Faith laughed, shaking her head. "What'd you do to piss her off?"
"I said we shouldn't get a dog."
"Well, right there is where you fucked up. Girls are serious about their puppies."
"Yeah, babe, but there was a strict no animals policy on our lease."
Faith chuckled again. "So she was just nuts."
"Something like that." His arm went around her hips and pulled her as he rolled onto his back, pulling her onto his chest. "So now you owe me one."
"What? You're cashing in right now?"
His chest rumbled under hers as his hand moved up to sift through her still-damp hair. "Nah, baby. Right now, I'm fucking beat. So we're gonna sleep. Then I think I might fuck you again before I hit the gym while you do your class."
"You're gonna try to catch me off-guard."
"Maybe," he agreed.
"You realize by putting it off, you're increasing the chances of me coming up with stories I am willing to tell you instead of being put on the spot and blurting a possibly uncomfortable one."
"Not if I pick the topic," he trumped her. "Go to sleep, baby."
"You know," she said, finding herself suddenly uncomfortable with how too comfortable she was with him in her bed, "I'm not really a close contact sleeper."
"Yeah, well, that's too fucking bad, isn't it?"
And that, apparently, was that.
His arms tightened around her, preventing the escape she didn't really want, but knew she should want.
A couple short minutes later, his breathing went slow and even and his weight went lax, his arms even heavier on her back.
So she stopped trying to pretend to fight it.
And she did what she really wanted to do- she fell asleep in his arms.
ELEVEN
Faith
She woke up to something tickling her nose, trying to lift her arm to brush it away to find that her arm was asleep and it fell, a complete dead weight, onto her face. "Ow," she grumbled, picking the arm up by the wrist with her other hand and moving it away.
"That was graceful," a deep, masculine, amused voice said, snapping her fully awake.
Then she was hyper aware of the fact that she was on her back with the sheets down so low that her hipbones were on display. Her dry hair was a mess around her pillows and face. Her nipples were hard from the cool air.
And Daniel was in bed with her, sheets around his waist, sitting up against the headboard, looking down at her.
"Yeah, I'm not one of those girls."
"What girls?"
"The perfect in the morning girls. And if you try to put your mouth anywhere near mine right now, you're going to end up with bruises."
First thing in the morning unbrushed-teeth kissing was absolutely not sexy.
"Well my mouth wanted to be somewhere decidedly lower than your mouth, so I think I am safe," he said, eyes getting heated as his lips curled into a devilish smile.
"Well, I guess I don't have to..." she started as her head looked toward her nightstand. Then she was flying upward. "What the fuck, Daniel?" she shrieked as she got off the bed, completely naked and scrambling toward the dresser against the back wall.
"What?" he asked, watching her as she ran around wildly, yanking panties up her legs and throwing on a bra that didn't match, then slamming a drawer and opening another.
"It's eleven-fifteen!" she hissed. "You've been up long enough to try to tickle me awake. How did you not check the time? Damn it. Fuck," she said as she yanked on yoga pants and a tank top then ran toward the bathroom. She came back out a couple seconds later, scrubbing her teeth with her toothbrush, foam on her lips as she tripped around to slip her feet into socks and shoes.
"Babe, relax," Daniel said, pulling his pants back up his legs. "You can be five minutes late."
"I know that being," she started, going back into the bathroom and rinsing her mouth then coming back out, "a girl usually means being late. But as much as I am not a perfect in the morning girl, I'm not a late to everything girl," she explained, grabbing her wallet and keys and making a mad dash toward the door. But when she got there, Daniel was in her way. "I have to go," she told him, reaching up to slip her messy hair into a ponytail.
"Babe," he said, ducking his head toward her as his hands went on her shoulders. "Take a fucking breath. And grab your jacket. It's November. You can't be going out in a goddamn tank top."
She felt her belly go a little melty at that, liking that he was trying to calm her down and liking it even more that he thought about little things like her not being cold.
"Okay," she agreed, stepping back and grabbing her jacket off the hook and shrugging into it.
Daniel reached out and grabbed the lapels, pulling her flush against him, his arms folding across her lower back. "Good morning," he said, giving her a small smile.
She laughed a little at that. "Good morning," she said back with a small smile.
"It sucks we didn't get to fuck before you had to run off, but have a good day. Teach those women to kick ass. I'll see you at work later."
Despite the fact that she had a strict "brush your teeth before kissing" rule, she planted her hands on his bare chest and leaned upward to press a sweet closed-mouth kiss on his lips.
"Okay. Now let me go," she demanded, but was a lot less frantic than she was a moment before.
He moved away from the door and let her go, patting her ass as she went past him.
She kept her cool until, say, halfway down the staircase where she remembered she had to be across town in under five minutes and no matter how fast and reckless her cabby drove, she was going to be a little late. So she flew down the stairs, threw herself into a cab, then ran into the women's shelter a mere six minutes late.
"Don't ask," she told the woman at the front desk as she rushed past, throwing her keys, wallet, and jacket on her desk for safekeeping, then going toward the back of the building where they kept a large common room that they usually had set up as an indoor gym for the kids over the winter.
All the plastic toys were pushed way back against the back wall and a smattering of women were gathered around, talking, laughing, looking at-ease.
All except one.
And it was a face that wasn't supposed to be there.
She wasn't supposed to be there because she had gotten back on her feet and gotten out a year before.
But judging by the very fresh bruises on her cheek and eye as well as the stitches through her lower lip, she hadn't gotten away from him permanently as Faith had been hoping.
Faith took a deep breath, closing her eyes for a minute, trying to keep down the burning rage that came along with seeing the aftermath of angry male hands on delicate female skin.
Maria was a product of her upbringing. She grew up with Mexican parents who had very traditional values on male and female roles. As such, she was never encouraged to pursue an education and was taught to value her husband's opinions over all others. So when, at first, the abuse started emotionally, verbally, just disappointment in her cooking and cleaning skills and, eventually, her mothering skills, she just tried to do better. She cleaned until her fingers bled. She cooked meals big enough to feed small armies. She took his mother's antiquated mothering advice and applied it to her children.
By the time the physical abuse started, she thought so little of herself that she almost thought she deserved it. Almost.
But with a family that told her it was her responsibility to stay with her husband and therefore would not help her get free of him, no friends because he didn't allow her to have any, and three small children to think of with absolutely no money to her name and no way to break free, she stayed. And she endured.
It all stopped the first time she saw her husband backhand their four year old daughter for not cleaning up her older brother's toys. Then she heard her husband's sexist, hateful words coming out of her son's lips and she was done. She refused to continue the cycle- to tell her daughter it was okay for men to put their hand
s on her, to allow her son to turn into a bully, a brute, a little version of his father.
So he went to work one day and she ran to the shelter. She and her children had lived there for six months before Maria decided to take Faith's class. And she took it for over a year before she was finally able to afford an apartment and get her life on track.
Faith taught and got to know a lot of abused women, got to hear their awful stories on the daily, but there were always favorites.
And Maria was a favorite.
"Ria," she said, forcing a smile because the last thing the woman needed to see was disappointment on the face of someone she cared for. She had enough of that in her life.
"He found us," she said, shaking her head, the tears already stinging her eyes.
"Oh, honey..."
"He wouldn't let me take him," she added on a full-on sob.
"Jairo?" Faith asked, meaning her son.
"A son's place is with their father, he says," she said, reaching up to wipe the tears away.
"You have the girls with you?"
She nodded, sniffling. "But my son..."
"You'll get him back, Ria," she said, her voice with so much finality that Maria somehow regained faith.
See, Maria didn't know that Faith meant that very afternoon.
Because once in a blue moon, not often, but when the situation called for it, she asked a favor of the girls at the front desk. That favor was generally the address of the shitheads who put their hands on women they were supposed to love and take care of.
Then she would grab a few things from over at the gym.
And she'd paid those men a little visit.
When she left Jairo Sr.'s place two hours later, her knuckles were bruised and bloody and she had an eight-year old Jairo Jr.'s hand holding hers hard enough to make her wince with the pain against her sore fingers, but she didn't make him let go. Not until she delivered him into the hands of his mother who hugged him for so long and tight that they both were gasping for breath when they released.
Maria's eyes went over Faith's body and a ghost of a smile played on her face as Jairo ran off to greet his sisters. "He sees what it is like to bleed," she said with a nod.
"And if he ever forgets it, Maria, I will be happy to pay him another visit."
With that, she took herself to work, running late yet again and feeling beyond frazzled because of it.
She was in the panic room behind Vin's usual table in the bar, restocking the food they kept in supply in case of an extended stay when she heard someone clear their throat behind her.
"Pretty nifty little room," Daniel said as she slowly turned. But the smile quickly fell from his face as his eyes found a splatter of blood on the lower hem of her shirt and then he got a look at her hands that, while she cleaned them up, still looked pretty bad. "What the fuck, Faith?"
She held up one of her hands, palms-out. "I don't want a lecture, Daniel."
"I wasn't going to lecture you, babe. I was going to ask what the hell happened to your hands."
She swallowed a little hard and gave him a shrug. "Sometimes wife beaters need to have their asses handed to them so they see how it feels. Especially when they're holding a woman's kid as a hostage."
"Jesus fucking Christ, woman," he said, sighing a little as he ran a hand through his hair. "I know you are strong and badass and all that shit, but would it fucking kill you to reach out and ask for backup on situations like this?"
"Look, Trey and..."
"I was talking about me," he said with a depth of meaning she did not miss. He was offended that she wouldn't even think of leaning on him.
"Look, Daniel, I'm just... I'm not used to having someone who would come when I called, okay?"
"No. No that's not o-fucking-kay. I understand it, but it's whacked and says a lot about the kind of guys you've had in your life."
"Besides," she said, attempting a smile because she was uncomfortable with the conversation. To her, this was a little soon. They'd known each other just over a week. They just started having sex the night before. Hell, most of the guys she dated for months didn't want to be called with her problems. "I don't even have your cell number," she said, attempting levity.
For whatever reason, though, that seemed to be the wrong thing to say. She knew that because where he was standing outside the panic room door a second ago, he was suddenly inside it and toe-to-toe with her, his hand going behind her and pulling her cell out of her back pocket.
"Unlock this," he demanded, handing it to her and she punched in her code and handed it back to him. He clicked around for a minute before holding the screen out to her where she saw his name and number in her contacts. "Now you have my number. And if you go off like some one woman war machine again, fucking give me a heads-up first, alright?"
"Look, Daniel," she said, tucking her phone away and lifting her chin a little.
"Don't," he cut her off, shaking his head.
"Don't what?"
"Don't give me that 'I'm a strong, independent woman who doesn't need to answer to any...'"
"I don't nor will I ever fucking answer to anyone," she cut him off.
"And if you would listen," he said, giving her a small grin, "you would know that I was going to finish that with an agreement of all those statements. You are strong and independent and you have more training than most men I have ever met and you can handle yourself. And you don't need to answer to anyone. But people care about you, Faith. I'm not saying you have to give me a heads-up so you can get my approval; I'm saying give me a heads-up so I can help. And if I can't help, at least I know to worry about you if I don't hear from you. This isn't some bullshit power struggle here, babe, so if maybe you could stop assuming I am trying to keep you under my thumb, we could avoid useless arguments."
"This wasn't an argument," she protested, mostly to cover up how much she liked everything he just said, how it proved that he just got her. No one ever got her. Her friends understood some of it. Her sparring partners got other bits of it. But no one got the whole package, least of all a man she was involved with.
"Babe, it was a fucking argument."
"We didn't even raise our voices," she insisted.
"So we have to be screaming at each other for it to qualify as a fight?"
"Yeah."
"Then we'll never have a fight, baby. Because I don't fucking raise my voice to women."
"Hate to break it to you, but that's actually sexist."
"Yep," he agreed with a smile, his hands going to her hips and pulling her against him. "But you're just gonna have to deal with that. Any man worth his salt can talk to a woman with respect, even if he's pissed off. And, babe, I'm worth my fucking salt. Now," he said, releasing one of his arms so he could reach behind him and pull the panic room door closed, "let's test the legendary soundproof capabilities of panic rooms."
"Daniel, no," she laughed when he yanked her against him again and she could feel his cock getting hard against her belly.
"Why not?"
"First, because we're at work. And second because..."
She lost her train of thought as his mouth went to her throat, kissing, licking, sucking, until desire sparked and exploded through her system. "And second?" he prompted, sounding pleased with himself as his teeth nipped her earlobe.
"The second, I forget. But I know it was good," she added as his hand slid down her belly and right inside her jeans without bothering to unfasten them.
"Probably," he agreed, his fingers sliding down her slick cleft and sinking inside her. She let out a low moan and he pulled his head back, eyes heated. "But this is way better," he said, fingers starting to thrust out of her as roughly and quickly as the tight jean material would allow.
"Okay, you win," she said on a breathless laugh.
Just like that, his fingers slid out of her and out of her pants and he grabbed the material at the waist and yanked it down to her knees. His eyes were wicked as he reached behind her, grabbed a handful of her h
air, yanked hard, and used it to turn her away from him, slamming her up against the wall.
Faith's air rushed out of her as another wave of desire pooled in her core.
There was going to be nothing explorative or sweet about this.
It was going to be fast and rough and hard.
And she was going to love every freaking second of it.
His hand slapped her already-pink ass as he released her hair and took a step back. She heard the crinkle of a condom foil as his zip slid down, loud in the small, silent room.
"Touch yourself," he demanded, his voice low and gravely. It was quite possibly the sexiest sound she had ever heard. Her hand slid down her front and she started working her fingers over her clit. "Good girl. Now you don't stop, got it? Doesn't matter how hard I fuck you, how much you start to lose it, you keep working your clit," he said, moving in behind her and she could feel his cock press against her ass as he waited for her response. But all she had to offer was a tight nod as her breathing started to shallow out, as the need became almost overwhelming.
But that was all he needed.
Because the second he saw it, his cock slammed in hard and deep, making her let out an almost embarrassingly loud moan as she brought her free hand up to brace on the wall so her face wouldn't smash into it as he started thrusting in and out of her- wild, fierce, practically violent.
His hand found her hair again, slipping in at the base of her skull then sliding down so he could curl it around his fist, using it to yank back hard, the pain sending another rush of wet between her thighs as he kept up his unrelenting, impossibly perfect pace, driving her up hard and fast until she tightened hard around his cock for a long second. Then he slammed forward again and she came hard enough to cry out his name, a sound that genuinely sounded pained, the orgasm so intense that it did, in fact, almost border on pain.
Daniel slammed deep with the lessening pulsations of her climax, jerking upward slightly, and hissing out her name as he came too.
Dark Secrets Page 14
