“So that's why you keep the company of scum? Because they can do dirty work for you?”
Her eyes narrowed at me. “I can do my own fucking dirty work, Cash.”
I didn't doubt that and I didn't know why I was choosing that moment to pick a fight with her. She was hurt, physically but also her pride. I was being a fucking dick for no good reason. It didn't matter what I thought about how she operated her business. All that mattered was she was bloody and bruised and asking me for help.
“You give me a description, I'll put some feelers out, okay?”
Her chest deflated as she realized I was giving in. “Okay.”
“How bad you hurting? You want more pills?”
“After this show,” she said, sitting back casually and cradling her beer in her hands.After the show, I shook two more pills into her hand then let her make her way up the stairs again. I tucked her into the bed and waited for her to fall asleep before I slid in behind her. I could have slept down on the couch, but I was trying really hard to convince myself that what I was doing was for her benefit- she'd have me close in case she needed anything in the middle of the night, or if she woke up in pain.
But the truth was, I just wanted to be close for my own reasons, reasons I didn't understand, and reasons I didn't plan on analyzing.
I just climbed in the empty side of the bed, curled up, and waited for sleep to claim me.
It was sometime in the middle of the night when I heard it: whimpering. I slowly surfaced, unsure what the sound was, still drowsy. As my eyes opened and I focused on the back of Lo, curled up away from me, awareness snapped me up.
“Honey?” I asked, my voice raspy from sleep. She didn't respond, just made more crying sounds. I reached out, grabbing her shoulder gently and pulling her back until she was flat on her back and I was on my side looking down at her. She was sleeping, dreaming. There were tears on her cheeks and her lips were trembling. “Baby, wake up,” I said, my voice a little louder. My hand moved out, stroking her hair out of her face. The second my fingers touched her, her body stilled its writhing.
My hand drifted down the side of her neck, stroking the soft skin, down her arm, her side, over the bandages covering her ribs. Soon, the whimpering cries turned into muffled groans and I couldn't stop myself from touching her- over her bruised jaw, down the center of her chest, up the side of her leg.
Slowly, her eyes fluttered open and her brown eyes found mine in the dark.
“Cash?”TenLoI was used to the nightmares. I couldn't remember the last time I had a night of completely dreamless sleep. I'd simply seen too many things, been through too much shit to be granted the serenity of a restful night. I accepted that as part of my life, as penance for the dark shit I had been involved in.
I woke up slowly, my skin feeling oddly tingly, my chest feeling tight. I felt the pulsating need between my thighs as the final hold of sleep let go and realized with a blinding kind of clarity that I was turned on. I was turned on in a bed that wasn't my own.
My eyes fluttered open to see the dark outline of a male body half-propped up over mine. It was then I felt a hand brushing across the very lowest point of my belly, toying with the waistband of my panties, his fingers brushing the exposed few inches beneath my bandages.
Holy shit.
Holy shit.
Cash was touching me.
“Cash?” I heard my voice ask, low and airless.
“You were crying,” he said back, just as quietly.
“Cash what...”
“You were crying and when I touched you, you stopped.”
Wow. Okay. I sucked in a breath, trying to calm the growing sense of need. “I'm not crying anymore.”
His head shifted up and there was just enough moonlight slanting through the blinds for me to see his gaze was on my face. “Are you going to make me stop?”
Oh, god. I didn't want him to stop. But he needed to. Right?
“This is a bad...”
“Do you want me to stop, Lo?” he asked, his voice getting deeper and I felt it turn my insides to mush. “Don't analyze it, just answer. Do you want me to stop?”
“No,” I said before I could stop myself. Then, again before I could stop it, I started, “Cash, everything hurt...”
“Not gonna' fuck you, babe,” he said, with a little bit of regret in his voice. “But I promise that, in a few minutes, you won't be feeling any pain.”
Well then. I kind of owed it to myself to get pain-free, right? At least, that was what I was going to choose to believe.
“Okay,” I said, my breathing already shallow and fast and he wasn't even touching me anymore.
His body shifted slightly, lifting up, as his fingers whispered across the soft skin of my inner thighs. I felt my legs falling open, giving him more access, practically begging him to shift his touch upward and touch me where I really needed it. But his touch remained almost chaste, gentle, moving up to the lace of my panties around my thighs, then back down to my knees, then back up again.
Desire made every nerve ending feel overly sensitive, poised to respond to the barest of caresses. The material of my panties was wet and my hips were shifting around in frustration.
“Cash...” I whimpered. The end of his name caught on a hitch in my breath when his hand shifted and pressed down hard between my legs.
“Soaked,” he said on a growl, his fingers shifting so his thumb pressed down on my clit, moving over it with slow, hard pressure side to side. My hand flew out, landing on his shoulder and digging my fingers in.