Better When It Hurts (Stripped 2)

“Mrs. Owens needs me. Needs someone,” I say, stumbling over the explanation. Technically it’s true, but it’s not why I’m running. Judging from the way his eyes narrow, he knows that. “If I’m not there when she wakes up, she worries about me.”

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“All right,” he says slowly. “Give me a second to throw on some clothes, and I’ll come with you.”

I take a step back. “Why?”

He stands up. “To spend time with you.”

“That wasn’t part of the deal. I said I’d come here, said I’d fuck you. That’s all.”

He shrugs, completely undisturbed. “Then fuck me there.”

“In front of Mrs. Owens?”

He grunts. “You don’t have your own room?”

“That’s not the point. I live there to take care of her. Not to bring customers back to her house.”

It’s like waving a red cloth, watching a bull’s eyes widen and his nostrils flare. He charges me, backing me up against the wall before I can even protest. “I’m not a client,” he says softly, his face inches away, eyes locked in mine.

Nervousness makes my breath come in pants. I wish I had on cherry-red lipstick and a tight skirt. I wish I were Lola, able to seduce and to manipulate. I wish I were anyone but me. “You can’t come over,” I whisper.

His jaw clenches, a muscle in his jaw flexing. “I meant what I said last night. You want to be Lola, I’ll call you that. You want to strip at the Grand. I’ll put up with that too, if it fucking kills me. But you’re mine. That pussy, that mouth. Every inch of you.”

“This is insane. You hate me. You despise me.”

“Yes,” he says slowly, as if thinking it through, wondering. “I do hate you. I hate what you did. I hate that you take your clothes off for other men, showing them what should be mine. I hate that you’re trying to walk out of here as if I mean nothing to you, the same way you sent me away all those fucking years ago.”

I close my eyes as he leans close. I don’t know what he’ll do to me. Hit me? Bite me? He seems almost feral enough to do it. So the soft press of warmth to my eyes is a shock. His lips. He’s kissing me, one after the other. Another kiss on my nose. And lower, on my mouth.

“But I want you too, the same way I wanted you back then. Your body, your heart. The way you look after Candy. The way you take care of Mrs. Owens when you don’t have to.” His smile is half-sad, half-dark. “The way you gave yourself to me so sweetly.”

My voice is hoarse. “That was to say I’m sorry. It’s over now.”

He shakes his head slowly. “No, gorgeous. You gave yourself to me because you wanted this as bad as me. It’s not ending now. It’s not ending ever. It took me five goddamn years of fucking my hand, of dreaming of you, of hating you, to find my way back. And now that I’m here, I’m not letting go.”

“It can’t work,” I say, but that’s a lie. I want it to work.

I want him to make me be with him.

“It will be hard. It kills me to see another man look at your body, your breasts. To watch you dance for him. I don’t know how I’m going to do it. All I know is that I need you.”

My breath catches in my chest. “I hurt you, Blue. I lied about you. I sent you away.”

He’s silent for a long moment, his eyes dark with pain and fury. And regret. “I held on to the anger, but I think in some way I was holding on to you. Anything was better than letting go.”

“So you’re just going to forgive me? How can you?” Especially when I haven’t forgiven myself.

“I think I already have,” he says, almost thoughtful now. “I know what things were like, how hard things were for you, moving from house to house, all the asshole foster kids fucking with you. Including me.”

“You weren’t like them,” I say, fierce.

“Wasn’t I?” he says sadly. “Every boy in that house wanted under your skirt. I wasn’t that different.”

He was completely different. “You didn’t deserve what I did to you.”

Even if I’d only done it to save him.