Better When It Hurts (Stripped 2)

“The honorable judge made a deal with me that he’d let me go if I enlisted. I signed the army paperwork while I was still in a cell. And when I got overseas, it wasn’t much better. I got to huddle in a tent and walk around the fucking desert and hope I wasn’t stepping on an IED. When other soldiers got care packages and naked selfies from home, I had nothing. Nothing but the thought of how I’d make you pay.”

“I can’t.” My hands are tight fists. I want to fight every person who ever hurt him. I want to fight him. I want to take on the world, but I’m helpless—just like I’ve always been. I can put on lipstick and heels, but I can’t change that one painful fact.

“One week,” he says flatly. “I want you under me again in one week. I’m going to get what I’m due if I have to drag you there with my bare fucking hands. Don’t cross me, gorgeous. I’ve been waiting too long to be denied.”

* * *

It’s been three days since Blue confronted me in the Grand. He’s been ignoring me ever since.

If you don’t count the way his gaze follows me everywhere.

It’s a relief to be out of the club, to be free of his intensity and his desire. It’s also strangely a disappointment, almost as if I miss him. That can’t be true. I can’t miss the way he hurts and humiliates me. I can’t miss the way he hates me.

I walk home from the grocery store, both hands full. I speed up along the cracked sidewalk as plastic presses into my fingers, cutting off circulation. My fingertips are already red, but I don’t like leaving Mrs. Owens alone for too long. Especially when I’m not working.

My next shift is tonight, in about two hours. I’m hoping I can give her dinner and put her to bed, as long as she doesn’t wonder too much about why it’s still bright outside. That way I can dance without worrying about her.

I manage to turn the doorknob with my hands full and shoulder my way inside. I’m busy dropping the grocery bags—gently, slowly, there are eggs inside. So I don’t see someone else at the dining table until he speaks.

“Hi, Hannah.”

I stumble, almost tripping over the bags. “Blue? What the hell are you—”

The question dies in my throat as I see Mrs. Owens, her face flushed and smiling, a light in her eyes that’s becoming more and more rare.

“I didn’t know you had a gentleman,” she says, sounding positively charmed.

I manage not to laugh at the term. Gentleman? Hardly. I think he wants to tear me apart. He wants to fuck me, to bruise me. He definitely doesn’t want to pull the chair out for me.

She comes from a different generation, a time when chivalry wasn’t dead. And she wants the best for me. She believes the best of me. She has no way of knowing he despises me. No one could tell that from the way he smiles at me, as if he’s genuinely pleased to see me.

He stands. “Let me help with those.”

“Sit,” I snap. I have no idea why he’s here or what the hell is going on, but the last thing I need is him looking through our bags, seeing the bags of noodles and the cheap store-brand stuff. Only the tea is expensive, imported, because it’s the only thing Mrs. Owens still remembers.

“Let me pour you some,” she says, reaching for the teapot in the center of the table.

“Allow me,” Blue says.

And I watch, dumbfounded, while he lifts the delicate china pot and pours water into a teacup. I’ve walked into some warped parallel universe where big, surly, pissed-off men have tea parties in the afternoon.

“We couldn’t get the stove to work,” he says as if that explains anything.

I sit down in the chair—because I need to. My legs are giving out. Confusion and a strange emotion like tenderness presses down on me. “I unplug it,” I respond, almost absently.

“Huh.” With one blunt finger, he pushes the saucer and cup in front of me. “This works just as well. And won’t keep you up at night.”

“Here here,” Mrs. Owens says. “I’m always telling this girl not to stay up so late. Sometimes it’s the middle of the night and I can’t find her anywhere.”

My gaze snaps to Blue. His expression doesn’t change, but I feel his awareness. Of course Mrs. Owens doesn’t know what I do for money. She doesn’t even know I pay the bills—or that we have bills. Most of the time she doesn’t know anything that doesn’t relate to her tea.

And apparently she does look for me at night. My heart clenches.

“I’m sorry,” I murmur, taking a sip of water. “I thought you would be sleeping.”

She waves her hand. “I’m sure I do plenty of that too. And then sometimes I’m sitting there in the middle of the day, thinking, how am I going to make tea? The stove never works. So I go and look for you, and you’re sleeping. At two o’clock in the afternoon.” She looks at Blue. “What do you think of that?”

Blue’s expression is serious. “I think she must work too hard.”