Brutally Beautiful

by Christine Zolendz

  “No,” she said demurely. Perfectly.

  Threading my fingers through her hair, I pulled her face up to mine. “Fuck Ms. Matthews, you like being tied up don’t you?”

  “Probably as much as you do, Mr. Grayson.”

  “You liked being spanked, Ms. Matthews? Because I’ve wanted to see that perfect ivory backside of yours turn pink under my hand.”

  Her answer was to flip herself around and raise her ass in the air at me, arms stretched and crossed from the bound bowties. It was the sexiest thing I had ever seen.

  My hands glided up her thighs, slid over the plump cheeks of her ass and my tongue followed behind. “Give me a word for you to escape from this,” I whispered against her flesh.

  “I don’t need one, Kade. I trust you.”

  “Baby, give me a word so you can have the control.”

  “Tuxedo,” she whispered.

  The slap made her gasp. And there, on the right side of her ass was the beautiful pink hue of my handprint. Just one slap. One slap and I was breathless, in a frenzy to thrust inside her so deeply. Two more slaps and I caressed the soft pink spots as she panted for more.

  Slowly, I dipped my fingers into her. “You’re soaked, Samantha. Tell me what you need,” I murmured. My fingers stroked in and out, faster and faster, “So fucking wet.” I wanted to consume her.

  “I need you,” she whispered, pushing her hips to the rhythm of my fingers.

  Thrusting my cock into her, she cried out in a loud moan, thighs quivering. With my fingers still wet from her, I eased two fingers into her ass.

  Groaning, her hips began grinding into mine. Holy shit, she liked it dirty. Her muscles squeezed around my cock, they trembled and wept as I thrust into her again and again. “You feel so good, Sam.” Harder and harder. Faster and faster. She took it all. She’s played submissive before, and she’s played it well. The thought broke me.

  “Oh fuck,” she gasped. “Don’t stop, I’m going to…” She was constricting around me so hard I couldn’t hold back, I didn’t want to.

  Clutching at her waist, I slammed my hips against her flesh and spilled myself inside her, both of us collapsing and panting onto the bed.

  Easing my fingers and my cock out of her, I freed her from the bowties and gathered her in my arms. She giggled and tucked her body into mine, “We are both in desperate need of a shower. We smell like sex. Lots of sex.”

  Chuckling into her hair, I smiled, “Smells pretty delicious to me.”

  She slapped my ass hard, “Come on, Kade. Let’s get one together.”

  Fuck if I was going to say no to that.

  In the middle of us trying to get dressed, and more discussions of her childhood and avoidance of any David conversations, my damn doorbell rang and Bree, or rather Jennifer, stood outside my door with a coat covering a blood streaked shirt. It sobered up my extreme horniness immediately. Samantha pulled her through the front door and into my kitchen, shoving a cup of coffee into her hands. “I was just telling Kade about my childhood,” she said seriously to Jennifer.

  Jennifer stood there awkwardly. “Kade, this is Jen and I’m tonic,” she laughed. I didn’t and neither did Jen. She always tried to make the most awkward jokes to ease other people’s discomfort. Even though it never worked, she never gave up trying to make people feel better. That said a lot about her character to me.

  “Uh…so…How’s Dylan this morning?” Sam asked.

  “He’s doing really well, no infections so far. In fact, he’s even up and walking.”

  Relief swept over Samantha’s face as she pulled her friend into my bathroom, bringing her duffel bag full of clothes.

  Sitting in my leather recliner, I listened as the women spoke, sometimes in whispers and I tried desperately to keep my rage under control.

  “Before I leave, I just want to change my look again, maybe go blonde this time, cut it short,” Sam’s voice explained.

  “Where are you going to go, Sam? I just don’t understand it? How did he find you? I don’t get it. He looked dead,” Jen whispered.

  “I’ve been trying to wrap my brain around this all night and I can’t figure out how he knew where I was, or how he is even still breathing,” Sam whispered.

  Hushed words whispered back, “Have you stopped to wonder if it might be your father?”

  A few heart pounding beats of silence filled the room. Her father? Her father wanted her dead too?

  “I…I don’t want to believe that, Jen. My father,” I heard her clear her throat and struggle for the right words. “It could be him, but, I’m not staying here to find out. It’s only going to be a matter of time before someone else comes here to finish the job. I just want to leave so everyone here is safe.”

  “Do you want me to…”

  “No!” Sam yelled. “You shouldn’t have come with me in the first place. You need to stay here with Dylan and have a life.” The shower turned on and I heard things being moved around. “And, I also need you to make sure Kade is okay. Make sure Dylan and Kade stay close, okay?”

  I didn’t listen to the rest of the conversation, because I didn’t want to hear anymore. She just needed to stay here. I could keep her safe. She was going to fight me when walking out my door. Waiting inside the kitchen, drinking the rest of the coffee, I battled with my demons and with reasons to tell her to stay.

  After thirty minutes, they walked out and we drove to the hospital in silence. Sam and I glanced at each other often, but no words were exchanged and it started to weigh heavily on my shoulders. She wanted to leave that night and I wanted to be inside her a million more times before she left.

  The three of us made our way to the front desk and grabbed visitor’s passes, and then waited for the elevator to take us to the sixth floor. When we stepped into the elevator, I couldn’t help but stand close to her, touch her neck and skim my fingers through her soft silky hair. I fucking wished that Jen wasn’t there, because I needed Samantha, right then. I needed her more than anything.

  Jen eyeballed us weirdly. “Oh, my GOD! You two had sex didn’t you? Holy shit, you had sex last night?”

  Samantha’s face instantly turned bright red. “Why would you think that?”

  “Because you’ve got that up all night fucking look and the way you’re eye fucking each other right now…you’re both itching to have elevator love, right here.” Then she broke out into a chorus of Love in an Elevator by Aerosmith. “Gah, just don’t get hot and heavy in front of me. Sex in an elevator is just wrong on so many levels. Get it? So many levels?”

  “Yes. Very…punny,” I chuckled, stepping closer to Samantha. Screw it, Jen was right and I wanted my hands on her, now.

  “Well, I usually take steps to avoid elevators, especially if someone like Kade Grayson is on the elevator. You might end up getting the shaft,” Sam whispered giggling.

  Oh, it’s on. No one could play word games as well as I could. “Yes. Elevators aren’t very fun. It’s like being trapped in a box. Although I’d like to be trapped in your box, and I didn’t hear you complaining about my shaft last night.”

  “Even though you think you’re pushing my buttons…you will not get a rise out of me, Mr. Grayson. Now, stop all the elevator puns, they’re driving me up a wall.”

  I was dead-ass laughing. I had to think of more puns quick. “You didn’t mind when my shaft was driving you up the wall last night.”

  “Yes, I recall being in between a cock and a hard place,” Sam quipped.

  “Yep, the best damn cock climber I ever saw,” I smiled.

  “This is like pure punishment,” she laughed.

  “Well, I am the punisher,” I said, locking my eyes on hers.

  “Yes, my ass still stings nicely,” she smiled. How the hell did that woman think I was going to let her walk out of my life?

  The elevator doors opened to Dylan’s floor and both women exited, laughing. I had three thoughts as I watched her walk out. One, I needed a sandwich. Two, I wondered where the best hidin
g spot was in this hospital to fuck Samantha. And three, how the hell was I going to get her to stay in this town? I wanted her to be with me, no one else was going to have her. Period.

  Creepy? Yes. Possessive? Absolutely. We all know I have issues. I. Don’t. Care. What. You. Think. I wanted her. She was the only person in this world that I had ever met that made me think differently about things.

  My brother was sitting in one of those reclining hospital chairs next to a window when we walked in. The luckiest man I knew. Who else gets shot twice in a bar fight, and the bullets hit nothing important? He looked great, too. The color was back in his face, his smile was bright and they were already feeding him solid food.

  “I’m so sorry that I brought trouble with me,” I heard Sam say to him as she sat softly on his bed.

  “It was worth it, just to get to see my brother as much as I did, and to see him smile. I wish you’d stay.” His eyes glanced at Jennifer, “Jen told me about everything, but I still wish you’d stay here.”

  “I can’t, Dylan. I can’t have any more people hurt.”

  Hearing her say the words so decisively tore at my insides. Pulling up a visitor’s chair, I slumped into it and detached myself from the conversation, from the smiles and the laughter, from the world, wondering if any of this was worth fighting for.

  I only registered a bit of information they discussed. Samantha wanted to change her appearance, dye her hair again, and they bickered over colors. Jennifer spoke a little about the shooter, and then there were some mentions about states like Montana and North Dakota. Then at some point, I couldn’t even tell you when or how long after we got there, Sam and Jen went to get coffee in the cafeteria and I was left alone with my brother staring at me.

  “Kade, mate. Don’t let her go,” he said.

  “What?” I asked, waking up from my self-induced coma.

  Dylan leaned forward, clenching his face in pain and repeated, “Don’t let her go.”

  “What the fuck am I supposed to do?”

  “Make her feel safe here. She can’t go out there on her own,” he whispered.

  I laughed bitterly, “Actually, I think she can. She’s probably the only woman I ever met who could take care of herself on the run for the rest of her life.” I stood up, stretched and walked to the window. My rage lay just an inch below my surface.

  “Do you care about her?” He asked.

  “Bloody hell, yes,” I replied. Bending down to face him, trying desperately to hold back my anger, I sneered, “She doesn’t want to stay. End of story. I’m not a hero. I have no safety to offer her, I can’t even think of anything, except tying her up and locking her in my bloody basement.”

  “Fine, Kade,” he mumbled, as the girls walked back into the room. “I guess after she leaves, I won’t be seeing you for another couple of years, huh? It was nice to have you bloody visiting.”

  Samantha handed me a warm cup of coffee, but I didn’t even taste it. I just sat back down in the corner and hunkered down in my fictional thoughts, where I had more control over everything. It was easier to breathe that way.

  After we left Dylan, I drove her to the store. The day had turned to night and the darkness of it lay heavily on my shoulders. “So how did you meet David?”

  “Why?”

  “I have the right to know,” I snapped.

  “Why?”

  “Because I’ve already thrown my heart out for you. Already stripped my soul bare for you, so I want the same in return. I want to know the person who is going to destroy me completely!”

  “Does it make you feel better yelling at me, driving faster, gripping the wheel, clenching your teeth?” She asked.

  “No.”

  “Then fucking stop it. You got something to say to me, say it. Don’t yell at me because of the situation I’m in when my hands are tied.”

  “Now, I’m fucking thinking of you tied up. Just tell me the story, no more games. You’re leaving right? Tell me something more!”

  She turned her head to look out the window. The disregard for my feelings and her looking away cut me deeply.

  “David and I developed a tumultuous relationship over one too many glasses of champagne at one of my father’s hospital parties and our affair was fast and furious. I looked at him through rose-colored glasses, complete with lens flares and animated floaty hearts. I loved him, I really did. The easiest thing in the world was falling in love with him. I fell in love so fast, head first, feet first, heart first, doesn’t matter; it’s so damn easy to fall. The hard part was where I landed in his life and how I needed to hold on to who I was. But I fell in love with a complete lie. I never really knew the person he was. Let’s just say that he and Thomas would have been a great team.”

  The parking lot of the store was unusually crowded. I pulled into the only empty spot, stomped out of the truck and slammed the door as if I was throwing a tantrum. “We will finish this fucking conversation!” I snapped.

  “Oh, wonderful. I can’t wait to continue. You’re so lovely to talk to about all my secrets. Just a real sensitive being, you are,” she snapped back, storming into the store.

  Pushing the cart through the store, she was like a NASCAR driver, and you know it has that one fucking wheel that spins around in madness on its own accord, tripping her up and calling attention to itself with its whines. But she was determined. She was determined to get all the fucking shit she needed to change her appearance and leave me.

  Hair dye. Men’s clothing. Baseball caps. Make-up. I wanted to vomit.

  The one, yes one, check out line was at least 25 people long, all of them staring menacingly at the elderly woman holding up the line with a thick wad of coupons for her cat food and asking the cashier to read aloud to her about its nutritional value. A crying, wailing, screeching something-month old baby was in the arms of a harried snot-nosed teenager who bounced quickly back and forth on her flip-flops, even though it was not even twenty degrees outside.

  “Why the fuck do you need this shit for?” I picked through the clothing and boots, and other crap in the cart. “This line is impossible. This is insane. Look at these people. They’re all pathetic trash. I can’t stay here anymore.”

  “Shut up, Kade!” She hissed poking her finger hard into my chest. “Maybe, maybe this is more about something other than you! Those walls you built up for yourself. You should have installed windows in them, just to get a chance to see there are other people in this world besides you! Maybe that woman needs the nutritional value for herself and not her damn cats because her fucking social security checks don’t cover what she needs it to…that baby and that teenager? Well, you think she wants to be strapped with that crying kid, when babydaddy is out with his friends after he promised to make it all up to her? That kid is sick, Kade. Look in that baby’s eyes, she has a very high fever…look how limp her body is, look at her nose flaring and listen to her wheezing breaths. She shows signs of pneumonia, Kade, and look how tired the mother is. God, she’s just a baby herself.” Again, she poked me with her finger, harder this time. “You think they’re all here just to get in your way? Look at me…Kade…I’m here because I need to change the fucking way I look because there is someone who wants to see nothing more than me die, and I won’t let him…you don’t know these people’s stories. They are not less important than you are. They have there own issues, Kade, everybody does and you can’t know what these people’s stories are, even though in your head you think you can automatically tell who and what people are. Are you absolutely 100% sure that your reality is the fucking real one? In your gloriously disordered mind, I was nothing but a stripper.”

  “I automatically hate. That’s all I know…” I mumbled.

  She leaned closer to me, smooth skin against my neck, “Last night, you told me you were falling in love with me…love doesn’t grow well when it’s surrounded by such hate. Stop hating everyone because of the fucked up choices Thomas made. Thomas was Thomas, nobody else is Thomas.”

  �
�But they could be. They could turn into a Thomas!” I barked.

  She spun me around, tore the sleeve of my coat down, and lifted my shirt harshly up my back. “No, Kade! No! They could be a Leslie, a Gemma, a Henry, a Cory…” she listed the names of my friends who were killed, while gently touching their names with cool fingertips. “You’re forgetting the innocent people and always remembering the wicked one.”

  I yanked my arm away from her, and shrugged my coat back on my shoulder. By now, the whole of the store was watching our fight. “My freedom was taken from me that day!”

  “No, Kade, it wasn’t. Your security was taken from you that day. Your freedom is the choice to let it happen every day since then. This is your life. You don’t even watch it fly by. You closed your fucking eyes to it, until you saw some waitress with a nice rack. You want to love, Kade, so give up the shit that weighs you down and makes you hate. Let it go. I will fucking meet you half way. I let go of my baggage, if you let go of yours or we’re going to hit each other with the heavy packages for the rest of our lives.”

  My fucking head started buzzing like a cloud of killer bees was circling me. The voices of the people around me sounded too loud, they moved around too strangely, and they watched me too cautiously. “That’s a bloody joke, right? For the rest of our lives? You’re leaving here; you’re leaving me. So there’s no meeting anyone half way, is there?” I shifted angrily away from her as the line moved and I started slamming down the items on the conveyer belt at the register.

  She scrunched her eyebrows together and lay her hand on my chest, “You’re angry because I’m leaving?” The question was asked with pure innocent astonishment. Fuck, she really didn’t get it, did she?

  “I told you. You’re going to destroy me,” I hissed behind clenched teeth, as the items beeped past the electronic register in the hands of the cashier.

  Instantly, she closed the distance between our angry, coiled bodies, curled her hands tightly around the back of my neck and pulled me down to her lips. Like a lamb to its slaughter, I went.