by Marie James
Tears begin to stream down my face, and I don’t speak for a long time. I weep with the phone to my ear. I cry for the eighteen-year-old girl who thought she had the world at her fingertips, only to find out there’s nothing in this world left but pain and misery and shame for all the things I’m not telling him.
“And I liked what you did here last time,” I confess once the sobs ebb. “How fucked up does that make me?”
“It makes you perfect.”
My heart stops at the sound of his voice, and I cling to the hope that he actually means what he’s saying.
“They made me this way.” The tears begin anew.
“If none of that bad shit had happened, and we’d met at a different place in our lives, I’d still do the exact same things to you, and you’d enjoy them. They didn’t make you. This is just who you are.”
I ignore his words. There’s no point in focusing on what could’ve been or arguing with him that he’s wrong. It’s the pain of what I’ve lost that guts me. For the last six years I’ve lived in misery, slowly distancing myself from family and friends who didn’t understand why I just couldn’t ‘get over it already.’
“I told myself I didn’t need you, that I didn’t want you. I was sure when I asked you to go that I wouldn’t miss you. I’m tired of lying to myself.” I take a deep breath before continuing, “I do miss you, and I fucking hate myself for it.”
I hang up the phone, my eyes burning from the tears I should never have cried in the first place.
My head jerks up at the first sound of knuckles on my door, but I don’t bother to get off my bed.
Why should I?
He has a key.
Chapter 22
TJ
I grin to myself when I have to pull out the key to unlock her door. At least she’s locking it now. I’ve been watching her apartment almost every single day, waiting, hoping, and praying she’d make this call. I’ve grown discouraged over time, but it hasn’t stopped me from parking my bike down the road and begging the devil to make tonight the night she actually reaches out.
She doesn’t say a word as I enter, relock the door, and strip out of my jacket and cut. They fall to the floor, and I don’t give a shit for even a split second about the disrespect I’m showing my club when I leave them where they land and cross the room.
“I—”
I press my fingers to her lips. “Shh.”
Her story gutted me, much like, I’m sure, my story did her. She pushed me away, not sure what to do with all the information I threw down in her lap, but I know what I needed in that moment and didn’t get from her. I was only bitter about it for a few days before I realized that what I needed wasn’t something she could give to me at the time.
“I’m sorry they hurt you.”
Her eyes slam shut, but it doesn’t hold the tears that continue to streak down her face. I pull her head against my chest and wrap my arms around her shoulders. She doesn’t fight me, but she’s not settling into my comfort either.
“I’m sorry they stole things from you.”
Her shoulders heave with her sobs, and her hot tears soak through my shirt.
“I’m sorry they took your power and your ability to say no.”
She pushes against my chest, and I allow it. Asserting dominance after what she’s confessed tonight just isn’t in me. She doesn’t go far, only pulls her head back so she can look up at me. Fuck me for loving the red rimming her eyes and the now silent tears as they cascade down her flushed cheeks.
“When was the last time someone pleasured you without pain?” She has to know I’m including our time together. My fingers have itched to smack her tits again. My teeth have ached with the need to bite her perfect fucking skin, but none of that is what either of us need right now.
“Never,” she whispers.
She attempts to hang her head, but I refuse to let her be ashamed of that. She’s not responsible for what those pieces of shit made her do, but she has to know she doesn’t have to be that person. Regaining control and power doesn’t have to be about accepting the abuse she puts her body through. She can be powerful and safe at the same time. She also has the right to like every form of sexual pleasure regardless if others deem it deviant.
“Let me,” I lick at her lips. “Let me make you feel good.”
“Turn off the lights,” she urges as I reach for the hem of her shirt.
“I want you to watch me. I need you to see us.” I refuse to let her hide from me.
Her head nods as if she believes she’s answered a question. I can only relinquish so much power here. I have my own demons after all. In my gut, I know what I’m offering has the ability to end with epically disastrous consequences, but I’m not strong enough to resist. Offering her pleasure on the heels of hearing her confess her ten-month brutalization has got to be the worst decision ever, but the train has left the station, and it’s only gaining momentum.
My hands tremble, betraying my inexperience in situations like this when my fingers ghost down her arm. I don’t do soft and sweet. I’ll get a girl off, but it comes as a consequence to my own pleasure, not as a response to hers. Somehow, deep inside, I know Kaci Stewart is different. She’s one of a kind. She’s everything I didn’t know I needed, and everything I’ve fought against for as long as women have been trying to hitch themselves to me. For the first time in my life, I’m terrified of a woman, of what she can do to me, of what she means to me, but I shut down the voices in my head telling me to get my ass out of there and never come back.
“Undress me, please,” I urge as she sits as still as a statue on her bed. She has to be an active participant in this, or she’ll end up right back in her head. It’s the last thing either of us need. Being rejected by her one more time may be what sends me into my own fucking spiral.
Her hands shake as much as mine as she reaches for my belt buckle, but I wait as patiently as I can manage as she slides the leather away. Warm fingers sweep inside my jeans as she works open the button, but I’m teetering on the edge as the sound of my zipper lowering echoes around the otherwise silent room.
“Jesus this is killing me,” I confess, but when her lips tilt up in a soft smile, I know I’d stand on the edge of her bed forever if it’s what she needs.
“Do you want me to suck you?” she asks, never taking her eyes off my cock as she pushes down my jeans and boxer briefs.
“I—” I swallow when the word comes out on a moan. “I want you to do whatever you want.”
Her shaking fingers wrap around my dick, and I nearly lose it when her tongue swipes over her lips.
“I don’t know what I want,” her confession is softer than a whisper.
“Do you trust me?” I’ve asked her once before and her response was accurate, but I’m hoping she understands that asking again is situational.
“Y-yes,” she responds.
I move into action, tugging my shirt over my head before bending at the waist to untie my boots. After kicking them off, my jeans and boxers are the last to be discarded. Before I climb on the bed, I grab a rubber from my jeans. It feels like I haven’t fucked in decades, but in my head, I know the condom hasn’t expired, so I toss it on her pillow before lowering my mouth to hers.
“We don’t have to do this,” I assure her before licking at her lips.
“I want to.” She’s breathless and still shaking, but instead of leaning away from me, she reaches up to wrap those trembling fingers in the hair at the nape of my neck. She did the same thing when we were dancing weeks ago, and the reminder has me pulling my head back to look into her eyes.
“No drugs or alcohol today?”
She gives me a wry smile, but she shakes her head no. It’s all the confirmation I need. With my right arm, I swoop behind her lower back and urge her to lie down. I’m on top of her and between the opening she’s allowed between her thighs an instant later.
“I haven’t done this before.” The words leave my mouth before I can stop them.
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She chuckles. “I seriously doubt that.”
“I mean—” I lick at her throat—“I haven’t made love to a woman before.”
She tenses in my arms, and I’m certain I’ve lost her, but the second my tongue touches the shell of her ear, she moans and settles in my arms.
“I have fucked more women than I can even remember, but I’ve never given a single one the attention I’m going to give you. I’ve never—” I turn us so I’m on my back and she’s straddling my thighs. The black lace covering her perfect cunt is more picturesque than snow falling on the mountains. “Given a woman all the power.”
Unable to resist, my hands cup the weight of her breasts, fingers teasing her pink nipples.
“I’ve never given in, taken things slow. I’m going to do my best, but if I get too rough or do something you don’t like, I need you to tell me. This is about you, K—” My jaw snaps shut before I can say her name. She’s asked me not to, and after thinking long and hard about our interactions in the past, it’s the one thing that makes her shut down.
“All about me?” I groan when her hips flex and she scrapes the fabric of her thong down my bare cock.
“I’ll have no choice but to make it all about you if you keep rubbing your pussy over me like that, because I’ll come before we even get started.”
She stills, her eyes refusing to look down at me.
“Tell me what you need,” I urge.
“I want you to take over.”
I’ve never heard such sweet words before in my entire life. In the blink of an eye she’s on her back, and I’m rolling latex down my aching shaft. Resisting the urge to rip her panties from her body, I slowly tug them down her hips and toss them to the side.
I’m transfixed, eyes focused on the slick, glistening slit between her legs.
“Do you want me to taste you?” It’s hard to speak past the saliva pooling in my mouth.
“No.”
Disappointment is like a brick in my gut.
“I want you inside of me.”
A groan erupts from my lips as I angle my cock and the heat of her pussy swallows the first couple of inches.
“Mmm.” The sound of her pleasure drives me a couple inches deeper, faster than we’d agreed on. Slowly sinking the rest of the way into her is an exercise in restraint I’m not certain I can continue for long.
“Raise your leg up on my hip.” The action does the exact opposite of what I needed, only clamping her down on me harder rather than relieving some of the pressure.
My only recourse is distraction, and I’m questioning this bright fucking idea when I cover her body with mine, slowing my hips, and licking into her mouth. My cock isn’t listening, and my balls haven’t gotten the memo.
“Touch me,” I beg, groaning in her ear when her fingernails scrape down my back. At first it stings, but then heat radiates outward. The warmth makes me cling to her harder. Who fucking knew going slow could be better than pounding into someone? “How does it feel?”
“Amazing.”
Her other leg laces around my hip, opening her just enough so I can drive all the way inside. She’s tight and decadent, better than anything I’ve felt before in my life. Her breaths grow erratic. Her nails dig into me deeper, and I fucking love it. We’re going to come together, and I know without a doubt it will be the single most erotic thing in my life to date.
“Come for me,” I command in her ear.
Her hips shift as soft moans come from her mouth.
“I’m coming,” she pants, but the energy I felt moments before is no longer there, and when her hips jolt, I can tell it’s forced. My orgasm, our orgasm, the one that was supposed to change my life, rushes out of me, but the emotion that was behind it seconds ago fizzles.
Uncertain and begging to be wrong, I look down at her. When she looks away, I know for a fact what I felt in my gut.
She fucking faked it.
Rather than expressing what she needed, or telling me she was no longer into it, she gave me what she thought I wanted. Her throat works on a swallow, and a single tear trails down her cheek when I pull away.
I should hold her to my chest, tell her everything is okay. Ask her what she needs, and what can I do to make everything better for her. At least, that’s what a nice guy would do, a guy with patience, one who hasn’t been kicked by her over and over.
I’m no longer that guy, and as I pull myself from her body and climb off the bed, I realize I never was that guy. I don’t even bother pulling the condom from my dick or tying my boots. I put my clothes on, and I’m out the fucking door a minute later.
If I can’t do anything to make her life better, to ease her pain even a little, I don’t need to be here. If she can’t be honest with me, even in such an intimate moment, I’m no longer going to waste my fucking time.
I’m done.
I can’t save her if she isn’t willing to save her damn self.
Chapter 23
Kaci
“Perfect.”
I pop my red lips in the mirror and give my hair a final spritz of hairspray. My outfit is perfect, exactly what I need for a night like tonight.
For days I let TJ walking out of here without a word bother me. It wasn’t until I realized that he knew I faked the orgasm that things made a little more sense to me. I hurt his ego. His pride was wounded, and I figured he’d come back, but I haven’t seen him in a week.
There was no way I could tell him that the thought of making love made my skin crawl. It’s not really the thing a guy would appreciate. I couldn’t tap him on the shoulder and beg him to fuck me harder or twist my nipples until I screamed to get me off.
Getting upset is his problem, just like him assuming what I needed. I never asked to be treated with a gentle hand. Hell, on the phone he threatened me, told me that even had I not gone through the shit I did all those years ago that he’d still get me off the same way he did before. I knew it was true the second the words left his mouth. I longed for his rough mouth or the handle of his knife fucking my pussy raw again, but then he barged in, saw my tears, and presumed. Big fucking mistake.
I can’t rest it one hundred percent on his shoulders because I didn’t give him the entire story. It was hard enough confessing what happened, admitting that I came twice the night my virginity was stolen from me isn’t something I could ever voice. What kind of deviant orgasms after being abducted and hurt?
Hurting me when I came was Deo’s favorite pastime. At first the punishment was more like foreplay for me. I relished the biting slaps and clamps all over my body, but after realizing those things actually brought me pleasure, he ramped up the pain until it was unbearable. Even my abductor knew I was fucked up and punished me for it.
“That is not what tonight is about,” I mumble as I turn a bottle of tequila up and gulp the burning liquid. The courage I need doesn’t come fast enough, so I turn it up again. And again.
Grabbing my phone off the counter, I turn to leave my apartment. I normally wouldn’t take it with me for fear of losing it, but I’m not sure I’ll be able to go through with my normal plans tonight, and I may need it to get an Uber back to my apartment.
I almost stumble back when I open my door and see fucking Detective Martin standing on my stoop with her arm raised to knock. She’s not in a uniform, but the bulge of her gun on her hip doesn’t go unnoticed.
“Didn’t I tell you not to show up here?” I shove past her and take the steps two at a time to get to my car. I think better of it when I remember I just took several huge slugs of liquor, and I’m paranoid she smelled it on my breath when I passed her. Getting thrown in jail will derail my plans, so I pull out my phone and click on the Uber app. The party I’m attending tonight is only about a mile away, but there’s no way I’m making that trek in these heels.
Her hand covers my phone before I can go any further.
“McGee asked me to bring you in.”
Just the mention of the asshole detective makes my stoma
ch twist in knots and my pulse rate double.
“What the hell does he want?”
If Detective Martin hears the waver in my voice she doesn’t let on.
“Just has a couple more questions for you. Jump in, I’ll give you a ride.”
“I have my own car.”
“Save your gas.” She turns to her car, not bothering to make sure I follow her. In this instant I hate my upbringing, and the forced respect that was drilled in to me.
Don’t be rude to police, reporters, or people who have money. My mother’s words were drilled into my head as a child, no doubt an echo of what my father had expected of her.
The expensive watch on Deo’s arm was the only reason I didn’t walk away from him immediately on the beach that day. My politician father would’ve tanned my hide if I embarrassed him by insulting a possible constituent. It didn’t matter that we were thousands of miles away from home and Deo’s accent didn’t sound anything like the other men who voted for my father, his training took over. He spoke to me, so I spoke to him. Somehow, he’d managed to get me to walk toward the parking lot without even knowing it. Seconds later I was being tossed in the back of a van and whisked away to almost a year of torture.
Martin clears her throat and snaps me out of my fucked-up trip down memory lane.
Just to be an asshole, I walk past the passenger side door she’s holding open and climb into the back. She chuckles but closes the passenger door before rounding the front of the cop car and climbing in behind the wheel.
The first couple of minutes are spent in blessed silence, but true to form, she can’t manage to ride all the way to the police station with her damn mouth shut.
Feeling her eyes on me, I make the mistake of looking up and catching her gaze in the rearview mirror.
“You look much better than you did last time I saw you.”
I break eye contact and look out the window without responding, much the same way I did when she showed up and questioned all the bruises on my body.
“Where are you heading tonight?”
