Better When It Hurts

by Skye Warren

  “Enough.” His eyes are ice now, a dark lake solid all the way down. “You’re doing everything I say? Then get on the table. We’re done eating. It’s time for dessert.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  There’s no room on the table. That’s the excuse I tell myself as I stand very still, staring at the plates and the candles and the strips of dark wood where he wants me to sit.

  “Go on,” he says, the spider to the fly.

  My stripper persona has deserted me now. Lola is nowhere to be found. I’m almost Hannah now. I don’t know how he’s stripped me down this quickly. A little kindness, a faux date, and suddenly I’m reduced to the girl who’s scared and naked and turned on when she shouldn’t be.

  “I can’t,” I whisper.

  “Do you need me to help?” he asks almost gently.

  It’s his hands I focus on, the way they clasp the back of his chair, how large and strong they are. Something about them makes me feel secure, even knowing how much they can hurt me. Even knowing how much they will.

  A jerk of my head. Yes.

  I need his help with so much more than this task. I need him to forgive me, to redeem me. I need him to hurt me at the same time as I fear it. That’s why I’m here—as much for me as for him. I shake with wanting it, with needing him, with longing for release.

  I watch his hands clear the table, steady and competent. Gentle enough on fine china not to break it. Hard as iron when he turns them into fists. He even takes a dish towel and runs it over the wood, leaving a shine in its place.

  “How do you want me?” I ask.

  “On your back.”

  My throat feels tight when I swallow. On my back is how he wants me. It’s the only way he wants me. So why shouldn’t I give it to him? Why shouldn’t I be what he wants? It feels good, even twisted and perverted and wrong.

  I push the skirt down my waist. My panties follow.

  Lola would have a sexy striptease. Hannah can only shove them rough and fast, keeping her eyes averted from his. He’s seen all of Lola’s moves anyway. He’s never seen this.

  I stumble and almost fall onto the table. He doesn’t catch me. Just watches, arms folded, muscles straining at his T-shirt, jaw set in hard square lines. Then I’m awkwardly sitting on the table, legs dangling off, feet not touching the ground. Small like a child.

  The only sign that I’m not is the bulge in his pants.

  He steps close and runs his hands along the outsides of my thighs, so light my skin pebbles. “Lie back,” he says softly.

  And I do.

  The table is cool against my back, smooth and hard. His hands are hot on my thighs as he spreads them wide. Air rushes over my tender flesh, making my private muscles clench. A small sound of protest escapes me. “What are you—”

  “Shh,” he says, his large hands smoothing over my inner thighs. “This part isn’t going to hurt.”

  His eyes hold a promise, and I know what he means to do. Heat pulses in my clit, anticipating what’s to come. At the same time, I’m afraid. Being pleasured by him is almost scarier than being hurt, like the dinner and candles in the form of sex. Being licked by him might damn near kill me.

  He doesn’t lick me—not at first. His head dips low, just his warm breath kissing my skin. I try to hold myself still, to let him direct me. I don’t want to be eager, not for the pleasure I don’t deserve. Not for the pleasure that will only draw me closer to him, bind me harder. But my body shakes, almost vibrates with tension and arousal, like a tuning fork humming his song.

  “Blue,” I whisper.

  “Gorgeous?”

  The word makes my breath catch. I know it’s only skin-deep. He doesn’t think I’m gorgeous on the inside. No one thinks that. No one cares. Even so, this is different than before. Not as hateful. More like I imagined regular sex would be, if I had ever let myself have it.

  “I’m afraid.” The admission is about more than oral sex, and he seems to know that. His lids are low, eyes a million years wise.

  “No one’s ever licked you here?” He doesn’t give me time to answer before he shows me exactly where, a long and slow lick from the base of my slit to the very top.

  Heat courses through me, and I stifle the groan I would have made. “No.”

  “Or sucked your pretty little clit?” he asks.

  And just like before, he shows me exactly what he means, his lips warm against my most sensitive skin, his suck hard enough to bring my hips off the table.

  “God.”

  His voice has gone low and husky, thick with something like hunger. “No one’s ever fucked you with their tongue? No one’s tasted your cream?”

  My inner muscles clench at his words, already anticipating, already pulsing and slick with cream for him to taste. His eyes close as he shoves his tongue against me, as if he’s doing something incredibly pleasurable, as if he’s getting off as much as me.

  His tongue feels foreign and impossibly good, my whole body suspended between ache and orgasm. Between pain and what comes after, the precipice razor thin.

  “Why?” The question slips out, more admission than wonder. “Why are you making me feel good?”

  This is supposed to be punishment. If it’s not about hurting me—then what?

  He doesn’t answer right away. I think he won’t answer at all. His mouth is open, kissing and licking and sucking me, languid and slow. Only when I’m shuddering on the brink does he pull back. “I never stopped wanting you. I fucking dreamed about tasting you. Even when I was overseas, when it had been years since I’d seen you, when I fucking hated you, I still wanted to lick your clit until you came, until you poured your cream on my tongue.”

  The admission shouldn’t surprise me. Isn’t that what Candy has been telling me? And maybe I always knew. It wasn’t an accident that he ended up at the Grand. He came to make me pay, and there was only one way to do it. I always recognized the lust in his eyes, even though it made me feel different than every other man. More afraid, more helpless. More strangely hopeful.

  It isn’t his desire that surprises me, though. It’s the fact that he admitted it, that he made himself open and vulnerable. The way he almost humbles himself as he focuses on my clit, sucking and licking until I’m moaning, as he shoves his fingers inside and curls, as he seeks my pleasure with every part of his body.

  My orgasm slams into me like a tidal wave, powerful and devastating. I rock through the spasms, crying out his name. And he answers me with soothing touches, soft sounds while I collapse on his dining table, spent and utterly limp.

  In the Grand I’m always active, always working, always dancing and twirling and shaking my ass. At the club I’m a sex object, something plastic—like a dancer in a jewelry box made to dance whenever it’s opened.

  Blue turns everything upside down. He doesn’t make me dance. Doesn’t let me do anything. He turns me into a woman again, one who’s hurt and betrayed him, one who’s been hurt and betrayed. This is the last thing I wanted—to feel again. Physical pain I accepted, almost craved. What he does to me is deeper than that. He roots out every old wound I have. And the salt is the tender way he kisses my mound, an intimacy that has everything and nothing to do with sex.

  * * *

  I wake up in the dark, warm and naked and alone. Satin sheets enfold me, still cool against hot skin. Sleep swirls around me, threatening to drag me under again. It’s too comfortable here, as if I were tucked in. Except that would be a dream. No one has ever tucked me in. Until now. That’s the only way I could have gotten here, carried by the man who’s still here.

  There’s another presence in the room. Enough nights spent hiding in the closet have taught me to tell when I’m alone or not, have taught me to measure a threat in the feel of the air.

  I don’t feel threatened, but it’s not a surprise to look sideways and see Blue there.

  The way he’s sitting, though—that’s a surprise. He’s shirtless, his broad back curving as he rests his elbows on his thighs. His hea
d rests in his hands. He looks defeated. It’s the pose of a man vanquished, and I ache to see him that way.

  “What’s wrong?” The question pours out of me without thought, like water rushing to fill a void.

  His awareness of me fills the air. I think he stiffens slightly, the broad muscles of his back shifting beneath shadow-dark skin. He doesn’t answer me. Doesn’t respond.

  I push up and throw the covers off. Nakedness doesn’t bother me. The way he looks bothers me. A man bent too far.

  Broken.

  He doesn’t move as I approach him from around the bed. He doesn’t even look up.

  Every time I’ve stripped for him in this apartment, I’ve been rushed and afraid. The opposite of how I am in the club—confident and sensual. Here in the dark, I find a new way to dance. It’s not quite Lola, the seductress. And it’s definitely not the scared Hannah from before. It’s someone new that slides my hands down my body, moving for him, touching myself.

  I know what moves he likes from watching him at the club. From watching him watch me.

  I cup my breasts and plump them like an offering. His head lifts only enough to watch me through hooded eyes, the angles and shadows of his face severe. I take my nipples between thumb and forefingers, pinching until it hurts, twisting until it feels good again.

  “What you do to me,” he mutters, and it doesn’t sound like a compliment.

  Even so, pleasure fills me. I know exactly what I do to him—but even if I didn’t before, I hear it now in the lust-filled husky voice. I see it in the bulge of his loose-fitting sweatpants.

  I turn to give him a view from behind, dropping low and working my way back up so he can see the darker skin between my legs. When I turn back to meet his eyes, he still looks haunted. Maybe more so. I’m turning him on, but it’s not enough to chase away whatever demons found him tonight.

  The carpet is plush on my knees, so much more forgiving than the concrete in the VIP rooms.

  I half expect him to push me away when I kneel. This isn’t on his terms anymore. It’s on mine. He lets me run my hands down his body, over the ridges of his abs and the hollow spaces pointing down. His cock flexes at my touch, and I push the loose band down to free him.

  Only when his cock is in my hands, bared and dripping wet, does he speak again. “I thought I could fuck you and not feel anything again. I thought I could have you and forget you. But that was impossible from the start. I’ve never been able to forget you. And you make me feel everything, Lola. You make me feel alive.”

  A soft sound escapes me before I silence it on his cock. My lips press against the head, half kiss, half caress. His whole body jerks, and I grasp his erection in my fist.

  “That’s right, gorgeous,” he groans, cupping my head in his large hands, guiding me. “Make me yours.”

  I obey him, and this doesn’t feel like a punishment. It feels like praise, like pleasure, especially when Blue shudders as if helpless. I pull back long enough to coax him, letting him hear the hoarseness of my voice, made raw from sucking him deep. “Come down my throat,” I tell him. It’s an offer and a plea.

  “Yes. Fuck yes.” He doesn’t come right away. He lets me work him, holding him out. His cock is slick from my mouth and throbbing with every firm, knowing stroke.

  His voice is rough and urgent in the dark, surrounding me. “Take me, baby. Fucking take me. I can’t let you go after this. I can’t let you go at all. You know that, don’t you? You’re mine now. Learn the taste of me, the feel of me, because this is the only cock that’s going to be in your mouth. I’m the only man you’re going to fuck.”

  I shouldn’t feel turned on by that, by the possession and the crudeness, but I am. I squeeze my legs together to ease the ache between them.

  “Touch yourself,” he urges, more breathless. He’s so close, and I can taste salty precum on my tongue.

  No. I can’t get off like this. The words are useless with my mouth full of his cock. And they’re a lie anyway. When I shove my hands into my folds, I find them wet. A few slick rubs and my clit pulses with need.

  I rock my hips, grinding my pussy against my hand. He takes over the blowjob, holding my head steady while he gently, inexorably fucks my face. I relax my throat and let him invade me, let him use me while I use him right back, fingers rubbing hard, juices spilling over my hand.

  His come is a shot of salt against the back of my throat, surprising and so damn hot I come a second later. He keeps thrusting, using my tongue to drag out his orgasm while I fuck my hands to do the same.

  When he’s done, he pulls away carefully, his hand tight in my hair.

  It’s the same dark eyes that look down at me, the same severe expression. But there’s no anger in his voice this time, not even a threat. Only surety and a hint of sadness when he says, “You’re mine now, Lola. For better or for fucking worse. You sent me away all those years ago, but there’s nothing you can do to me now.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  When I wake up the next time, sunlight streams through the window, lighting the heavy arm draped over me. His breaths are even and steady against my cheek. His leg is slung over mine, pinning me down. It feels both suffocating and sweet, like the tight hug of quicksand.

  My body tenses without meaning to. I don’t have time to prepare. There’s no makeup or stilettos to shield me here.

  He makes a sleepy snorting sound that’s endearing. His hand brushes over my body and cups my breast, giving it a gentle squeeze. “Stay,” he mumbles.

  I don’t know if he’s fully awake, if he knows what he’s asking.

  The answer is no.

  My breathing becomes shallow as I prepare for some kind of maneuver to slip away. I don’t mind him touching me. I don’t mind him fucking me. But I mind very much the possessive shit he said last night. I mind him thinking he has some kind of claim over me. What we’re doing is an apology, a nostalgic trip down fucked-up lane. It’s not real. And it’s sure as hell not forever.

  I only get as far as the edge of the bed before he grabs my wrist and hauls me back. My legs splay awkwardly, the opposite of sexy. I freeze as his hand finds my thigh. Calloused hands smooth up the inside of my leg, heading for my sex.

  He finds me wet.

  His groan is pure approval. “Every morning,” he says, fingers slipping inside.

  The words are like ice to the heart. I jolt up from the bed, hopping and fighting to get away from him.

  He blinks, his eyes still cloudy with sleep. “What the fuck?”

  “I have to go,” I say, stumbling over to a pile of clothes on the floor. “I have to…have to leave.”

  By the time I have my skirt on, he’s sitting up. He doesn’t leave the bed, but I don’t underestimate him for a second. If he wants me to stay, he’ll make me stay. He could be out of bed in two seconds flat. His hand would be on the door, blocking me in, just three seconds after that.

  There’s no sleep left when he narrows his eyes. Only intense focus. “Want to tell me why?”

  I’ve gotten hundreds of proposals.

  It’s a professional hazard, common enough if I’m doing my job well. The thing people don’t know is how real the proposals seem, how earnest they can be when a man is horny and desperate and sad.

  And none of them have meant a single thing, not nearly as much as those two words.

  Every morning.

  He comes to me like it’s inevitable that he’ll have me. He presses his forehead to my chest like I can stave off the world. The nakedness, the money—they wrap us in a cocoon that’s strangely meaningful. At least for two minutes in time. I’m used to being promised more than I’ll ever get, which is a fat tip if I’m lucky. I don’t want any more than that. I can’t have any more than that.

  “Mrs. Owens needs me. Needs someone,” I say, stumbling over the explanation. Technically it’s true, but it’s not why I’m running. Judging from the way his eyes narrow, he knows that. “If I’m not there when she wakes up, she worries about me.” />
  “All right,” he says slowly. “Give me a second to throw on some clothes, and I’ll come with you.”

  I take a step back. “Why?”

  He stands up. “To spend time with you.”

  “That wasn’t part of the deal. I said I’d come here, said I’d fuck you. That’s all.”

  He shrugs, completely undisturbed. “Then fuck me there.”

  “In front of Mrs. Owens?”

  He grunts. “You don’t have your own room?”

  “That’s not the point. I live there to take care of her. Not to bring customers back to her house.”

  It’s like waving a red cloth, watching a bull’s eyes widen and his nostrils flare. He charges me, backing me up against the wall before I can even protest. “I’m not a client,” he says softly, his face inches away, eyes locked in mine.

  Nervousness makes my breath come in pants. I wish I had on cherry-red lipstick and a tight skirt. I wish I were Lola, able to seduce and to manipulate. I wish I were anyone but me. “You can’t come over,” I whisper.

  His jaw clenches, a muscle in his jaw flexing. “I meant what I said last night. You want to be Lola, I’ll call you that. You want to strip at the Grand. I’ll put up with that too, if it fucking kills me. But you’re mine. That pussy, that mouth. Every inch of you.”

  “This is insane. You hate me. You despise me.”

  “Yes,” he says slowly, as if thinking it through, wondering. “I do hate you. I hate what you did. I hate that you take your clothes off for other men, showing them what should be mine. I hate that you’re trying to walk out of here as if I mean nothing to you, the same way you sent me away all those fucking years ago.”

  I close my eyes as he leans close. I don’t know what he’ll do to me. Hit me? Bite me? He seems almost feral enough to do it. So the soft press of warmth to my eyes is a shock. His lips. He’s kissing me, one after the other. Another kiss on my nose. And lower, on my mouth.