What Happens After Dark

by Jasmine Haynes

  Picking her up, he cradled her in his arms as he carried her out of the dining room and down the hall. Her shirt was still a tight band above her breasts, her nipples bared, her pussy exposed. The feeling returned to her hands and fingers in painful pins and needles. Her mouth was dry.

  It had been beautiful and perfect while he was doing it. She hadn’t noticed the aches and pains. Or rather she’d reveled in them. But now, not so much.

  In the bathroom, he flipped on the light, and she closed her eyes against its onslaught. After setting her on the toilet lid, he pulled her shirt down, covering her breasts with a careful, gentle touch. Then he was opening and closing doors and drawers. She slitted her eyes and held a hand up in front of them to block the light until her pupils adjusted. Hunkering down before her, Luke upended a bottle of hydrogen peroxide onto a cotton ball, then dabbed at her forehead.

  “Ow.”

  “I’m sorry, baby.” His eyes were dark, stricken. “The edge of the sideboard didn’t cut you open enough to bleed, but there’s an ugly gash that needs to be cleaned.” He dabbed the wound. She tried not to whimper, but it stung like a son of a bitch. “I should have been more careful,” he murmured, his voice raspy with guilt. “I should have realized your legs would be weak.”

  “It’s not your fault.”

  He didn’t look at her. “You need to go to the hospital and get examined to make sure you don’t have a concussion.”

  She snorted. “I don’t have a concussion. And I’m not going to the emergency room. That’s ridiculous.” The wound throbbed slightly, but she didn’t have a headache. “It was a bump, no big deal.”

  He gently smoothed her hair back, dabbed again at the gash as if that would change everything. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m an idiot.”

  Derek had hurt her far worse, and he’d meant to do it. Other men had as well. They never said they were sorry. You drive me to it. It’s all your fault. You force me to punish you. Luke had said that, too, and she liked it. Yet those other men had said it when they did bad things to her, when they hurt her on purpose. Things she accepted because she had to. Because she deserved them.

  I don’t know what that means, she wanted to say. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. There was a terrifying pathology to it all. Why did she have to have sex the way she did? Why was it okay to come only if she was being punished?

  She didn’t want to think about it, couldn’t let herself think about it. If she did . . . Everything would come tumbling down around her.

  “I need to go,” she said, pushing at him. She didn’t want to think about that stuff, not here, not now. Not with him. Awful, terrible things might spill out and drive him away.

  “I’m sorry.”

  Quit apologizing. Bree wanted to shout at him. But then he’d think something was wrong, and he’d nag at her until he forced her to say something she’d regret. Keeping her voice calm and steady was a strain. “It wasn’t your fault. I stumbled. It was all good. I liked what we did. But it’s late and my mom will expect me home soon.”

  He backed off as she stood, and damn if she wasn’t overly conscious of being nearly naked with too much light shining down on her. “Where’s my skirt?”

  “On the floor in the dining room. I’ll get it.”

  While he was gone, she took the opportunity to stare at herself in the mirror. He was right, the skin wasn’t actually broken, but there was a thick, bloodred, inch-long line that was already turning a sickening shade of purple. She must have hit the edge of the sideboard. The skin around it was puffy and reddened. She should ask for some ice to cut down the bruising and swelling, but she didn’t want to stay long enough for that.

  Get out, get out, get out. The night was ruined. It had been so good. Kinky and exciting. The woman he’d bought a drink for. Frank hitting on her. Luke dragging her out and punishing her so very well.

  But she’d screwed it all up, and now she just needed to run away from all the aftermath.

  She wished she had her own car.

  “Here you go.” He actually held out the skirt to her as if he wanted to help her step into it.

  She grabbed it from his hand. “I need a moment.” Then she pushed him out and practically slammed the door in his face.

  Why did she always ruin a perfectly good thing?

  28

  FUCK, FUCK, FUCK.

  He’d called her a bitch, a slut, a whore, and a cunt, tied her up, blindfolded her, gagged her, fucked her against a wall, and had the best damn climax of his life. Then he’d let her fall into the sideboard. As he was dropping her off at her mother’s house, the bruise was already unsightly.

  What they did was supposed to be fun. He wasn’t supposed to hurt her, not even inadvertently. Over the last two weeks, he’d been escalating, pushing her for more, doing more to her. And fucking loving it. All while her father lay dying. Or dead. Their relationship was whacked, and things were out of control. His fault, he knew better.

  “Bree.”

  Hand on the passenger door, she stopped. “Don’t apologize again,” she said, her hair falling across her face to hide the damage. “It was an accident.”

  “Accidents like that shouldn’t happen.” The roughness, the punishment, though it was playacting, couldn’t be good for her, not with unresolved conflicts made worse by her father’s death.

  She reached out, touched his hand, angling just enough to show him a smile. “It wasn’t your fault. I’m to blame.”

  The words exemplified her issues. She deserved it; she was to blame.

  She was out of the car without giving him a chance to refute that. As he watched the front door close behind her, he wondered how much longer they could do this before she broke.

  IT WAS AFTER TEN, AND THE HOUSE WAS DARK. SHE TIPTOED DOWN the hall.

  “Bree?”

  Shit. “Yes, Mom?” She stepped into the shadows of her room and didn’t turn on the light.

  Instead her mom turned it on for her as she followed Bree inside. “Oh my God, Brianna, what happened?”

  Luke was fucking me into the wall and I lost my balance. Rough sex really takes it out of you, doesn’t it, Mom.

  Okay, no, she wouldn’t say that. “Stupid me, it was raining and I yanked open the car door and hit myself on the corner of it.” It hadn’t rained all night, and the car door would have hit her body, not her forehead, but whatever.

  “You silly girl.” Her mom put out a hand, but stopped short of touching Bree. “You should be more careful.”

  Her mother believed. Her mother had always believed what-ever she was told when Bree was growing up. She was too old to start seeing the truth now.

  “I’ll get you some frozen peas. They’ll help stop the bruising.”

  Bree didn’t tell her mother it was already too late. The wounds she had would never heal.

  Later, as she lay in her bed, her mother in hers, Bree held the peas to her forehead until they started to melt, and ice water trickled into her hair, down her throat, and soaked the pillow.

  Or maybe that was just her foolish tears.

  LUKE WAS CALLING HER PHONE. SHE KNEW IF SHE DIDN’T ANSWER it, he’d never call again. He would be lost to her forever. Yet she couldn’t move, couldn’t see, couldn’t speak. As if she were still knotted to the hook in his ceiling.

  Don’t go. Don’t leave me. What did I do wrong? Why don’t you love me anymore?

  “Bree, wake up.”

  Someone was shaking her. But she couldn’t see. Where was Luke?

  “Bree, your cell phone’s ringing. Wake up.”

  Bree cracked one eyelid. The sun streaming across the bed was so bright it hurt. It wasn’t Tuesday night anymore, but Wednesday morning. Her cell phone rang shrilly in her mother’s hand. Bree had never used musical tones, just that annoyingly incessant ring.

  “It’s the second time she’s called, Bree. Your boss.”

  “Oh.” Bree grabbed the phone, her head swimming with the sudden movement. “Sorry. Thanks.�
�� She pushed the button. “Hello?”

  “Hi, Bree, it’s Erin. I just wanted to check how you’re doing today.”

  Bree gingerly touched her forehead. It throbbed. “I’m fine.” Then she remembered to add, “Thanks.”

  Her mother still stood in the doorway, but as Bree finally sat up in the bed, she disappeared down the hall toward the front of the house.

  “Did you need me to come in to work?” She hadn’t set the alarm, and she figured Erin and Dominic would think it was weird if she came to work the day after she’d said her father died.

  “No, no, we don’t need you. It was just that Dominic told me about your dad, and I wanted to say how sorry I am.”

  “Thanks. He isn’t suffering anymore.” At least not on earth, though maybe somewhere down below, where it was very, very hot.

  “Dominic and I would like to attend the service.”

  Shit. This was it. “We’re not having a service.”

  “Oh,” was all Erin said.

  “We don’t have any relatives in the area, and Mom didn’t want to put herself through all that. We’re having him cremated.” And his urn was the ass-end of Dumbo the elephant. Really couldn’t have a memorial service with Dumbo on the altar.

  “Of course, I understand.” Erin’s tone said she didn’t understand at all, but she was too gracious to say anything. “Perhaps we can send flowers.”

  “Thanks, but that’s really not necessary.” She felt her face heating with embarrassment.

  “Oh. Well.” Erin was used to the niceties of normal families, not a dysfunctional one like Bree’s. “If there’s anything we can do . . .”

  “Thanks a lot. My mom will appreciate your concern.”

  “You take all the time you need to help your mother through.”

  Bree grimaced and was glad Erin couldn’t see it. “I’ll be in tomorrow for that meeting with Mr. Marbury.”

  Erin gasped. “Oh, Bree, that can wait. I’ll call him and cancel.”

  “No,” she said too sharply, then backed off a bit. “He’s just got a few questions so he can get ready for the audit. I don’t want to hold that up.”

  “For that matter, I’m sure we can move the audit out, too, to give you more time to prepare.”

  “No.” This time she managed not to sound as harsh. She was prepared. It was Marbury who wasn’t. She didn’t want him coming back at her and saying any issues were her fault because she hadn’t explained it properly to him. “I need to get this done, Erin. I’m fine, I can handle it.”

  “Bree, I really feel you’re rushing things. You need time.”

  Time for what? Almost all evidence of her father’s existence had been wiped clean from the house. Her mother had sold his car a couple of months ago because they knew he’d never be driving again. There was only one thing left. Out at the back of the garden. The dollhouse.

  “Please, Erin, let me do this. I’ll take time afterward.” She felt her voice rising, her pulse gathering speed. “Please don’t call Marbury.”

  “All right. It’s okay. I’m sorry. I know you need to do it your way.” Just like Erin had to do it her way after Jay died. “What time is the meeting?”

  “Nine. But I don’t need you to be there with me.” She wanted to handle this herself, and she didn’t want Erin to see Marbury in action. Although with the meeting being at DKG, he probably would be better than his usual asshole self.

  “Whatever you need to do, Bree.”

  “Was everything fine with the check run?”

  “Yes. Between Rachel and I, we got it all loaded, approved, and printed.”

  With Rachel doing AP and AR input, now the check run, maybe they didn’t need Bree at all. It was another reason she needed to get back there. To prove her worth.

  “We’ll see you tomorrow, then,” Erin said. “Unless you change your mind later and want me to cancel Marbury.”

  “I won’t.”

  After she said good-bye, she realized her hands were shaking.

  “You’re still wearing the same clothes you went out in last night.” Her mother was in the doorway again, as if she’d been just outside listening.

  God. She wasn’t even wearing her bra. It was in the backseat of Luke’s car. Still in bed, she tugged the blanket up. “I was tired.”

  “That bruise is bad.”

  Damn. What would everyone say at work? She’d have to come up with something better than saying she’d whacked herself with a car door.

  “I guess the peas didn’t work.” Her mother stared at the package puddled on the carpet.

  “Makeup will cover it,” Bree said confidently. “Could you hand me my robe, please?” Despite being in her clothes, she covered up, but once she’d sidled by her mother and closed the bathroom door to shower, the mirror told a totally different story. Her forehead was several shades of purple in a four-inch circle above her eyebrow, with a crimson slash in the center where she’d connected with the edge of the sideboard.

  Uh, no. Makeup wasn’t going to cover that.

  “JESUS H. CHRIST.” THAT EVENING, LUKE WAS DISGUSTED. EVEN IN the relative darkness of his car, he could see the bruise on her forehead, a deep purple and already turning color. He’d done that to her. “You told your mother you ran into a door?”

  “She accosted me the moment I walked in last night. I couldn’t come up with anything else on the spur of the moment.”

  He literally felt sickened. The explanation sounded like something an abused wife told her friends and coworkers. But Mrs. Mason hadn’t batted an eyelash, even calling Bree a silly girl, and let the man responsible for the injury leave with her daughter on his arm.

  Yeah, he was sick to the pit of his fucking stomach. There was something wrong. Because the mother displayed signs of being totally oblivious to warning signals. She could have ignored them when Bree was too young to take care of herself.

  “Where are we going?” Bree said as if she sensed they needed an immediate topic change.

  “My place. I’m going to make you dinner.” He’d never thought of it before, but he needed something that didn’t require their usual roles. He stabbed a very ungentle finger in her direction. “And we’re not fucking later. If we do anything, we’ll make love.” He couldn’t take the chance of hurting her again.

  “Yes, Master.”

  With the title, she put them squarely back in the dom–sub standing. It was where she was comfortable despite what had happened last night. Curling her legs beneath her, she turned against the seat belt and leaned into him, her breath sweet, her heat arcing across the console between them. “But you do need to fuck me, Master. You know I get all uppity and obstreperous and you have to put me in my place.”

  “I am not hurting you tonight,” he insisted.

  “You never hurt me, Master.” She stroked his arm. “Punishment isn’t hurting, because I deserve it.” Then she lowered her voice to barely a whisper. “I want it that way. I need it that way. And you love giving it to me that way.”

  Fuck. Last night was too good. Until she’d lost her balance. He’d lost his equilibrium, too. He wanted it back. He wanted the woman she was the night they went bowling. But that woman wasn’t Bree Mason; she was only a figment. He almost wished he’d never started wanting more intimacy from her, when what they did was just hot sex, when it was uncomplicated, when he knew her next phone call would lead to a deliciously kinky encounter the memory of which he could whack off to in his morning shower. He believed she’d been happier then.

  The lights were blazing in his house when he pulled into his driveway. He hadn’t remembered leaving them on when he left this morning, that’s how dazed and fucked-up he’d been.

  Bree was out of the car and clinging to his arm before he could get to her door to open it. “Take me out tonight, Master. I’m not wearing panties. You can fuck me anywhere you want.”

  His blood heated in his veins with images of pushing her down on a table in front of fifteen men, lifting her skirt, and claim
ing her with a hot fuck while they watched.

  That’s what she did to him. Made him want crazy things until he couldn’t see straight and he just did them. And loved them. She was right about that. Yet there was an edge of desperation in her words, her voice. That’s what was wrong with all this now. She wasn’t supposed to be desperate. It was supposed to fun, but she was using kinky sex to mask the bad things in her life.

  “I’m not fucking you tonight,” he repeated sternly as they climbed the front steps. “Making love is all you get.” But would that make a fucking bit of difference now? He fit the key in the lock, but the deadbolt was already open. What the hell?

  The door burst inward. “Dad, I need to talk to you about Stephie and doing some sort of intervention.” Keira clapped her mouth shut the moment her eyes lighted on Bree. She wore a letter jacket in the green and gold school colors, and her hair, as dark as his, was pulled back in a ponytail high on her head. Her lips parted and stayed that way as she stared at Bree. More specifically, at the bruise on Bree’s forehead.

  Fuck. He closed his eyes a moment. Had he hung the plant back on the hook, thrown out the ruined scarves, and put the blindfold back in his bedroom? Fuck, fuck. He couldn’t remember. “You didn’t tell me you were coming home, honey.”

  Keira didn’t make a snide rejoinder. “Sorry. I should have. But I was just so pissed about Stephie.”

  “Let’s go inside and you can tell me.” He still had hold of Bree’s arm, but she was cemented like a block of stone to the front stoop. “Bree, I want to introduce you to my daughter. This is Keira.”

  It would have happened sometime, but he’d have preferred the first meeting to come without the bruise. Now, after the initial shock, he remembered getting rid of the scarves and blindfold, though the plant was still on the floor. Whatever.

  “It’s nice to meet you I should go home,” Bree said, her voice a thin whisper, the two sentences running together without a pause, as if they were one.

  “Don’t be silly. I’m the one butting into my dad’s party.” Keira had never been one to begrudge him a new life after the divorce. She wasn’t clingy, resenting the women he dated. He just hadn’t brought many home for her to meet.