Better When It Hurts

by Skye Warren

  And then I get the gentle smile I’ve been missing, almost fond. “Actually, Mr. Blue notified us that you’re to be given complete access to his apartment. If you’re busy now, we could do it another time.”

  “No, I think…now would be best.”

  Because depending on what I find upstairs, what I say—Blue may very well throw me out. And he might forget to notify security when he does. At least then I’d have a way of getting back in.

  Chapter Nineteen

  It turns out I don’t need the key card to get in. The elevator doors open on a quiet hallway, everything beige and silver and sleek. From a few yards away I see the crack in Blue’s door.

  It’s open.

  I slow down but keep walking. My eyes narrow as I take in the strange state of the door—and the smudge of something dark on the handle. Blood?

  I’m probably overreacting. It’s probably just dirt or paint. And the door is probably propped open because he needed to carry something heavy. I can’t shake the dread in my stomach though, especially after our last conversation.

  I put my palm on the door and push. It’s heavier than I expect.

  The apartment looks normal enough. The furniture is in place. No horror-movie pools of blood. No body on the couch, still warm but long gone—that was how I’d found my mother. That vision has haunted me for most of my life. It still does, but now I’m moving past the empty leather couch. Now I’m searching for someone else.

  The bathroom door is cracked open, yellow light streaming through.

  I don’t knock or call out. The bathroom door lists open as soon as my fingers brush against it. Then I can see him—all of him. He’s standing at the sink, scrubbing his hands. There’s no paint on them, no dirt. And definitely not any blood.

  The water that runs down the drain is clear.

  “Blue?” I ask.

  He doesn’t look up. He just keeps washing and washing his hands, running his fingers over clean skin. “What are you doing here?”

  I bite my lip, unsure what to say. He must have thought I might come. That’s why he added me to the list. He must want me here.

  He doesn’t seem to want me here, though. It’s a private moment I’ve walked in on.

  I step into the bathroom. “Are you okay?”

  After a second, he turns off the faucet. Silence rings in the small space. He sets his hands on the edge of the counter and hangs his head. He looks defeated. Broken. I didn’t do that, did I? Was he okay before he came back?

  Has he ever been okay?

  I want to go to him, but the lines of his shoulders are rigid. “Blue, whatever you did—”

  His mouth is on mine before I can answer. It’s not a kiss, it’s a fusing of him and me—it’s rough and invasive. It hurts, and I never want him to stop. His hands sink into my hair, still wet from the sink, sending droplets onto my neck.

  “What?” he asks, nipping at my lips, not letting me speak. “If I killed someone, you’ll forgive me? If I have a body in my fucking fridge, you’ll help me hide it?”

  I shiver. I know he’s trying to scare me—and it’s working. I’m afraid.

  Fear doesn’t control me anymore. It doesn’t define me.

  “Yes,” I say softly. “That’s what I’d do. I’m on your side. Now and forever. I’ve always been on your side.”

  A shudder racks him, and he presses his forehead to mine. “It’s not safe for you with me.”

  And then I can’t help it. I have to touch him. I put my hands on his big shoulders, feel him vibrate with tension. It’s like touching a wild animal. There’s power and ferocity and intelligence. I could never control him. I only want to follow where he leads.

  “It’s never been safe for me, Blue. Except when I’m with you.”

  My words seem to unlock something within him. They unleash him. He comes at my mouth like he’s going to consume me—teeth and tongue, harsh and relentless. Strong hands lift me onto the counter, and I hold on to him for balance.

  He kisses his way down my jaw and over my collarbone. He touches me all over, his hands mapping every inch. It’s a claiming, with his mouth as the brand and his body holding me in place.

  He reaches between us, and I brace myself for his fingers. They’ll be blunt now. They’ll hurt.

  Instead I hear a zipper as he opens himself up.

  My dress rides up easy, and he shoves aside my panties. His cock lines up, and I tense. I know how it feels going in dry, but I don’t try to stop him. He needs this from me, and I need him to take it.

  I’m slicker than I thought. He slides in quick, but it still stretches me out.

  My mouth opens on a gasp, and he takes the opportunity to kiss me hard. He fucks me from both sides, his tongue thrusting, his cock deep inside. He doesn’t relent until I’m fighting him, struggling for breath and for relief, the ache in my sex so strong I’m clenching around him, milking him while he moans into my mouth.

  He speeds up fast enough that I can’t keep up, I can only stay open to him, battered by him, shoved over the edge by him. It’s like falling, and he’s the only thing holding me up. Only his cock keeps me grounded while I climax around it, breaking into pieces, coming back together in his arms.

  * * *

  He puts me in the shower—literally strips me down completely and lifts me into the shower. I’m not a doll, because he checks the temperature before pushing me gently under the spray. I’m not a child, because he washes me slowly, sensually, lingering on my breasts and between my thighs.

  My legs shake as he plays with my folds, fingers slick with water and soap and arousal.

  He holds me against him, my back to his chest, supporting me. I’m not standing anymore, not holding on to the walls of the shower. There’s only his arms holding me up, his fingers inside me. There’s only the low murmur of his voice in my ear, reassuring me, soothing me. “Let go, gorgeous. Let go.”

  I think he means more than this shower, more than my body.

  He wants me to let go of everything I’ve been fighting to keep—control and security. This wall I’ve been building around myself, each brick made from scarlet lipstick or high heels, paved with a fuck-me smile. It’s the only way I know how to be safe.

  Even that it’s never actually made me safe.

  Safety is a dream, the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. If I smile enough and dance enough and take off my clothes enough, maybe one day I’ll reach it. Except it doesn’t exist.

  I whimper, and Blue murmurs to me, “Shhh.”

  My eyes fall shut, letting him pull me from the shower, trusting him completely as he guides me onto a plush mat. He dries my body with a towel, lifting my arms and kneeling at my feet. It’s a form of service, what he’s doing, the way he’s caring for me—an apology and promise all at once.

  “I know you’ve been worried about me,” he says, breath warm against my temple. “I know you’ve been protecting me all this time. Let me protect you.”

  The words strip me bare.

  When you really think about protection, what it means, it’s a cruel thing to accept. If he is my shelter in the storm, then he is the one battered by wind and lightning. He is the one taking away my pain. I’ve never wanted to let him do that.

  It hurts him that I don’t let him do that.

  He lifts me up, and I wrap my arms around his neck. I curl myself up in him, knowing that if any harm will come to us, it will come to him first. I let him give me what my mother never had—a man who cared more about her than himself, someone who would fight for her, someone who would stay.

  His lips are soft against my forehead, a gentle kiss before he lays me down on his bed.

  The sheets are white, the walls bare. I’ve been in this room before, been fucked here and used. Being cherished is almost harder to take, more foreign. More of a risk, because if I lose this now, if I lose him now, it will break me. I will be as lost as my mother, like I swore to myself I’d never be.

  “Did you take the watch?” My
voice sounds loud in the dark room.

  He pauses in the act of getting into bed beside me, sheet raised. Then he slides in, the hair on his legs a lovely friction against mine. His arms wrap around me, underneath and above, a cocoon of cotton and man, a dark space for just us two.

  I drop my voice to a whisper. “Did you kill him?”

  “I’m not going to lie to you,” he says softly. “I thought about it. I’m still thinking about it.”

  At this I can breathe a sigh of relief. “Thank God.”

  He shifts me so I’m on his chest, and when I move my hands under my chin, it’s just like before. We’re teenagers again, and he’s whispering his secrets. I’m whispering mine.

  “I don’t care about what a judge says is right or wrong,” he says. “You know that about me. You’ve always known that about me.”

  “They don’t understand,” I say, but that’s a lie. Sometimes they do understand and just don’t care. Sometimes their hands are trapped just as much as ours.

  And sometimes a killer is born.

  A boy who needed to fight to survive. A teenager thrown into war. I don’t blame Blue for what he is. A judge can’t help him any more than one could help me. We were both cast out of society long before we thought to leave, both told we were wrong before we knew what was right.

  He washes his hands even when they’re clean, because some part of that little boy is still inside.

  I trace circles over his chest. The sparse hair, the sheer size of him. He’s filled out since the last time we were like this. He’s grown, and so have I—not only my breasts and my hips. I’m a woman now, and a woman chooses her own path.

  Blue is my path.

  His eyes are dark. “I’ve taken care of him. I can tell you how, but—”

  A sound of protest escapes my throat before I can rein it in.

  His smile is wry, so much like the teenager from all those years ago that my heart squeezes. “All you need to know is that he’s been invited to leave the city. I very much think he will. He doesn’t have a job or a fiancée here anymore.”

  It feels like a shadow is over me, from Travis and my past. From everything I’ve done. “You didn’t have to do that for me.”

  “I fucking did. That’s what you don’t understand. It’s not a choice. You’re a compulsion for me. A goddamn obsession. Even back then, I would have clawed my way back to you except that I—”

  “Except what?”

  He presses his lips together, and I know he’s said more than he meant to. “Except that I thought you didn’t want me. I thought you wanted that. I fucking believed you.”

  I flinch, because he’s still angry about that.

  His eyebrows furrow. “No, gorgeous, not like that. I fucking believed you instead of protecting you. I let you send me away just to keep me from pounding him into the ground. I would have done it too. But I thought you wanted him. I would have done anything to make you happy. Even let him live.”

  His words are harsh and primal and strangely beautiful. He cups my head in his hands and kisses me, lips devouring mine, tongue insistent.

  “You’re gorgeous.” He plants kisses on my cheeks, my forehead, my mouth—and starts all over again. The word that had once been an insult has become a form of worship. “Gorgeous for protecting me. Gorgeous for sacrificing yourself. Gorgeous for forgiving me.”

  I pull back. “There’s nothing to forgive.”

  “I left you there.” He closes his eyes as if remembering. “And then I came back, like a fucking pit bull, snarling at you every chance I had. And you forgave me for that, every time, didn’t you?”

  My eyes are hot with tears I can’t hold back. “It wasn’t even a question.”

  “You knew.” His voice is rough. “You knew I came back for you. Even when I hated you. Even when I thought you fucking hated me. I couldn’t stay away.”

  I can’t answer him, can’t do anything but return his kisses—on the slashes of his cheeks, on the plane of his forehead. On the angry line of his mouth. I don’t stop there. I kiss the stubble of his jaw and his Adam’s apple. I kiss my way down his chest, stopping only to lick a flat copper nipple. He grunts in answer, his body shifting to press his erection against my leg.

  I have more kisses to give him, five years of them. One for his abs and another for the indent pointing down. One for the tip of his cock.

  “Fuck.”

  He’s fucked my mouth before, he’s made me suck him off, but we’ve never done this. He’s lying flat, exposed to me, his cock standing both proud and vulnerable. I take him in my fist and my mouth. I suck him deep until he’s groaning, until he’s thrusting wild and without rhythm.

  Until he’s shooting into the back of my throat, fists tangled in the sheets. The tendons in his neck stand out as his whole upper body lifts off the bed. His whole body is a picture of agony, writhing and desperate. The groan he makes raises the hairs on my neck—an animal sound of defeat.

  Chapter Twenty

  “Sugar?”

  “Please,” I say, pulling the small ceramic sugar pot from the box.

  Mrs. Owens uses the tongs to add a cube of sugar to her tea and mine. Tanglewood Home has done a lot to make Mrs. Owens comfortable, but they drew the line at installing a large glass cabinet for her antique teapot sets. So I bring a complete set every time I visit.

  Blue enters just as I’m taking a sip. His expression softens even though we’ve only been apart ten minutes. “They said the larger room just opened up. She can move in early next week.”

  “Oh, that’s great.” I make a face. “Or maybe we shouldn’t be celebrating.”

  Blue says nothing, just kisses the top of my head as he sits beside me—confirming that someone did have to die for her to get the room. It makes sense, considering where we are. It makes sense wherever we are. Death has always followed me, from the time I was too young to understand.

  That hasn’t changed now that I have Blue by my side. He’s a killer and a soldier. He’s a fighter in every sense of the word. And I love him just the way he is.

  “Are you okay?” he asks quietly. He’s really asking how Mrs. Owens is doing today.

  She can hear us, but she isn’t listening. Her eyes are far away, the cup clattering against the saucer as her hands tremble. I take them from her gently and set them on the table. In a few minutes she’ll come back to us. The moments happen more frequently, but they bother me less. As long as she’s happy and comfortable, then I am too.

  “I was just telling her about your new company.”

  He stretches his legs and leans back on the sofa. He wraps his arm around me, the picture of a relaxed male. I’m glad he comes with me to these visits. I didn’t even have to beg—or fuck him, which was Candy’s helpful suggestion. Of course, we mostly do that every night anyway.

  Sometimes mornings too.

  “Think I can cut it?” he asks.

  I roll my eyes. I can’t help but smile. “If you get scared, you can always come to me for help.”

  He’s just digging for compliments. Only weeks after putting feelers out for security services, he had a full roster of clients. Apparently being skilled and stone-cold in the military had earned him a reputation. It turned out he hated working at the club more than I did—but he insisted on watching over me. Only when I quit did he consider leaving too.

  Ivan is a little pissed to lose his head of security, but he was the first one to sign the contract with Blue Security to staff and train the bouncers at his club.

  “You should,” Mrs. Owens says suddenly. “Hannah’s the strongest person I know.”

  My eyes heat with tears. “I’m sure that’s not true.”

  A trembling hand covers mine. “The strong ones never think they are. They’re too busy surviving.”

  And I think that just might be true. It’s definitely true for Blue. He knows he’s strong physically—skilled with his fists and with guns. He made himself that way so he’d never be kicked around again.

>   He doesn’t always know he’s strong inside. He thinks that part of him was crushed long ago, that he’s been dead inside for five years. I know different. He was waiting—just like me.

  I take his hand in mine, and for a brief moment all three of us are connected, the past and the present and hope for the future. Then Mrs. Owens smiles blandly and turns to Blue as if she’s just noticed him. “Sugar?”

  “Please,” he says.

  We stay and drink tea for a few more minutes and promise to return soon. I have more time to see her now that I’m studying for my GED. I hope to take some classes at the community college in the fall.

  The sunshine blinds me when I step out of the building. I haven’t seen this much sunshine in years, always arriving and leaving the Grand when it was dark outside. It’s given my skin a new golden hue that Blue enjoys exploring with his tongue. And it’s given me hope.

  “What are your plans for the day?” I link my arm in his as we head down the sidewalk. We’re two blocks away from his apartment. Our apartment now. “Work, work, and more work?”

  I’m teasing him because he’s been flooded with interest. Which means lots of meetings with CEOs and city politicians. And that means I get to see him in a suit and tie. He fills them out beautifully but finds them stifling to wear. He’s always eager to tear it off when he gets home—and I’m happy to help.

  “Some of that,” he says. “Mostly phone conferences. I wasn’t planning to go into the office today.”

  “No?”

  “Well, I knew we were coming here so I deferred the in-person meetings until tomorrow. And besides, I had the most important job waiting for me here.” He’s got that look on his face, a little shy, a little proud—it means he’s going to say something sweet.

  “What’s that?”

  We stop in front of his building, the broad expanse of glass reflecting sunlight and the clasp of our bodies. He rests his hands on my hips, bending his head so only I can hear. “Protecting you.”

  I smile. “Silly, I’m already safe.”