I cut my eyes at her, careful not to move too much. I’ve got a broken rib and stitches in my back.
I feel her hand on my hair. “Lucas, do you know what time it is?”
“No.”
“It’s three-thirty in the morning.”
“You should be asleep,” I say quietly.
“Who usually comes to get you when it’s not my work hours?”
“The night officer, Mary Jane.” I look at her, unsure about this quiz. Sometimes people quiz me and they want me to get the questions wrong. Like Asshole, earlier tonight, asking me if I knew what I was good for. “Where is Mary Jane?” I ask.
I hope nothing happened to her. She’s old and smells like perfume that stings my nose, but she’s nice enough.
Shelly walks around to the front of my railed bed, in front of some machines pushed into a corner.
“Luke.” She strokes my cheek. “I’m twenty-seven now. I’m getting old.”
My heart hammers. Is she going to die? That’s not old enough to die, is it?
“I’m getting old enough to maybe start a family.”
I feel ill. My rib throbs.
“Are you going to have a baby? Who’s the baby’s dad? You got a boyfriend, Shelly?”
She smiles a little. Shakes her head.
“I thought maybe you might like to come and live with me.”
My head buzzes as she takes my head.
“Remember how I told you it was really important that you didn’t get sent to juvie? Stop hanging around with those tough kids in ninth grade?”
I lock my jaw. If I nod, my eyes will leak.
“Luke, I’ve been trying to adopt you for a few months now. Pretty soon, the papers will be final—if you want.”
I lose the battle. My face is getting really wet.
“It’s not final yet, but you can still go home with me tonight. Are your ribs okay? You feel like getting up?”
I nod, and she helps me up. I throw my arms around her.
CHAPTER TEN
Leah
I’ve got my arm around him, over his bruised ribs. He grabs my hand with his and pulls it a little tighter over his bare back, and I wince. He’s half asleep and I’m not sure that he can feel it.
But maybe he can. Maybe he’s doing it because he wants the pain. Right now, lying by him on the bed, is the first time today I haven’t been in sub mode, or actively trying to break out of it. I’m finding that I hate sub mode. He was right on Monday. I’m not a submissive at all. If anything, I want to be in charge. To give him a satisfying sexual experience that doesn’t involve blood.
I could be creative, if he could just let me try the things I want. Ever since he’s been asleep, I’ve been trying to think of creative ways to hurt him in a way that’s sexual, but not extreme.
Now, with my arm so tight around his back, I wonder what happened to make him this way.
Was he this way at Mother’s house, and he hid it from me?
Was he this way before? For all the many hours we talked, I know almost nothing about his childhood, other than he was in a lot of different foster homes.
I stroke his shoulder lightly, just a tickle, not enough to wake him up, and I let myself ponder one of the things about seeing him again that bothers me the most—and that’s the suspicion I have that maybe he became this way at Mother’s house.
He would leave his room and…
Tears slip down my cheeks.
I couldn’t leave my room, so…it’s not like there was anything I could really do except sing when he knocked.
But still. It feels like my fault.
I knew him there. I even loved him there. I should have protected him…somehow.
I lay back down beside him, and I wonder why loving someone almost always leads to pain.
I guess there’s a price for everything.
*
Lucas
I wake up aching inside, remembering her: not my Leah; Shelly.
I feel Leah’s hand stroking my arm, and I want to throw her off me. Scream at her to stop. I don’t deserve her comfort. I don’t deserve to lie on the same bed with her.
If she knew what I did…
If she knew all the varied tortures of my past…
My stomach lurches, and I breathe in deeply through my nose.
I can’t take her fucking fingers stroking, so I roll over, just slightly out of her reach.
I’m met with her blue eyes. They’re gentle and earnest and kind, everything I know I’ll never deserve.
Why did I bring her here? Why did I think I could treat her like the others, keep it just sex—my kind of sex? I’ve failed at that already.
I’m so fucking weak.
I sit up fully, gritting my teeth against the ache of what I’m pretty sure is a cracked rib.
Leah moves as if she’s going to scramble over to me, probably to touch me again, but I shoot her a stern look, and she sits up on her heels, with her hands on her thighs. She’s still got the mask on.
She doesn’t know I know who she is. She thinks that I still believe she’s Lauren. Which means I can order her around without suspicion on her part. I can keep my distance.
“Lower your chin,” I tell her. “Look at the mattress.”
She obeys, her blonde hair falling down her shoulders.
“Earlier, when I was fucking you, did I tell you to take charge? What did I tell you?”
Her eyes flicker up at mine.
“Did I tell you to look at me?”
She doesn’t speak. She doesn’t even shake her head.
“What did I ask you to do, Leah?”
She swallows. “Claw your back,” she whispers.
“And you disobeyed—again. I thought we agreed that you would be submissive.”
I watch her shoulders rise and fall as she breathes. I can almost feel the anger rolling off her. She’s not enjoying this the way I’d hoped she would. I can’t bring her to heel. Of course not. The setup is all wrong.
This was a mistake, I acknowledge.
Not hers, but mine. She knows who I am. Is only doing this because I’m me, if my guess is correct. I, on the other hand, should know better.
I sink my teeth into my lower lip, making it bleed. I suck on it and flex my sore hands. “Leah, would you like to be released from our agreement? You may answer verbally.”
I watch her with a pounding heart, feeling almost dizzy. “No, Master.”
I didn’t tell her to call me Master, but I overlook that.
“Why not?” I ask her in a low voice.
“Because I’d like to learn the art of pleasing you, Master.”
“You want to give me pleasure.” I nod, feeling uncomfortably warm inside my chest. “I know that. But I require pain as well. Not just discomfort that coincides with pleasure—” like the mind-fuck that happened between us earlier.
Her eyes flicker up to mine, and I nod, giving her permission to speak. “I can make you come,” she says in a quiet but strong voice. “I just want to do things my way.”
“So instead of trusting me, the way I’d like,” I tell her, “you’d like me to trust you?”
She nods. “I want us to trust each other.”
My stomach churns at the idea of a give-and-get relationship. I’m not sure what I would do without the ability to dictate every aspect of my sexual relationships. Without full power to order my partners into giving me the pain I need.
“That’s a bold proposition. You made me come earlier, so I see your logic I think, but still… That’s pretty fucking bold.”
She nods slowly.
“It would be new for me.” That part’s the truth. I’ve never, ever had a sexual relationship that didn’t involve a dominant and a submissive. The only time I wasn’t dominant…
“Why should I consider it?” I ask her, stern and quiet.
She looks up at me. “May I show you?”
Heat seeps through me, congregating in my cock. It swells and stiffens as she reach
es for me.
I grab her hand. “I didn’t tell you yes.”
Her eyes hold mine.
I can’t help smiling; I try to disguise it as a smirk.
“Yes,” I whisper.
Leah eases me on my back and lifts my hard cock up. She positions herself over me and spreads her slick lips over my head. Then she grabs onto my hips and sinks slowly down on me.
“Leah. Oh fuck,” I groan roughly.
“I’m going to ride you,” she says.
Through my dark lashes, I can see her wicked grin.
Her hand runs over my abs as she lifts her ass in the air again and again, riding my dick like she owns it. She reaches behind her ass and under, grasping my balls and tugging just enough to make me ache.
It feels good.
“Fuck me.” Like a lot of times before the pain starts, anxiety kick-starts inside me… I try to push it down and start to thrust up under her.
I grab her arms, pulling her down over me, so I can have more control over the trajectory of my cock and how it rubs her as I punch in and out.
She shudders, and I groan a little.
She leans over farther, so the head of my dick rubs the side of her smooth, hot channel. She uses her thighs a little more, rising and falling on me, making me so damn hard.
Her breasts press against my chest. Her hands grip my pecs, squeezing lightly. Her fingers find my nipples.
I feel my cock grow even harder. Thicker. I can feel my balls squeeze up, throbbing in anticipation of pain. She said she would give me pain. What will she do this time?
She pushes her chest against mine and sits up a little, moving her hand toward my throat like she’s going to try that. She spreads her fingers over my collarbone, and I feel my dick throb in anticipation of the fear and pain I know will come if she’s brave enough to wedge her hand against my throat.
But Leah changes things.
Just as she starts to press down with her hand, she lifts it up. Her eyes flicker over mine, and then she grabs my wrists and pushes them over my head. Her hand tightens around them, pressing my wrists against the mattress as she finds my nipple with her teeth and bites, so hard I blow my load inside her, barking out my pleasure—and the pain.
I try to pull my wrist away, but her grip is tight. She’s coming, too, seconds behind me. I try to lie there while she finishes. Try to ignore the sensation of having my wrist touched; no one ever touches it but this is Leah.
I watch her face as pleasure flickers over it in waves.
Come on, Leah…
I grit my teeth and jerk my wrists out of her grasp. I try to, but she won’t let go. Not fast enough.
She doesn’t know, but every pain that I enjoy is nothing in comparison to this.
*
Lucas
Fourteen Years Ago
The warehouse is the last one on a row, at the back of an old, abandoned factory district in Las Vegas.
Inside, at night, it’s even creepier than the shit-hole it is during the day. I’ve been here a few times in the past few months, all for shit like this, but tonight is different.
Tonight, through the back door, the one that leads to the old kitchen, there’s a challenge. An initiation task. This is the last one.
I stand there in my black pants and my black sweatshirt. My face is covered by a hood, only my eyes and mouth visible to the guys around me who are soon to be my Brothers; fellow Raiders.
In the last few years, this gang has taken over every school in Vegas, and at my school, it’s especially prominent.
Standing there with my arms folded in front of me, lined up with the other five in my clan, facing Steven W., our leader, I feel sick inside. I wish so much that I had chosen something different.
I wish that I’d been brave enough, selfless enough, to tell Shelly ‘no’ when she asked eight months ago if I wanted to live with her.
I did—I do want to; I love it, but when she finds out I joined a gang, it’s going to kill her. I know she’ll feel like she failed me, and she didn’t. Not at all. I was in this shit before she made her offer. All me. My choices.
So I can’t complain when Steven starts to talk, and my stomach clenches up. Our task is gruesome. Sick, even. It makes my head pound and my throat feel tight.
He describes in detail what we do, and I wonder dumbly if I could maybe run.
But no…
He has a gun. We all have knives. The time for opting in and out has come and gone. I’m in this now.
“When I open the door, she’ll be lying there with her arms and ankles tied. Go at her, one after the other. Raz, you’re first; then Bolly, Davis, Ham, and Luke. Be fast, get in, get out, and Luke, you’ll wrap things up.”
Bile licks up my throat. I reach into my pocket, not for my knife, but for my phone. My mouth is so dry, my stomach so acidic, I’m sure I will be sick. My head spins.
I can’t do this.
This is horrible.
I take a small step back, unplanned, just my feet trying to make decisions for me. Steven’s eyes fly to mine, and I fumble in my pocket, wondering if I can feel my way to 9-1-1. I wonder if I could ask to take a piss and call Shelly. Tell her she should call the cops. Do I know the address here?
“Get with it, Luke.” A fist connects with my jaw, and I shove Steven’s chest. He’s in charge, but he likes it when we fight.
I follow the others and we line up along a peeling, moldy wall in the back of the main room, where we’ve met all the times we’ve come here. Davis laughs at Raz, who’s moaning on the other side of the wall.
I clench my jaw as Raz comes out. He’s laughing. “Steve, you’re sick, man.”
Steven smirks.
I fumble with my phone as Bolly and Davis take their turns. Steve hands me a knife, and right about that time, Ham starts to cuss and scream. My heart goes crazy, beating so fast I’m worried I might die right where I stand, as Steven goes inside, a gun goes off, and Steve and Ham come out.
Both their cheeks are speckled with something dark. I know without asking that it’s blood.
Steve comes up behind me, taps my shoulder. “You’re up. It’s gonna be fucking weird,” he says in a low, dark voice, “cause I already offed her. Bitch slashed Ham here.” He jerks his thumb to the tall redhead with braces that shine in the dim light. Ham holds up his hand, then shrugs.
“So go on in,” Steven says.
The other guys snicker, and I’m sure it’s because she’s dead already.
I’m not fucking a dead woman. That’s fucking godawful. Fuck that. I’ll just pretend. AT least I don’t have to off her.
Everyone crowds around me as I open the door. Steven is grinning, and so are the rest.
I step inside, and Steve’s voice followed. “Remember she asked for this,” he says. “Came to papa threatening, treating me like a little bitch, and I’m a leader. See? You’ll see, man. You’re gonna see.”
His voice gets louder as he leans into the room behind me. Above my head, a light comes on.
I remember being surprised the warehouse had electricity. I remember noticing them all step in behind me as I stepped a little closer to the big lump in the corner, by the rusted sinks.
I remember whirling around and slashing at them, screaming, fighting, breaking bones. I went insane. Steve fired all his rounds, clipping Ham and killing Bolly. I stabbed Steve in the chest about the time the sirens started wailing.
Classic pull-out move. It was probably Davis that did it, that fucking pussy. Stick the crime on whoever’s still standing.
But I wasn’t standing. I lay down beside her and I sliced my wrist.
*
“Hansel? Hansel?! What the fuck?”
My eyes flutter, and I see her haze face above me: Leah.
“Hansel?” Small hands grip my face as her beautiful face comes into full focus. “Are you okay?”
I blink a few more times, realize I’m on my back and breathing hard.
Fuck.
I scramble
up, but I can’t hide it. I’m still shaking really fucking hard. I look down at my wrist, almost expecting to see blood there.
“Shit, Hansel. You scared me. You like…weren’t breathing right and—God,” she scrambles closer, “are you okay?”
I put a hand over my face and turn away.
“Hansel?”
I grit my teeth. I hang my legs over the side of the bed, and without turning to look at her, I rasp, “How do you know my name is Hansel?”
I can feel my world unraveling as I grip my hair and tug on it.
“It’s Leah, Hansel. I’m Leah. Don’t you remember seeing me last night?” Her voice drones on, but I can’t keep up with it. When it stops, I say the first thing I can think of.
“You should leave. You shouldn’t even be here.”
She gets down off the bed and stands in front of me. She pulls her mask off, showing me the wonder of her perfect face. It’s angry now.
“Don’t tell me what I should and shouldn’t do! You don’t make choices for me. I want to be here. God, Hansel, or whatever you want to be called—I will call you anything you want, but I want to be here. I want to stay here. What’s going on with you? What was that just now? Please, Hansel…talk to me.”
“Luke,” I whisper numbly. “I’m Luke.”
I get down off the bed and cross the room. I fold my arms in front of me, as if they’ll serve as a shield from those blue eyes.
“Leah, you need to go.” I shake my head, trying to find the words I need inside my scrambled brain. “Go on. Mistake,” I grate out. “I made a mistake, thinking we could…” I wave from me to her, unable to think past the thick fog that’s surrounding me.
Leah’s blue eyes dance. She shakes her head. “You’re not getting rid of me that easily. Hansel—Edgar—Luke— Whoever you are, do you know how long I looked for you?” Her voice breaks as she shakes her head. “How long I wanted you?”
“It doesn’t matter,” I growl. “You know why?”
She shakes her head, looking so wide-eyed and innocent, and fury builds inside me, both for what I’m doing now and for all the time I lost her.