Hottest Mess (SIN 2)

He had to, though, and when he did, he saw her curled up on the concrete floor, her body shaking with tears. He froze--he just fucking froze.

But when she looked up at him, it wasn't disgust he saw, but rage. Not at him, but at the Woman.

"That fucking bitch," she whispered, and the words were like a trigger. He sank to the ground, and when she crawled to him and held out her arms, he collapsed into the comfort of her embrace.

"The fucking bitch," she repeated.

"Not disagreeing," he said.

She released him long enough to lean back and study his face. "Are you okay? Right now, I mean. Is this--do you want to stop talking about it?"

He considered saying yes, but he shook his head. "I can't say I want to talk about it," he admitted. "But I think I need to. I think I've needed to for a long, long time."

She nodded, then bit her lower lip uncertainly.

"It's okay," he said. "If you want to ask me questions, it's okay."

"Did you try to fight?"

"I tried. I couldn't." He sighed. "You know how you crave control now?"

She nodded. "Avoiding crowds. Taking my self-defense classes." Her smile when she met his eyes was tremulous. "You're the only one I let go with. The only one I really feel safe with."

He knew that, of course, but still the words were like a knife. Safe. Safe with him was a goddamn joke. If he let himself go too far--

Stop.

He pushed the thought away. He needed to move, and so he stood, holding on to the worktable until he had his bearings again, then he started to pace. "You surrender that control to me," he finally said. "I don't. I don't surrender it to anybody. Not anymore."

"I know. I get that."

"You don't. Not really. I don't think you can."

"That's bullshit, Dallas. But you have to tell me. You have to lay it out for me."

"But that's just it. I don't know if I can. She changed me, but I'm not sure even I understand how. I mean, Christ. Why the hell can't I fuck a woman? What's the correlation between what that bitch did to me and the reality I'm now living with? I thought it was you, Jane. I thought that if I ever had you in my bed, that little problem wouldn't be a problem anymore, because she'd tied sex up so tightly with the thought of you that I figured you must be the goddamn cure. But you weren't. You aren't. Shit."

He gritted his teeth and turned away. He hadn't meant to blurt it out like that. To cover her with all that bile.

Across the room, she climbed to her feet and came to him, then gently laid a hand on his shoulder. "What do you mean she tied sex up with me?"

A shiver cut through him--he didn't want to go there. Didn't want to talk about it. Didn't want to bring her down into all of that. But goddammit, they were already halfway there. "Like what I was saying earlier. She'd touch me. Do things to me. And she'd tell me to close my eyes and imagine it was you. She'd tell me you liked it. Wanted it. But then later she'd flip it around and she'd say you were a nasty girl who liked nasty things, and on another day she'd say that you were an innocent, and I was tainted now, and why the hell would you want me?"

"I do want you. Desperately."

"She changed what I want sexually. What I need. I like it rough, baby, and that's on her--"

"A lot of people like rough sex. Including me. Don't tie everything you feel back to that bitch. Don't give her the power."

"She already has it. She's between us every time we're together because she planted you in the middle of every fucked up need she created in me. So how the hell can we ever be normal, Jane? How can we ever do this right?"

"Normal?" she repeated. "Right?" She stepped back from him, and damned if the compassion hadn't faded from her face, replaced instead by anger. "You like it rough? You like it dirty? Well, guess what, Dallas, that's your normal. And that's okay. I mean, seriously, what's normal anyway? Because all I know is that you make me feel good. You make me feel better about myself than I ever have. And all I really care about is do you love me? Do I make you happy?"

"Yes," he said, reeling a little from the force of her speech.

"Well, then what more are you looking for?"

He shook his head, not sure how to explain. He believed her words, but also knew that she didn't really know what she was talking about. How could she when he didn't even know how far down he wanted to drag her?