“All right. Get some sleep. I’ll handle Striker.”
“You promised you wouldn’t do anything!”
“I promised nothing. I don’t like when people fuck with me or mine.”
His. The word sets off a chain reaction in my heart that runs rampant through my body. Rush is majorly off-limits and despite his knee-jerk attempt to hit on me at the club last night, he doesn’t have any real interest in me except for his concern for an employee who’s fallen victim to his nemesis.
But no one’s ever called me his.
My eyes drop to his hands. Large, strong hands. If he hit me with those, the burning pain would probably obliterate everything in my mind.
A moment of perfect peace.
I don’t want a boyfriend, but damn, I wish I could ask Rush to do that for me. Push me down and spank me hard, then do his overprotective thing and cuddle me until I feel sane again.
“Dree?”
I’m staring at Rush’s hands. Chunky silver rings that encircle several of his fingers. Maybe he would do that. Maybe he would understand why I need it.
“Sometimes… Sometimes when my thoughts get really dark, I imagine someone hitting me.” The words just slip out, falling from my lips like secrets that won’t be kept.
I must still be high.
“People do that, don’t they? Hit each other because they both want it.” I lift my gaze to Rush’s, and he watches me without saying anything. “Since everything went to hell, I’ve been imagining someone striking me across the face. Telling me I’m pathetic. Telling me I’m stupid and worthless. That I’m nothing.”
Rush is as still as stone. He barely seems to be breathing. “Dree. You shouldn’t be punishing yourself like that.”
I shift my legs, and one of my stuffed rabbits rolls off the bed and onto the floor. Rush leans over to pick it up.
“You do it, then.”
Maybe it’s the ketamine. Maybe I just don’t care anymore, because I’m a mess who’s going to be fired sooner or later anyway. My flesh tingles as I imagine his hand striking me. His harsh voice telling me I’m a fucking idiot. I want to disappear under him. I want him to break over me like a wave and obliterate everything in his path.
Rush is still out of sight, searching for the rabbit. Or I think he is. He’s not moving.
Slowly, he sits up, the rabbit clutched in his hands.
He can think I’m a crazy. I don’t care. I said what I want and I haven’t got anything left in me to take it back.
Rush stands up and leans over me, so close I can see the shards of silver and violet in his eyes. He places the rabbit in my arms, and reaches out and strokes a hand through my hair. I can feel his warm breath on my mouth.
“I’ve got a feeling you’re going to wake up after a long sleep and pretend you never said that to me. Do me a favor, would you?”
My heart is suddenly pounding so hard it feels like it’s going to break through my ribs. “What?”
His lips brush over mine. “Don’t.”
10
Rush
My mind’s racing as I head out the front door of Dree’s apartment building. Sweet, little Dree, half my size and eleven years younger. A slender little dancer whose hands feel tiny in mine. Whose room is as delicate and pretty as she is in her soft pajamas printed with fuzzy teddy bears.
You shouldn’t be punishing yourself like that.
You do it, then.
Fuck.
Me.
I’m not someone who would take a hand to a woman out of anger and I don’t understand how anyone could, so it’s taken me a long time to realize what I actually want to do to a woman. Punish her. Hurt her. Make her cry.
Make her fucking beg.
But be sweet to her, too. One of my favorite fantasies is of a woman in tiny polka dot knickers, so wet she’s soaked right through them. She’s embarrassed about how wet she is and tries to hide it, but I don’t let her. Daddy needs to fuck you, pretty girl. And I pound her hard while she’s making helpless whimpers. Her cheeks flush pink and she sucks her thumb, her lips wet and glossy. I come then, watching her do that. After, I imagine cuddling her against my chest and she’s so weak from her orgasm and the dicking down I’ve just given her that she’s weak against me. It’s the only fantasy I hold onto after I’m done rubbing one out. It lulls me to sleep. The fantasy goes so deep that it soothes me to my bones.
I call a car to take me to Camden, and then stare across the road, picturing my hand around Dree’s throat as I kiss her, and then slapping her so hard across the face that an angry red mark blossoms on her cheek. Drawing her into my arms again and telling her what a good girl she is. Then doing it again.