Love the Way You Lie (Stripped 1)

And now he’s telling me something serious, something dark, his voice so solemn I know it must be bad.

“What are you then?” I say, only because he expects me to ask. I don’t want to know.

He shakes his head, and just that—I know he’s about to tell me the truth. Maybe that’s the worst, because I can’t reciprocate.

He turns to me and fingers a lock of my hair. “Honey.”

I swallow, ashamed. “That’s not my real name. It’s a lie.”

“It’s who you are to me,” he murmurs, and in that one sentence I hear everything I am to him—someone to fuck, someone to protect. Someone to care for. His isn’t the expression of a man who wants to convince me of something. His jaw is tense, eyes dark with regret. He’d rather be telling me anything but this—anything but the truth.

I remember what Candy said to me. Dangerous. Yes, he’s dangerous. You only have to look at him to know. He’s lethal energy in leather boots. He’s a force of nature on a goddamn motorcycle. The question isn’t whether he’s dangerous. It’s whether he’s dangerous to me. “Are you going to hurt me?”

“No,” he says, absolutely sure. Sure enough that it slaps me. Sure enough that I know he’s considered doing it. “I’m going to help you through this.”

Suspicion is acid down my throat. “Help me through what?”

His expression darkens. “I know who you’re running from.”

“Excuse me?” I laugh, unsteady. I don’t want to believe him. “And anyway, it’s not one person I’m running from. It’s an army of them.”

“Even better,” he says. “I’m a soldier.”

Two klicks to the south, he said when we got here. That’s military terminology. I imagine him with his hair less scruffy, his mouth clean shaven. I imagine him without the leather jacket or the bike, but instead in a uniform. He’d look good like that.

I’m guessing he did look good like that. I feel sick. “You used to be in the military?”

“Army,” he confirms.

I remember the feeling I had that first night, that a cop was in the building. A man with military training. Exactly the kind of men my father and Byron hired as muscle.

The dangerous kind.

I take a step back. “Are you a cop?”

“No,” he says grimly. “I have other things in common with Byron, but not that.”

It’s a slap to hear him say the name. It’s real now.

I stare at him. A man with military training who shows up at the club. The first thing he does is ask for me. A private dance. He doesn’t just watch me or fuck me. He wants to talk. He wants to know me. I’d thought it was sweet. Instead it was a lie. Like my name.

Like my whole fucking life.

I take another step back. I’m running away again, in slow motion this time. Part of me doesn’t want to leave. I remember what Blue said about him—the killing game. “You’re…what? A bounty hunter? A hired gun?”

“Something like that.”

Sent to find me, to capture me. To hunt me down like an animal. “Is that why you stood up to Ivan? You didn’t want someone else to get your prize?”

“No.” His eyes are tortured.

“Tell me you didn’t fuck me to get close.” My throat is raw. My whole body is raw. “Tell me I’m wrong.”

“You’re not wrong,” he says, his voice hoarse.

God. It makes me want to lash out. Push him away. How did he get so close?

“Is this what you always do?” My voice is thin, like a whip. I throw all my weight behind it, however little it may be. “Do you fuck every girl before you fuck her over? Maybe if the orgasm is good enough, they’re more likely to go with you when you drag them back.”