“I’d kill them,” he mutters. “Every single fucker who ever touched you and made you think that’s all you were good for. I did that too, didn’t I?”

I try to shake my head no, but he’s got me tight in his grip. I only succeed in pulling my hair. A small sound of pain escapes me. It makes him hold me harder—he gives me a little shake.

“I’m still doing it,” he murmurs.

Then he’s lifting me, pushing me toward our bedroom with the leash of my hair.

This room is the darkest, the curtains drawn tight, leaving no light at all. The fronts of my thighs hit the bed, and he bends me over, leaving my ass in the air, exposed and vulnerable. The first hit is a surprise, his palm on my sensitive skin. I yelp, and the burn spreads over my ass and between my legs.

“You want someone gentle?” he asks, breath warm against my temple. He’s leaning over me, the ridge of his cock against my back. “Like West? Someone to bring you flowers and worship you?”

“No, no. I need you.”

He laughs shortly. “You need me to mark your beautiful ass? To make you black-and-blue?”

My pussy clenches. “God, yes. Please.”

“Why?” he asks, softer now. Menacing. “Because you deserve to be hurt?”

Yes. But if I tell him that, he’ll stop. It’s not the complete answer though. I deserve what he does to me, but it’s not only pain. It’s pleasure too. It’s the only language of caring I understand, bodies slamming together, flesh on flesh.

The whoosh of air is my only warning. Smack.

“The thing is,” he says, conversational despite the ache in my ass, “I’m not with you because you were a stripper, and I’m sure as hell not with you because you stopped. I’m not with you because you suck my cock like a goddamned dream. I’m not with you because of a damn thing you do.”

Then why? I won’t ask him though. I can’t, especially when he hits me again, stealing my breath. I can only fist the covers and try not to cry.

It doesn’t matter. He hears my unspoken words. He hears everything.

“I’m with you because of what you are.” Smack. “Because you’re beautiful and submissive and kind.” Smack. “And so fucking good.”

I flinch, because that’s the opposite of what I am. I’m the bad girl, the slutty girl. The sexpot with only one purpose in life. And without that purpose, I’m lost.

“You sent me away so I wouldn’t start another fucking fight, to kill someone else when I was too out of control to stop myself.” Smack. “It wouldn’t matter that they deserved it too. I would have been locked up, for good. Life over before I even turned eighteen.” Smack. “Who else would have had the strength to protect me?”

He waits, and I understand he wants an answer. A real answer, spoken aloud. So I give him one, the only answer I know to be true. “I loved you.”

His voice sounds thicker. “You never stopped loving me, you beautiful little fuck. You let me hurt you and hurt you because you’ll take anything I give you, won’t you?”

I whimper. “Please.”

I just want him to fuck me. I want to forget this night ever happened, but I know I never will.

“And then with Mrs. Owens,” he continues. “Taking your clothes off for strangers to keep a roof over her head. You’re the most generous woman I’ve ever met.”

“Stop,” I cry, voice cracking. Generous. It’s what West called me too, but it’s a lie. “I didn’t help her just for her. I needed to be…”

“Needed,” he says, dark and sure. “You need to be needed. Welcome to the goddamn club. That doesn’t make you selfish. It makes you human. And an amazing woman.” He pauses, stroking my cheek. “And one day you’ll make an amazing mother.”

I twist, fighting him now.

He grasps my hands and pins them to the bed. His body covers mine, a hard weight that steals my breath. “You want to be needed, beautiful? You got it, because I need you. I need all your goodness under me, at my mercy. I need to make you cry and then comfort you and then do it all over again.”

I’m crying now. The sheets are damp beneath my cheeks. “You won’t. You’ll get tired of me.”

“I waited for you. I didn’t fuck anyone else. I could watch them with West, I could jack myself off, but I couldn’t touch them. Do you think that was easy?”

“No,” I whimper, because he’s hurting me. With his hands and his cock and his words.

He’s hurting me.

“Well, it was,” he says, almost a growl. “It was easy as hell not to touch another girl. I tried, goddamn you. I wanted to be over you, but I couldn’t. Even when I hated you, when I fucking fooled myself, I didn’t want anyone but you.”

“Me too,” I whisper into the bed. I don’t know if he can hear me. I didn’t know if he could hear me across the miles, across the years. Now our bodies are connected in the most intimate way, our lives intertwined.

“I know.” His voice is soft now. “And I’ll never get tired of you. I never could get tired of you.”

“Blue,” I say. Just that. Blue.

He turns me over so I’m face-up on the bed. At the touch of his hand my legs fall open. He stops and stares between my legs, fingers playing in my folds. “No, I could never get tired of this. I could never stop wanting you. Never stop needing you.”

“Come inside me,” I beg. I need that closeness after what he told me. He’s baring his soul, but he’s holding back too. He’s keeping himself apart, almost aloof as his thumb flicks my clit.

“You’re worried you might do something wrong, but God, beautiful. I’m the one doing wrong every time I fuck you. I’m the one hurting you, making you cry. I’m the one who needs to do that. What if you get tired of that? Jesus, you should be tired of that.”

I don’t have the words to explain how it feels, how the lash of his palm is more soothing than a hug, how the tears he makes me cry are all the ones I never could as the tossed around nobody, a throwaway girl. I don’t have the words to explain that when he holds me down, it feels like he’ll hold me forever. “West could never be what I need,” I say. “He could never hurt me. He doesn’t think I can take it.”

“He thinks I’m too rough with you.”

My eyes widen in the dark. “He told you that?”

“He didn’t have to. We know each other well, even if we don’t always agree. He probably asked you to go with him. Didn’t he?”

Not with words. But that kiss… “I never would have.”

Blue leans down and lines his cock against my cunt. “I wouldn’t have let you go.”

A push of hips and then he’s invading me, inside me, so deep I gasp and squirm away. Large hands hold me down, keeping me in place as he forces the rest of him in.

“Too much,” I gasp. Too fast.

“You can take it,” Blue says darkly, his voice rough with pleasure. “He doesn’t have any fucking clue how much you can take. Sometimes I think you don’t either.”

He pulls out and thrusts back inside, making me whimper. My sounds just spur him on. He fucks me harder and faster until the world is a shadowy blur. I let it overtake me, the passion and the pain. He is the water, and I’m the ocean floor, held down by his weight, made soft with his motion, finding peace in the riotous waves above me.

Chapter Thirteen

I fall into a dreamless sleep after Blue collapses on top of me. I know I have things to worry about, things that might break us, things that break me, but I let them drift away under his comforting weight. Comforting, because I know I can’t get away. Because I know he won’t let me go.

When I wake up, Blue is already awake—and watching me.

“Morning,” I say sleepily.

His lips quirk up. “It’s afternoon.”

I blink. “Why aren’t you at work?”

“Seemed like I might be needed at home.”

I sit up in dismay. “I don’t want you to feel like you need to stay here because of…whatever. Because of my insecurity. You should be able to do what you want to and—”