Chapter 48
48
" W hat?" Leslie whispered, confusion etching lines on her face. Her gaze bounced between Alex’s eyes and the streak of blood staining his neck. The metallic scent hung in the air between them, a vivid reminder of what he’d asked her to do: cut him . And the motivation behind it. This wasn’t about teaching her to protect herself against a knife. At least, that’s not all this was about. This was about Alex thinking he needed to be punished.
Is that why he liked pain mixed with sex? Because the pain was less of a contrast to his pleasure, but more a punishment for his perceived sins? It was a leap in logic, an attempt to understand the mind of a man who was, at times, a stranger to her.
"I’m fucked up," he said, confirming her fears.
She grabbed the wrist of the hand holding hers and using a move he taught her, she managed to loosen his grip on her at the same time she dropped the knife. It clattered to the floor between them, the harsh sound echoing around the room.
“Alex, no. I’m not going to hurt you!”
"I deserve it, the things I’ve done...”
Her heart twisted painfully at his admission. The self-loathing was clear in his voice, in his eyes, in his haunted expression.
"You could never deserve that," she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “I don’t care what you’ve done, what you think. You’re a product of your past, shaped by circumstances beyond your control, yet you still have the capacity for ample kindness, for tenderness, for love.”
Once again, her thought strayed to Alex’s confession about liking to be whipped in the past until he bled. She took a deep breath, preparing herself for the question she was about to ask.
"Have you ever done bloodletting with anyone?" she asked.
She held her breath, anticipating his reaction.
The darkness in his eyes deepened, a chilling coldness replacing the earlier warmth. His jaw clenched, the muscles working under the stubble-covered skin. "Yes," he said, his voice grating like stone against stone. “Not to anyone else, but to me.”
It was another glimpse into the complex tapestry of his past. Another dark thread woven into his life, his history. Another secret he carried. By exposing more of himself, it was as if he was trying to strip away layers of his identity, to prove to her, to prove to himself, that he wasn't worth her time, her care, her affection.
"Were you trying to push me away just now?" she asked.
"No. I wanted you to be able to protect yourself. And I guess it got mixed up in my head. With all I’ve done. How maybe, sometime in my past, you would have needed to protect yourself from me .”
His confession, even given the context, was shocking. It pulled and twisted her heart in ways she never thought possible. But she wouldn't let him push her away. She wouldn't allow him to drown in his self-imposed solitude.
"You’re wrong," she said, holding his gaze. She moved closer, reaching out to lightly touch his arm. Her fingertips traced the hardened muscle, a silent assurance that she was there for him. "You would never be my enemy, Alex. You’re everything that’s good in this world, and that’s why I'm here with you. If you’d let me, I’d stay by your side forever."
His eyes flickered, and she saw the silent plea in his gaze, a silent admission of his need for her.
"I'll give you what you need," she told him, her voice steady despite the raging emotions inside her. She paused, choosing her next words carefully. "But not your blood. Not real pain because you think you're not worthy."
His expression suddenly shuttered. The impenetrable wall he'd built around himself seemed to loom even larger, a barricade that stood between them. His hands clenched at his sides, his knuckles white, his gaze once again hard and distant.
"You don't know the real me," he said, his voice barely more than a rasp. It sounded less like a statement and more like a warning, as though he was cautioning her to tread carefully around him.
Leslie felt a swell of frustration rise within her but also hope. His cycling emotions, giving her his vulnerability only to close himself off again, indicated he was close to breaking down, to letting her in. She just had to push him. Make him understand she wanted all of him, his light, his dark, his strengths and his scars.
"Then you have to share the real you," she said, her voice firm, her gaze locked onto his. The challenge in her tone was unmistakable. She was asking him to bare himself to her, to let her in, to trust her with his hidden depths, his ghosts, his fears.
For a moment, Alex said nothing. His eyes searched hers, as if trying to decipher her intentions, to gauge the extent of her resolve. But she held his gaze steadily, unflinchingly, showing him that she was not afraid, that she was ready to meet him in his darkness and help him find the way back to the light.
Slowly, ever so slowly, she saw his hardened exterior crack. His posture softened slightly, his clenched fists relaxing. It wasn't a complete surrender, but it was a start, a small step towards getting him to tear down the wall he'd painstakingly built around himself.
Then you have to share the real you.
Leslie’s words echoed in Alex’s head, and for once, they sounded reasonable. Welcome.
Moving stiffly, he sat on his bed.
Why not? he thought.
What he’d just revealed about himself – his belief in his unworthiness, the fact that he’d let someone make him bleed because of it – it seemed to have opened the floodgates. Or maybe it was just that he was so tired. Tired of the secrets. Tired of pretending.
No one aside from Luca, Mia’s family, and those in the criminal underworld who’d heard tales, knew what he’d done, not even his brother, Lee. Leslie thought he was a hero. Perhaps the most heroic thing he could do was disabuse her of that belief once and for all by letting her see just what kind of man he was.
He forced himself to remember the day he’d returned home to their Texas home and found Mia dead, then made his way to New York. It was like stepping back into a nightmare, a stark reminder that he was a man capable of brutality in the name of vengeance.
"Mia," he started, his voice barely audible, haunted. Leslie sat beside him, her eyes wide, attentive, her hand resting gently on his arm. The physical contact felt grounding, a beacon of warmth in the chilling abyss of his past. "Mia, despite being raised by mafia, was innocent. She didn't deserve what happened to her."
He saw Mia's lifeless body, heard the sickening silence that had filled their home. The shock. The disbelief. The sheer, blinding rage that had consumed him. His gut churned with the memory, the taste of bile burning in his throat.
"You already knew they killed her,” he forced out. “What you don’t know is I hunted them down. I made them pay."
The words felt like shards of glass, cutting him open, laying bare the raw wounds of his past.
The look on Leslie's face was hard to read. There was shock, yes, then horror. Sympathy. Understanding. But there was also a flicker of fear, a dawning comprehension of the depths of his darkness.
He couldn't blame her. He had been a monster, driven by grief and rage, hell-bent on retribution.
He averted his gaze, focusing on the wall as he unleashed the demon from his past. He could still remember the blood, the screams, the satisfaction. It wasn't something he was proud of, but it was the truth. The ugly, irrefutable truth of who he was, of what he was capable of.
Leslie didn't say anything for a while. He felt her eyes on him, studying him, assessing him. He braced himself for her rejection, for the disgust he was sure to see in her eyes. But when he finally mustered the courage to look at her again, all he saw was sadness.
"That's who I am, Leslie," he confessed, his voice barely above a whisper. "That's who I really am."
There were no tears, no recriminations.
Just silence.
Until she took his hand in hers, her grip firm, her touch warm.
The darkness within him stirred, but it didn't consume him, not this time. For the first time in a long time, Alex felt seen. It terrified him just as much as it comforted him.
"As far as my interest in BDSM, I gravitated toward it back in college. I’ve always liked pain as a contrast to pleasure, like what you experience when I spank you, but after what happened with Mia, I felt the need to push myself in ways I never had before. The more I pushed, the more I liked it. It got to the point that I needed more and more pain to get off. And maybe, to some extent, I did feel I was deserving of the pain. But I swear, it didn’t consciously start that way. The pain became a coping mechanism and before I knew it, it became an inextricable part of my sexual urges.”
He was silent for a moment, contemplating his own words, his own thoughts. It wasn't often that he delved this deeply into his psyche, not often that he let someone else peer into the darker corners of his mind.
“And now?” Leslie asked.
He shook his head. "Sometimes, honest to god, it’s just about the sting of pain that enhances what feels good until I’m awash in pleasure. Other times, when I can’t get there, for whatever reason, it helps push me over the edge. And sometimes, it's a lifeline. The things is, it’s not so easy to distinguish when I’m craving it for one reason or for another. I just know sometimes I need the pain, and that’s all there is to it.”
“And the bloodletting. The extreme pain, letting someone whip you until you bleed. How long has it been since you’ve engaged in that?”
He thought back. Realized with surprise that it had been a couple of years since he’d given in to that need. When he told her that, relief swept over her features, and he knew what she was thinking. That unknowingly, he’d processed some of his worst thoughts about himself, and at some point had stopped punishing himself and instead had surrendered to the pain as an extension of pleasure. At least for the most part.
Was that really possible?
She stopped asking questions and he stopped volunteering. They sat there in silence, the secrets of his past laid bare. He felt raw, vulnerable, but the longer the silence went on, the more he feared that if he looked in Leslie’s eyes again, he would see the horror, the repulsion that would be the final nail in the coffin of their relationship.
He had always known it would come to this. He had been foolish to think he could ever be more to her than a bodyguard, a protector. With a past as tainted as his, he had no right to ask for love, for acceptance. It was only a matter of time before the reality of his monstrous deeds would drive her away.
He closed his eyes and tried to etch her into his memory. The way her dark hair cascaded down her shoulders, the gentle curve of her lips, the warmth of her eyes; he wanted to remember it all. He was going to lose her, but now that she knew, he’d lose her family, as well. And not because he walked away, but because they would.
Yet even as he resigned himself to the impending loneliness, a surprising warmth enveloped him.
Leslie pulled him into her arms, encasing him in a cocoon of comfort. His body stiffened, taken aback by the unexpected contact. Her slender arms wrapped around him, her hands running soothingly up and down his back.
"You deserve love, Alex," she murmured into his ear, her voice as soft as a lullaby. "You deserve love."
Her words echoed in his mind, a mantra that he both fought and held onto. She rocked him gently, her touch as soothing as balm on his tormented soul.
He held his breath, unable to comprehend the affection she was showering upon him. His heart echoed the rhythm of her gentle whispers. He wasn’t supposed to be loved, not after the horrors he’d committed.
But as he felt her warmth seep into him, her scent wafting into his senses, he couldn't help but clutch onto the solace she was offering. His eyes pricked with unshed tears, his heart throbbing. It was a paradox, a bizarre dance between the bleakness of his past and the possibility of a future he hardly dared to dream about.
"You deserve love," she whispered again, her voice laced with conviction, her touch filled with tenderness. It was a notion that seemed too good to be true, a dream he was afraid to believe in. And yet, as he closed his eyes, leaning into her embrace, he allowed himself to savor the moment, the comforting words that held the promise of something beautiful. Something he had convinced himself he could never have.
Love in the face of all he was. All he’d done.
The room was quiet when she finally pulled away from him. The silence was broken only by their breathing and the faint hum of life within the monastery's thick stone walls.
Without a word, she got up, went into the bathroom and after opening and closing doors and drawers, came out carrying the first aid kit that had been stashed in a lower cabinet.
Alex looked at his hand where a trickle of blood had dried, the shallow cut a stark reminder of the desperate measures he'd taken earlier. He watched as Leslie meticulously cleaned the wound on his neck, then swiped away the blood on his hand, her delicate touch a stark contrast to the violence of his memories.
As Leslie fussed over him, Alex relived the way she’d held him, the way she had rocked him, the conviction in her voice when she told him he deserved love.
When she was done, she tidied up, the motions almost mechanical, borne out of a need to keep her hands busy.
"Lie down," she instructed, and her tone carried an authority he found himself instinctively wanting to obey so he did.
Slowly, she undressed him down to his boxers then urged him to slide under the cool sheets, which he did. Leslie followed suit, stripping down to just her panties, then slipping into bed with him.