfair is that? That someone like you could look like this?”

  My heart stops for a beat at the insult, my heart like a raw wound. Then his hands are cupping my ass, lifting me up against the lockers. His mouth is open and hot against my skin, sucking on the tops of my breasts, making me squirm against him. I’m off balance, up high, and I grab on to him for support. He’s slippery with sweat but somehow solid too, his shoulders massive, his body warm and unmovable.

  I know I should hate him, but I can’t. I loved him too much as a girl. And even though he’s colder now, bigger and meaner now, he’s still the same boy I loved.

  He finds the hollow at my throat, and just like all those years ago, he flicks his tongue against it. I shudder and rock myself against him, shameless and hungry for him. Only he knows about that spot on me. Only he has ever bothered to find it.

  His hands are rough on my thighs. “Gorgeous,” he mutters as if to himself.

  He hates me.

  No matter what I said, no matter how much time has passed, I’m still the same girl he once loved. I deserve every bit of hate he has for me, considering what I did to him. Deserve the red marks he leaves on my skin with his stubble and his teeth. Deserve the crude way he rocks against me, thrusting his covered cock against my belly, getting himself off like I’m a fucking doll.

  It’s degrading and humiliating—and still a disappointment when he sets me down and steps away. With him I want to be degraded. I want to be humiliated. Just being with him is its own sweet agony, and that alone makes my cheeks flush with tormented want.

  That shouldn’t have turned me on, that little punishment make-out session. He didn’t even kiss me on the mouth. But now it’s done—I’ve paid my dues. He isn’t going to tell Ivan about me.

  My breath coming in pants, my tank top askew, I turn to leave.

  A hand on my wrist stops me. “Not so fast,” he says.

  Trembling, I look back at him. His eyes are dark and terrifying. “I didn’t mean to steal it.”

  “I know,” he says simply, and I believe he does know.

  “Then let me go.”

  “I’m not keeping you for that, Lola.” He pulls, and I fall off balance, landing in his arms in an awkward, painful sprawl. His other hand fists in my hair, pulls back. I stare at the harsh overhead light while he murmurs in my ear. “You owe me a hell of a lot more than whatever’s in my wallet, and I think you know that. So don’t give me any trouble. Or you know what? Do. Go ahead and fight. It’ll just make me hotter.”

  * * *

  I rest my chin on his chest, fingers playing in his hair. “Is it true?”

  “Is what true?”

  “What they say about you.” I don’t need to spell it out, but he’s making me. “That you killed a kid at your last school.”

  His eyes are dark. “People talk too much.”

  My heart lurches. “So it’s true.”

  He shrugs, which shifts his large body underneath mine. He’s cradling me, one hand on my back, the other on my ass. We’re nestled in the attic, hidden away. I feel completely safe—the exact opposite of how I should with what he’s just admitted.

  I’m scared too. I don’t know what he’s capable of or why. I don’t know what will set him off. For now he seems to like me. And for now, that’s enough.

  “Is your name really Blue?”

  He makes a face. “Really?”

  I like this lighter side of him, the one that isn’t so serious. The one who isn’t about death. The one who isn’t dangerous. “I just want to know something about you. Something real.”

  “Then tell me something real about you, Hannah. That’s my price.”

  “Okay.” I play with the bristles on his chin, distracting myself. “My mom killed herself.”

  Surprise registers in his eyes. “That’s heavy.”

  I look away. So much for keeping things light. “Yeah, well, it’s real. Now you tell me something.”

  “Eugene,” he mutters.

  My gaze snaps back to him. “What?”

  “My name is Eugene Blue.”

  I can’t help it—I laugh. It’s dangerous to laugh at a boy like this, one who’s killed, one who admits it without even looking guilty. But the corner of his lip turns up.

  “Can I call you that?” I tease him.

  He tries to look stern. “Not if you want me to answer.”

  It’s a little piece of him, his name, something only for me. I nuzzle his chest, and he lifts my chin. His eyes are serious. “I’m sorry about your mom.”

  I swallow hard. “Thanks.”

  He leans forward, and his lips touch mine. He doesn’t move them or push his tongue inside. We stay like that, lips against lips, breath mingling.

  When I pull back, he touches his forehead to mine.

  “Why did you do it?” I whisper.

  This time he doesn’t make me spell it out.

  “Because he called me Eugene,” he says with a straight face.

  It’s wrong, but I laugh. He is the only boy who makes me laugh. “For real though.”

  His expression gets hard. “It’s real simple. The people outside—the judge and the jury. They don’t know what it’s like. It’s kill or be killed, and fuck if I’m going to let anyone touch me.”

  My breath catches in my throat. I wish I had that kind of conviction.

  I wish I had that kind of strength.

  “Why aren’t you in jail?”

  He shrugs. “I’m a minor and there were mitigating circumstances. That’s what they call it—mitigating circumstances.”

  “Oh,” I say, not really understanding.

  “They’d been kicking me around and it was documented by the caseworker. So it got labeled self-defense. I just have to keep my nose clean until I’m eighteen. Then I can get out of this shithole town. And I’m never coming back.”

  Chapter Seven

  He’s staring at me like he’s going to devour me when the knock comes. I jump at the sound, because it pounds through the wall to be heard over the steady din outside.

  Blue mutters a curse and pushes away from me.

  I immediately breathe in deep. Having him surround me, crowd me, had been stifling. Having him gone feels like a loss. Will I always feel this conflicted about him? Will I always want to push him away and then miss him when he’s gone?

  Oscar says something to Blue that I can’t hear, but I get the message. People want to use the locker room, and it’s becoming a problem keeping them out.

  I force myself to stand and straighten my clothes with as much dignity as I can find. Which isn’t much considering the red scrapes all over my breasts and probably my neck. My whole body feels stretched and twisted, set on fire and then left to burn.

  It’s my Lola persona that smiles at Oscar over Blue’s shoulder and winks. “I was on my way out anyway. I think I got what I came for.”

  Blue growls in his throat. “You’re not getting away that fucking easy.”

  Oscar’s eyebrows rise. I know he hasn’t seen Blue talk to other girls like that. Blue wouldn’t tolerate a bouncer under his command treating one of us that way.

  He makes an exception for me.

  “Give me a couple more minutes,” Blue says.

  Oscar looks doubtful. “Hey, man—”

  Blue closes the door in his face. When he turns to me, his eyes have gone completely black. He’s like a panther as he prowls around me, pressing me back against the wall. “You think we’re done?”

  “Yeah, I do.” It would have sounded better if my voice hadn’t been shaking.

  “No, baby. Not even close. I didn’t get what I wanted all those years ago. Remember that? Remember waiting?”

  Tears spring to my eyes, because I do remember waiting. I remember how respectful he was
even while he was horny out of his mind. I remember how cherished he made me feel. Of course he didn’t know then that I’d already lost my virginity. That scared me more than anything back then. How was I going to explain to him that I’d already fucked a guy? How was I going to explain that I fucked any guy that I needed to, that would protect me, but that Blue was different?

  It didn’t matter, because before we could have sex, he was already gone.

  “I’m not that girl anymore.” My voice sounds rough, gritty. That’s how I feel inside—like dirt.

  “No, you’re a woman now. But are you still a goddamn tease? Or are you going to give me what I’ve been waiting five fucking years for?”

  Apprehension runs down my spine. “Is that why you came back? Is that why you’re working at the Grand, because I wouldn’t give it up to you all those years ago?”

  He laughs softly. “Is your pussy that good?”

  My pussy clenches like he invoked the goddamn devil just by saying her name. “That’s none of your business.”

  “Oh, I think it is. I think you owe me a taste of that. I’ve been giving you time, letting you get used to the idea, but I’m done waiting. Especially when you came walking in here, in my place, when I’m already strung out and fucked-up and blue balled. It was either fight or fuck, and I’ve been fighting every Saturday night.” Those dark eyes meet mine. “Until now.”

  “Blue,” I say, warning in my tone. Fear too.

  “Next Saturday night, I’m not gonna be in the lineup. Instead I’m going to be at my place, trying out that pussy for the first time.”

  I stare at him, somehow shocked. I hear men catcall me, hear them proposition me, hear them swear at me every night. No amount of dirty words can surprise me, but somehow hearing him promise to fuck me does just that.

  “Say yes, baby.” His eyes are some kind of magic. I can’t look away. And I can’t say no.

  Maybe this is what it will finally take to atone for what I did. Maybe this is some kind of perverted redemption for me, a way to make him whole. Or maybe I’m just making excuses, because I don’t know what else to do. Years ago I’d find the strongest boy in school and let him fuck me for protection. Now the strongest boy is Blue and the strip club is my school—and the only man I need protection from is him.