Chapter 40
Fucking idiot!
What the hell was that? Cry like a little bitch in front of her—yeah, that’ll make her stay. Fucking moron.
I bet she’s out there thinking, “Damn, what a mess.”
Or worse, she’s feeling sorry for me.
Sympathy? Fuck off with that.
Oh yeah, the tough guy cried like a little girl. Boo-fucking-hoo. What a joke.
I hit the bag hard. It feels good, but not good enough.
Who does that? Who breaks down like that in front of the one person they’re trying to keep it together for? Fucking pathetic.
Another punch.
Another.
Bitch move. Total bitch move.
Fuck!
My knuckles are already sore, but I swing at the bag again.
I looked like a total dumbass. One second I’m trying to keep it cool, and the next I’m choking up like some emotional little shit. What the fuck was that even about?
Goddamn clown. I might as well paint my face and juggle my fucking feelings.
I throw a few more punches, not even counting. I just need to move, burn it out.
You feel one thing and you start crying like some emotional jackass? Why the fuck can’t I keep it together?
I pace, breathing like a bull, my hands shaking as I fight the urge to snap. The bag’s swinging, and I want to rip it off the chain.
I should’ve kept my mouth shut. I should’ve locked it all down. But no. I had to fucking break. Right in front of her.
I slam the bag again, like that’ll rewind it. Like I can punch the memory out of existence.
Fucking fool. Get your shit straight!
And I fucking hurt her.
What kind of fucked-up idiot does that? It doesn’t matter that I was asleep; my body still did it. The look in her eyes was pure fear, and it was because of me. How the fuck do you live with that? I was supposed to be safe, not the asshole she was scared of. I don’t get to forgive myself for that.
I punch the bag harder.
I live with the fact that my body can turn on someone without my permission, and I won’t lie, it’s fun—but not with her.
And on top of that, I’m such a selfish piece of shit that I still want to drag that sickness into her life, just because I’m fucking obsessed with her. Like my need to be close somehow matters more than her safety or peace. That’s not love; that’s me being a fucked-up, needy asshole.
I swear it’s this fucking house. This shit box stuffed with everything I tried to bury and burn keeps fucking with my head.
I was clean. I was calm. I had my shit locked down until I crossed that threshold and the place crawled back into my lungs like mold.
Funny how it’s the one place that can keep her safe. The same fucking house that ruined me somehow passes for normal.
At least for now.
“Hey,” she breathes quietly.
Great …
My eyes go straight to the ceiling. Anything to avoid looking at her. The embarrassment hits like a second wave. Seeing her again after that horrendous night feels like dragging my pride through glass. I can still hear my own voice cracking. I still feel how weak I must have looked.
I nod, barely. No words. My mouth is dry anyway. Not like I have anything smart to say. Knowing me, I would just make it worse.
So I keep my eyes away, pretend I’m super interested in this empty-ass ceiling, and hope she can’t hear how loud my brain is screaming.
“You want to tear the bag apart?” she asks, walking closer.
Fuck …
“Maybe.”
She reaches close to me, crosses her arms, and leans against the wall, her dark blue eyes locked on me. I can feel the stare, even without looking straight at her. She’s probably judging the hell out of me right now. Can’t blame her.
“How are you?” she asks.
“Peachy,” I mutter, tugging at the wraps on my hands.
She hums and doesn’t say a damn thing, and somehow that makes it worse. Way worse. I’m drowning in her judgment, and every second she stays quiet just shoves my head down further. It feels like I’m six feet deep in her silence, and there’s no fucking ladder to climb out.
“Look, little—”
“Will you teach me?” She cuts me off.
I raise a brow. “Teach you what?”
“How to be a badass like you.” She smirks.
“Uh … What?”
“I always wanted to know how to handle a blade.” His eyes drop, taking a slow sweep from head to toe. “And you’re the perfect teacher.”
Is she making fun of me?
“But …”
“Adam, look.” She steps closer and takes my face in her hands. “I’m glad I was there last night. I’m glad you didn’t go through that alone.”
… The fuck?
I just stare at her like a dumbass. No words come out. My brain is still stuck on her being glad about that night. That train wreck.
She doesn’t seem fazed. “You can talk to me about it when you’re ready. I get that ‘mother’ was never your favorite word in the dictionary.”
Then she rises up and plants a kiss right on my lips, oblivious to the fact that she has just completely short-circuited my brain.
“I’ll be there, no matter when that’ll be,” she says, calm as hell.
And just like that, my pride claws its way back. Seeing the woman I’m obsessed with standing there, not backing away after everything she saw, makes something settle in my chest.
And for the first time in a long time, I don’t feel like breaking something.
I just nod.
“So you want to be a badass, huh?” I raise a brow.
“M-hm,” she hums, pressing her full lips together.
I want to fuck those lips again.
I nod with a smile, but it’s a fucking miracle I’m still standing still. My fingers twitch with the urge to grab her, to fuck her against the wall and finally devour what I’ve been starving for.
The way she stands there. Expectant, unguarded in the way people get when they trust the wrong man. Because everyone knows I’m not a fucking saint, and she knows exactly what she’s doing to me.
“Fine,” I say eventually. I pretend I’m fine, like my pulse didn’t just kick hard against my ribs. “Can’t have you getting shanked by some rookie just ‘cause you don’t know which end is the sharp one.”
She rolls her eyes. I grin. God, she’s fun when she’s pissed.
There we go.
I lead her to the open space. I take the knife from my pocket and weigh it in my palm before raising my eyes to look at her again.
“Are you sure?” I ask.
“Dead sure.”
She’s standing across from me, hands on her hips, mouth set in that stubborn line that makes me want to kiss her or break something. Both, probably. She wants control, but she doesn’t realize she’s already lost it, because now I’m picturing her with blood on her hands and my name in her mouth.
I toss her the blade.
She catches it. Not bad.
“You planning on fighting or filleting a fish?”
She flips me off.
There she is.
“I’ve never stabbed anyone before,” she says.
I smile. “You will.”
She laughs like I’m joking, and I see some splinters of defiance in her.
A need to prove she’s not fragile. I know she’s not.
She’s fire and grit beneath all that softness.
But there’s still a tenderness to her, something pure, and whether I keep it from falling or drag it into the dark, it’s mine to corrupt or protect. I haven’t decided which.
“Show me how to stand,” she says.
God, her voice. She could ask me to burn the world down, and I’d ask if she wanted it slow or fast.
I move behind her.
She smells like soap and something sweeter beneath it, something that curls low in my gut.
I press my palm low on her spine, flattening her posture. Her body stiffens.
“You’re too tight,” I murmur. “Loosen up.”
She exhales through her nose. I know she hates taking orders.
I shift her stance with my knee, my hands sliding to her hips because … Well, I just can’t keep them to myself.
“Wider. Stable. You don’t want to fall on your back.”
She glances over her shoulder. “Afraid I’ll hurt you?”
I smirk, leaning in. “I’m praying for it.”
She chuckles. Her shoulders loosen, and her ass presses back into my cock.
Christ.
I guide her weight. Her center. She follows without resisting, and that does something dangerous to me. I don’t want her obedience. I want her choice.
She tilts her head slightly, giving me her neck.
“You always this grabby when you teach?” she asks.
“No, but there’s always a first time for everything.”
She looks up at me then.
I lean closer, my mouth near her ear, my voice low. “Hesitation is mercy. Mercy is death.”
Her breath stutters.
“Now,” I say, stepping back, “come at me.”
She hesitates. “You want me to stab you?”
I shrug. “If you can.”
“You’re serious?”
“Deadly.”
Her chest heaves with uncertainty. Eventually, she lunges at me, but it’s too sloppy. I catch her wrist mid-swing, twist, and disarm her in two seconds, sending the blade clattering to the floor.
She glares at me, breathless. “You didn’t tell me you were going to fight back.”
“No one’s going to wait for permission out there, little orchid.” I pick up the knife and offer it to her again. She takes it, her fingers brushing mine. “Again.”
She moves again, quickly and messily. I disarm her easily. The knife hits the floor again.
“Cazzo!”
“You’re not thinking,” I say, amused.
“I am,” she says. “I’m thinking you’re distracting.”
God, I love this game. I feel absurdly proud.
“Again.”
She tries again.
And again.
She keeps trying, refusing to back down. Each time, she comes back harder, sharper, more precise.
And fuck me, it’s beautiful.
She’s beautiful. Fierce. Unforgiving. She could slit my throat and I’d die grateful.
I mock her when she dithers. I praise her when she gets it right. She’s getting it. And every second I spend with her like this, every flicker of anger in her eyes, every bead of sweat slipping down her neck makes me want her more.
Not just to fuck. Though, yeah. That too. But it’s worse than that. I want to carve my name into her heart so deep no one else ever stands a chance.
She doesn’t know what she’s doing to me. Or maybe she does. Maybe she likes it. Maybe this whole thing is a power play, and I’m the one losing.
She lunges again. I catch her wrist. We collide, momentum tangling us together. My hand stays on her arm a second too long.
“You’re thinking too much,” I say quietly.
“So are you,” she replies.
She shoves off me, cheeks flushed, glaring. She’s trying so hard not to show how much I’m getting to her. It’s adorable.
She goes again. I let her almost get me. I let her think she’s winning.
And then I finally seize the blade and pin her on the wall, both of us breathing hard, one hand holding the knife against her throat, the other on her wrist.
Fuck.
Our faces are inches apart. Her lips are parted, her eyes wide.
I want her like a sickness. Like something under my skin I couldn’t cut out if I tried.
She huffs out a smile, looking me in the eyes. I bite my lip as I look at hers, trying to keep it together.
Ah, she likes me like this. She likes that I can’t keep my hands off her.
“This doesn’t feel like training,” she says quietly.
“No shit.”
She lets out a short giggle. “Is this the knife I … remember?”
“It remembers you too.”
My cock is already straining in my boxers, and that line alone makes me even harder.
I drag the blade lower, grazing her already hard nipples that are visible from her dark purple sports bra, drawing a broken whimper from her.
That sound shoots straight to my cock, and fuck, I live for this state of hers.
“You always get wet when I play with knives, huh?” I murmur, dragging the blade down her stomach in a teasing glide.
“Can’t a girl have fantasies?”
My, my …
My grin widens into something sinister.
I slip two fingers beneath her waistband and glide effortlessly into her pussy. She gasps, her hips already moving forward, her body damn near begging.
Her eyes close, and her head hits the wall, surrendering already. I feel the slick heat between her thighs and grin.
“Fucking dripping. You missed me?”
Her nod is too slow, as if she’s trying to focus.
“Does it hurt now?” I ask.
She moans, shaking her head.
“Words, little orchid,” I growl, pushing my fingers deeper. “Or I’ll stop right here and leave you wet and whining on this gym floor.”
She shakes her head. “It doesn’t hurt.”
“And?”
“Yes,” she gasps, voice breathless but steady. “I missed you.”
My smile grows wicked. I pull my fingers out and lift them to her mouth. “Taste what a little danger does to you.”
She parts her lips instantly, tongue flicking out, and I swear I nearly lose it.
“That’s my good girl,” I mutter, sliding the knife down to rest against her inner thigh. “Now be still while I ruin this pretty little body.”
I grip the knife tighter, eyes dropping to the smooth handle.
“Do you trust me?” I murmur, voice low.
Her breath hitches, but her nod is instant. “Yes.”
Oh, that filthy kind of trust you can’t fake.
My cock twitches hard enough it’s painful. Fuck. It’s like she just gave me permission to be a monster around her.
I push her legs wider, kneel between them, pull her athletic leggings down, and press the cool handle against her soaked slit. She gasps, thighs trembling.
“You really are a dangerous little thing, letting me do this.”
I slide it in slowly, watching her eyes flutter and her lips part. I push deeper, inch by inch, until she’s stuffed full of it.
I stand and bring my lips to her ear, grazing it with my teeth.
“I want your pussy to remember this. I want every fucking nerve in you to know it was me who filled you like this.” She gasps. “Me who made you take it, want it, beg for it.”
She whimpers, her hips rolling, chasing more.
My filthy, perfect girl.
“I want more,” she mumbles.
I give it to her.
I groan against her neck, one hand pinning her wrist high above her head, the other shoving the knife deeper inside her.
“You’re so greedy.” I press her harder against the wall, my body flush to hers. “I like that.”
She moans, quiet but filthy.
“Keep your hands right where they are,” I growl, thrusting the knife into her deep, again, again. “Or I’ll tie them there.”
Her head falls back.
But then … footsteps.
Her eyes go wide. “Oh God,” she gasps, embarrassed.
I pull the blade out, flick it to the side, and grab her hand.
“Come on.”