CHAPTER 7 #3
And that’s it. All my rage comes pouring out, and without thinking, I walk up to him and shove him in the abs, the tallest part I can reach. “Fuck. You.”
“I wish you would, which is the crazy part.” He remains unmoved by the shove that took all my strength. “Lay it out for me, Nina. It’s time to get this over and done between us. Not the fucking part, though I’m game. That comes later, after you tell me why you hate me.”
“You big, stupid… arghghghgh!!!!” The sound flows out of me as I shove him again, my voice getting shrill by the end of the meaningless word.
I try to tamp down on the feelings spiraling inside me, but they’re too strong. I’ve suppressed them for years, but being next to him, having him finger me into oblivion, just brings it all back.
“Use your big girl words.”
And that’s it. I haul back and punch him, landing the blow on his hip. Instantly, pain radiates up my hand.
He raises an eyebrow. “Is that all you’ve got?”
And that’s it. A red film drops over my eyes. I begin pounding on him with my fists, ignoring the pain in my hand, willing him to be doubled-over by my assault—but he just stands there.
I punch him just above his dick in what should be the soft, flaccid part of his stomach—and he doesn’t move.
“Get it out, Jelly Bean,” he says softly. “Let the poison run.”
He’s such a… there isn’t even a word for him. If I could reach his face, I’d slap him across his smug expression.
But I can’t hit him where it counts for some reason. Probably because he was just released from the hospital.
But still, I just keep pummeling him until my arms give out, remembering his face as he looked at me that day so long ago, seeing again how he turned from me whenever we’d cross paths in the hallways afterward…
like I was diseased. He hurt me so deeply that day, and afterward, and that pain must have lived silent inside me all these years because now it’s shouting like it never left.
The seed of it has grown into an enormous tree when I thought it dead and buried.
It’s growing right out of me and into him.
So when my arms are too tired, I kick him in the shin. Damn him. I hate him. I hate him so fucking much.
But I’ve never been very coordinated, so each time I lash out with my foot, I lose some of my balance. When I back up and take a breath, for the first time, I consider doing him serious harm. Because I’m five and a half feet tall, nearly, and his dick is right in front of my mouth. Nearly.
He must read my expression because he says softly, “Pound me all you like, but if you bite, I might just bite back.” And he smiles, a long, slow grin, before angling his head and opening his mouth wide so that I can see he has a double row of teeth.
He has two rows of teeth. And they look sharp.
I just gape at him.
When he snaps his lips back shut, he murmurs, “Behave, Nina. Be an adult, or pretend, anyway.”
And that’s it. I wind my fist way back, and with the last of my strength, I punch hard, right into his gut.
“Owww!” I scream, pain radiating up my arm and down to the rest of me. “Fuck!”
My long-suffering giant-of-an-enemy sighs. “Let me see.” He holds out his hand for mine, but when I just clutch my injured fingers closer to me, tears streaming from the pain, he clicks his tongue against those double row of teeth. “Let. Me. See. I’ve got medical training.”
And suddenly I’m so tired, so fed up, so lost, I’m sobbing.
What’s wrong with me? Why am I acting like this? I don’t understand how he’s gotten under my skin again and made me embarrass myself. Again. Why is he that he brings out all the worst parts of me?
I’m shaking my head no, but I extend my hand to him all the same. With the gentlest of touches, he tests my bones and muscles before his enormous hands slip up my arms. In the next second, I’m lifted against him, cuddled to his wide chest.
“Wrap your legs around my waist.”
So I do. My arms stretch around his neck as he repositions his hands. Instead of looking down from a terrible height, I close my eyes and bury my face into him.
Déjà vu, except this time he’s carrying me in a different position. This time, his hands are nowhere near my pussy.
After jiggling the door open, he marches back to the living room. “Injury, Nicholas. I need you to call your mom and have her come pick you up, okay?”
“What happened?” The little boy jumps up from the floor and runs over to us as Sampson places me on the couch. “I heard Nina yelling.”
“She saw a roach. You know how women are. Then she banged her hand against a hard surface. She’ll be okay, but she needs to rest, and I’m going to have to bandage her.”
“No more typing, I guess. Her agent is going to be mad. She’s on a deadline.
Oh, hey, Nina, you can use mom’s old dicta-tape thing.
I bet that will work.” He perks up even as he sends a quick text to Mari.
“Oh, she’s not too far. She’s just finished her interview. She should be here in a few minutes.”
And I don’t know whether I want her to come pick up my human shield or not, because I could leave with them, yes, but then…
Then I wouldn’t be with Sampson, whom I don’t want to be with, except I can’t seem to want to leave him, either.
When he draws a cashmere blanket over me, one that’s so large I could be covered twice, I sigh. Definitely a woman lives here.
And nope, I don’t want to leave.
Maybe it really is time for answers.