Better When It Hurts (Stripped 2)

undresses me carefully, methodically, and I can’t stop him. I can’t tell him he means nothing. I can’t lie, not when he spreads my legs and looks at me bare.

He swallows, and I hear it in the silence. “Gorgeous,” he murmurs, gaze trained on my pussy.

Briefly, I wonder if someone will come in and interrupt us. And then I don’t care anymore because his warm breath brushes my clit, his hands grasp my pale inner thighs. He gives me a kiss that’s sweet, almost chaste if it had landed on my forehead or nose—anywhere except my clit. But it is there, and heat courses through me, shocking and sudden and strong enough to make me gasp.

“This is the only way you’re honest with me,” he says, his eyes dark as they look up at me. “If this is what I have to do to get you to tell me the goddamn truth, then this is what I’m going to do.”

I shiver from worry, from apprehension, knowing he’s right. Knowing he’s determined enough to do it. I don’t want to lie to him anymore, but the truth might break me.

His tongue might break me, sliding down my slit, sending shocks of pleasure through my body.

He fucks me with his tongue, shoving it inside me and then back out, lewd and slick and so good I almost cry. My hips want to thrust, but I’m held up by the vanity—it’s already shaking with the force of us. All I can do is hold myself still while he teases me into madness.

Then he stops. “Why did you lie, Lola?”

I’m half-dazed with lust, confused and needy. “Please.”

“You want my mouth on you again, you’re going to tell me the fucking truth. Why did you lie to me? Who did this to you?”

It’s a relief to realize he means the present—not the past. Still it’s hard to tell him. I can’t tell him, at least not until he leans forward to give my sex an openmouthed kiss. He slides his lips over me, grazes me with his teeth, makes me rock upward to reach for him.

And stops again.

I whimper. “God, Blue, please. I can’t take this, please.”

“Then tell me what I want to know, baby. Tell me who put their hands on you.”

His voice is hypnotic, and I’m almost there. At the brink of orgasm. On the verge of breaking down. “If I tell you, you’ll hurt him.”

He doesn’t look surprised—or hurt or offended. It’s understanding that crosses his face, sympathy for me. “I know it’s hard. I know you’re afraid.”

I shudder, because it’s so rare to be known that way. Only him. He’s the only one who’s ever tried. “It’s the guy you threw out that night. The one who was…hurting me in the VIP room.”

His hands tighten on my thighs almost painfully, and I know he’s holding back violence. “We’ll look up the receipts and go through the security feed. We’ll find out who he is,” he says roughly. “He won’t touch you again, Hannah.”

I flinch but don’t correct him. Changing my name won’t help me here. This isn’t a stage. “And then what? You’ll go after him. You’ll hurt him. You’ll…kill him. This isn’t some underground fighting ring.”

“No, this is fucking real.”

He already beat up Travis for touching me. What will he do when he finds out he attacked me at my home? “And then you’ll go to jail. How does that help anyone?”

His expression is dark. “I’m not your father.”

“Why, Blue? Because you don’t get caught? Is that what makes you different?”

He shakes his head. “And you’re definitely not your mother. You’d never let a man bring you low.”

“You think so? I don’t know what I’d do if you went to jail, Blue. If you went to jail for me. I don’t think I’d be able to survive it.”

His expression is intent—and wondering. “You always take what I give you.”

I can take the rough sex and cruel words. I can take him leaving. I can’t take knowing he’s in trouble because of me. I can’t take knowing he’s locked up. “Not that,” I whisper.

I half expect him to walk away from me, leaving me bared and wanting.

Instead he leans forward. This time he doesn’t stop. He licks my clit with a kind of tender ferocity, both gentle and insistent, until I’m shaking on the table and bottles rattle with the vibrations. “Blue,” I cry.

He doesn’t pause, not even for words. He just licks and licks with a firmness that will never tire—between the two of us, I’m the one who breaks first. Climax washes over me in hard, almost painful waves, and I rock my hips against him, moaning helplessly into the empty room while the heavy beat of a dance song pounds against the walls.