Better When It Hurts (Stripped 2)

I’m all the way to the door of his swanky apartment, one hand on a brushed-nickel doorknob, before I stop. One night of fucking can hardly make up for the lie I told, for what it put him through. Nothing can ever make up for it. It’s a sick penance—as sick as sending him away had been back then. Two wrongs don’t make a right.

I walk back to the counter. I tear off the note, crinkle it up, and toss it in the trash can.

Which means I need a new note. I pick up the pen and write, I’m sorry.

This time I only make it two feet away before I stop. And turn around. And throw the note away.

One last note. This one will stick.

The pen feels heavier this time as I write, We’re done here.

Chapter Twelve

I’m back to m

y old self again—sexy, sultry, men eating out of the palm of my hands. I’m everything Blue accused me of, but I’m not ashamed. This is my job, and I’m damn good at it.

“So hot,” the man slurs, staring at my breasts.

I give him a secretive smile. “Want to see what else I’ve got? We can go to the VIP rooms.”

He’s already reaching for his wallet. Hook, line, and sinker.

Suddenly I see the whites of his eyes and a shadow darkens him. I whirl to see what’s spooked him. There’s Blue, looking like he’s ready to pound someone into the ground.

Me, probably.

“She’s on break,” he snaps before dragging me away by my wrist. I’m too shocked to even protest at first. It’s one thing to fuck around in private. Entirely another to interrupt work. Everyone here knows what we do. Everyone knows time is money.

“What the fuck was that?” I yank my arm away and rub my wrist.

“What the fuck was that note?” he counters.

I flush. “You got plenty out of me in one night. That ought to cover you.”

“Well, it doesn’t,” he says between gritted teeth. “You’re coming back next week.”

Anger rises up, swift and righteous. “Why?”

His voice goes soft. “Why what?”

Even the sound of the club seems to dim, like a forest quiets when a predatory is near.

We’re tucked into a corner. There’s no way everyone is seeing this, but they feel it. Unease makes my throat dry, but I force past it. There’s too much at stake. “I know what I did was…” Wrong. Terrible. “Inconvenient. But come on, you went into the military. You became a fucking war hero. And your job here is obviously lucrative, judging by your apartment. No matter what I did, your life didn’t turn out so bad.”

“Not so bad,” he says, his eyes glinting dangerously. “You threw me in a fucking ditch, gorgeous. The only reason I’m not still in it is because I clawed my way out. Want to know what I did in the six months between getting accused and enlisting?”

I don’t want to know. “Where?”

“In county lockup. The judge didn’t know where to put me. He thought I was guilty but knew the charge wouldn’t stick, so he fucked up the paperwork so bad I was basically convicted and sentenced without a trial. The public defender couldn’t do shit and didn’t care anyway.”

I shiver. I hadn’t known any of this. “I’m sorry,” I whisper.

He laughs, hollow and cold. “I would have preferred to get sent to prison. County lockup is a revolving door. I was stuck in a cell with a different fucker every night, most of them drunk, all of them violent, sleeping with my back to the wall and a sharp plastic knife in my hand. Still think I had it good, gorgeous?”

Tears are in my eyes, imagining him like that. The hard man he is now would make any man think twice. But for all that he’d been tough back then, for all that he’d already killed someone, he was still just a boy then. And he’d been thrown to the wolves.

I’d thrown him to the wolves.