Better When It Hurts (Stripped 2)

He nods. His voice sounds a little sad when he says, “I thought so.”

His hand clenches tight against my scalp. That’s the only warning I have before he lifts. I stagger to my fight, legs weak and wobbly. With a flick of his wrist, he sends me facedown on the bed.

Then he’s on top of me, body heavy and hot, cock pressed against the soft flesh of my ass.

“Then it’s lucky for you I can be harder now. Rougher now.” His cock pushes inside me, splitting me open. I gasp against the bedspread, and he laughs low. “I had a lot of time in a fucking war zone to think about how I’d fuck you when I got the chance.”

A whimper escapes me as his cock impales me and his weight crushes me. Even my face is pressed to the bed, smothering me, making it hard to breathe. “Blue.”

“I know,” he says, stroking my back. “I know it hurts. I’d tell you to hold on, but I think your hands are tied at the moment.”

The fabric by my face becomes hot, then cold as tears slide down my cheeks. “Blue,” I say on a choked gasp.

He pulls out and shoves back in, and it feels like tearing. It feels like coming apart. “Just hold on to me instead,” he says, and then his hands are holding mine. Even tied up by his belt, even fucked hard, he’s holding my hand, and maybe that’s what hurts worst of all.

I don’t know how long he fucks me. It feels like forever that he’s sawing in and out of me, his hands harsh on my hips, his breath hot on the back of my neck. Long enough that I should burn up from the friction of us, set alight by the strike of his cock, turned to ash where I stand. But I’m not dry, I’m not dust—I’m drenched. Wet from fear, from shame. Is that possible? Our juices trickle down the inside of my thigh. I feel the tickle of it despite the pounding he’s giving me, my skin oversensitized, my body attuned and alert.

He pulls out, and my body doesn’t know what to do. It clenches around nothing—and it hurts. It hurts to tighten like a fist, to hold on to something that isn’t there.

He rolls onto the bed, taking my body with him. Then he’s lying flat, and I’m above him. Being on top means control, except when your hands are tied behind your back. He has to be the one to line up his cock and push inside. He’s the one to slap my hip and tell me, “Ride.”

My eyes close, hiding me, shielding me, but I do what he says. I roll my hips in a movement I know too well, fucking him. I jerk him off with my pussy the same way I could with my hands or my mouth. I ride him to the peak until he’s grunting on every downward slide and following me with his hips when I lift up.

And then it does feel like control.

I’m still at his mercy, hands behind my back, breasts bouncing on every rocking movement, lips open on hungry breaths. But it’s him who’s looking up at me with fierceness, with longing. It’s him who’s groaning as if his world is breaking apart.

His eyes are half-glazed with pleasure now, and I know his orgasm is minutes away—seconds. He reaches for my neck, and for a moment, with his large palm against my throat, his fingers wrapped around, it’s like he’s choking me. He is choking me, using my neck to hold me still while he fucks up into me.

But then he reaches around to the back of my neck and pulls me down. It’s a kiss, unexpected and tragic, that makes the tears finally fall. It’s the sweetness that makes me come. It’s the rough groan against my mouth, vibrating through my lips, over my skin, running all the way down to my clit, that tells me he’s finally let go.

Chapter Eleven

His breathing evens out. Mine too. He’s quiet long enough that I think he’s sleeping. My hands are untied now, but I haven’t run away. I’m still here. His hand is heavy just below my breasts, a possessive claim, a junkyard dog with a bone he’s keeping.

“When did you leave?” he asks. “After me?”

I tense, because anything to do with him leaving is an extremely sore subject. It’s just another opportunity to attack me. He got sent back to group and then shipped off to the military. Meanwhile I got to stay in the foster home, one with enough food and clothes to go around. He thinks I screwed him over—because I did. He’ll never let me forget. He’ll ruin me, remembering.

His hand strokes my hair gently, almost absently. Maybe he’s just curious.

“Just a few months after,” I manage to say, wondering how much I’ll reveal. Wondering how much he’ll make me reveal.

He stiffens beside me. His eyes snap open, intent and questioning. “Why’d they move you?”

“They didn’t. I left.”

Silence for a beat. “You didn’t turn eighteen for another year.”

I shrug, wishing I felt as nonchalant as I sound. “I didn’t feel like sticking around.”

“So where did you go?”

“Here and there. Nowhere.”

I give him enough to figure it out. Where did I live? The street. What did I do to survive? Everything. I don’t really want to talk about it, least of all with him.

His voice is low when he speaks again. “Did you get your diploma?”