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eleven

Lucy

I’m frozen against the basement wall as I watch a man bleed out before me on the ground.

His blood is covering my body and I wish it was also covering my vision so I don’t have to look at his head spilling out as I stand here frozen in shock.

“Lucy.” I hear my name being called in the distance, but I don’t respond.

I can’t.

I don’t know how I got here. I’m lucky I remember my name. I’ve seen some terrible things, been through terrible things, but this is…this is otherworldly.

This is carnage.

“Lucy.” It’s Damien’s voice, but it does nothing for me.

I’m worried I might be stuck like this forever.

“Lucille.” A growl now, a very close growl that’s somehow able to penetrate through my haze and roll over my body with its vibrations.

He grabs my face in his hands, forcing me to look at him, but I can’t. My eyes stay glued to the corpse on the ground.

“Look at me,” he commands.

“I…” I try to say, my voice low and shaky, unable to get the words out.

There are no words for this.

“How did you get here? How did you find this place?” he barks, and that’s when I lift my eyes up to his.

And in them, I see fear. I see panic.

I swallow tightly then, inhaling through my nose. The air smells metallic.

“I followed Bruno,” I choke out.

I am unable to cry. Unable to feel anything other than…numb.

“Why?” he growls as he starts to examine my body and I let him.

I let his hands roam over me even though he just shot a man in the head. A man that was charging towards me. He killed a man and he could’ve killed me.

“Am I…did you…” I stammer then, but my voice is low and oddly calm sounding.

He looks me dead in the eyes, serious confidence burning within them. It’s staggering, honestly.

“No. You’re safe,” he sighs, like a prayer.

It sounds like a prayer on his lips. Like he’s grateful.

Who is this man?

“Come on. I need to get you washed up,” he says in a low voice, pulling me into his arms.

He doesn’t turn me or force me to walk, he lifts me in his arms and carries me out the door.

“You’re going to get blood on you-”

“I don’t care,” he growls as he walks us around the lower half of the back building and into the car garage.

I’m quiet the entire way, staring at my new, ruined dress that’s covered in blood as he walks us past expensive cars and into the elevator. The ride up is quiet, but not tense.

I can’t feel anything right now.

And oddly, I am grateful for this.

When we get to his penthouse, he carries me straight to my bedroom and into the marble, adjacent bathroom. He sets me down carefully in front of the floating sinks and opens the large, glass shower door, turning the gold knob until warm, steamy water sprays from the waterfall spout.

I don’t see him turn to look at me because I’m staring at myself in the mirror.

I’m covered in another man’s blood, from head to toe. My freshly-done hair is now matted and my face is covered in red. I bring my hands out, staring down at them before I turn on the sink and try to start scrubbing.

“Lucy,” Damien says from behind me, his breath on my neck.

“I have to get him…this…off me,” I mumble, scrubbing so hard at my skin, like I’m trying to wipe something deeper than the blood clean.

I’m trying to wipe the trauma clean.

And not just the trauma from what just happened.

The trauma of everything that’s ever happened to me.

It all hits me now, years of it slamming into me like a box truck.

“Lucille, stop. Get in the shower,” Damien commands but I shake my head at him.

“No, I have to get it off. Need to get all…of it,” I say through gritted teeth.

He doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t growl or get angry or issue a command.

He just leans over me and turns off the sink. I let my eyes lift from the watery, red drain and meet his in the mirror. His gaze is both soft and intense, but not remorseful.

His hands go to the zipper on the back of my dress and slowly drags it down. I don’t tell him that I’m not wearing a bra. I don’t say anything. I’m frozen by his tentative touch.

When he slides the dress down to my hips, I inhale sharply. My breasts are on full display in the mirror, and even though he sees them, he pays no mind to them. He just slides the dress to the floor, leaving me only in my heels and black lace thong.

I wish I wasn’t covered in blood. I wish this was earlier in the restaurant bathroom. When I was needy for him, when I was throwing myself at him like an idiot.

Which is why I followed Bruno down to the basement anyways. To yell at Damien for making me feel stupid, to dismiss my want. To tell him it was a mistake and that I hate him.

He goes to his knees then, his large, rough hands running carefully down my thighs as he does. It’s intimate, but given the circumstance, the air doesn’t feel sexual or tense like earlier. It feels…intimate. A different kind. A kind of intimacy that holds attention and care and empathy. Three things that Damien is not capable of.

He unbuckles the straps of my heels and slides them off one by one until I’m barefoot on the bathroom floor. When his hands drag up and grasp my panties, he pauses.

I don’t say anything. I’m holding my breath until his fingers carefully slide my underwear from my hips to my ankles until he lifts my feet gently to step out of them.

When he stands, I meet his eyes in the mirror once more.

There’s a trace of lust there, a small trace as his tall, broad and beautiful body stands behind me. I’m naked from head to toe, covered in disgust in front of the man that’s keeping me here.

The man that’s going to be my husband.

He places his wallet, phone and finally, his gun on the sink and I swallow tightly, staring at the weapon that caused all of this.

Held by the man that did all of this.

My savior and my monster.

It’s all so fucked, isn’t it?

So, why am I allowing him to lift me? Why am I letting him carry my naked body into the shower?

Because as wounded as I am, I’m also a masochist.

A total sadist for liking this. For wanting him to cleanse me. For wanting him to wash it all away. The muck and the memories. Every bit of it.

He’s fully clothed when we step in, his clothes now saturated as he closes the shower door and traps us under the warm water. The glass is filled with steam and the air is thick around us. I’m pressed against his chest even though there’s ample space in the stall. His shirt skims my breast as he reaches around to grab a sponge and bottle of soap from the tiled shelf, lathering it before pressing it to my face.

He washes me carefully, attentively. He gently scrubs every inch of my face, turning and inspecting it until it appears that all of the blood is gone. Then, he rinses the sponge and lathers more soap on before turning and pressing it to my chest.

I don’t realize that I’m holding my breath again until he circles the sponge around my neck and down to my breast. He looks at my body the entire time he washes it, his eyes void of any emotion, but I swear I can see a bit of desire in there. And maybe a little…disappointment.

Finally, those eyes lift to mine.

“Are you upset with me?” I ask, not knowing why the question even enters my brain.

“Yes,” he says without pause as he runs the sponge down my torso.

“You could have killed me,” I say simply, staring at his wet, dark hair that now falls over the sides of his face. His scar is on full display now, red and agitated from the warm water.

He’s so devastatingly beautiful and I hate it.

“No. I couldn’t have,” he says simply, confidently.

I scoff then.

“You shot a man nearly an inch away from me,” I exclaim and he shrugs as he scrubs at my arms now.

“You forget that I was a sniper,” he says, and I fall silent.

He was. Special forces too. This man is probably trained better than anyone.

And given his new line of work, that training has now made him lethal.

“What did he do?” I ask then, watching his dark hands run from my wrists to my hips.

“Stole from me,” he says quietly, his focus on my skin now.

My pulse quickens when the sponge rubs at my hip bone, right where my thigh meets it. I flinch, hissing through my teeth.

Because it feels good. It feels too fucking good even though there is blood trailing down the drain.

“Sensitive?” he asks, a ghost of a smirk on his full lips.

I shake my head slowly, watching him as he slowly sinks down to his knees in the shower before me.

He lifts my right leg by my calf, staring at it as he runs the sponge down my entire leg, pausing at the inside of my thigh. That hissing sound leaves my lips again and his eyes lift and lock onto mine.

And in them I now see…admiration. Like he almost finds me attractive.

Like he likes touching my naked body.

Instantly, I get wet. Which is stupid, but his dark head is practically between my legs and now he’s dropped the sponge and is rubbing the suds along my leg with his bare fingers and it feels so fucking…good.

“You’ll pay for it, you know,” he quips suddenly and I tilt my head at him in confusion.

“What do you mean? Pay for what?” I ask and he shakes his head at me as he clicks his tongue and drops my leg to lift the other one in the same way.

He continues the same, tortuous rubbing along my left leg now too.

“For snooping,” he says in a husky tone that practically has me panting like a dog.

Dear god, what is wrong with me? Who am I?

“I wasn’t snooping!” I gasp and he lands one hard, wet slap to my left thigh and I sink my teeth into my bottom lip.

“You were. And you’re going to pay for it,” he growls as he drops my leg and slowly stands until his body is pressed into mine.

And even though he’s in wet, heavy clothes, I can still feel the hard outline of his massive length press into my hip. I flutter my eyes, trying to blink away the desire that starts burning through me.

“H…how am I going to pay?” I ask, another stupid question that shouldn’t even be forming.

He smiles at me then. A slow, wicked smile.

And I realize then that I like it. That I want to see it all the time.

And that is how I know that I am a masochist for certain.

“Like this,” he growls.

He places two fingers at the base of my throat, pressing against my thumping pulse before he drags them down between my breasts. They’re heavy, larger than most women I’ve known. I’ve always been ridiculed for it, like they’ve made me some sort of whore even though it’s just natural biology. And it’s made me hate them.

Except for right now.

Because right now, Damien is looking at them with so much intense need and want, that it has my heart trying to escape from my chest.

His fingers continue their path from my sternum to my navel, a low gasp leaving my lips as they do. And when they reach my most intimate area, when they hover over the space that’s generating so much heat and need, I swear I might die right then.

He growls then, low and rough in my ear as he allows those fingers to lightly press against my clit. I mewl quietly in his ear, whimpering from the contact, begging for more. For anything.

But he gives me nothing.

Instead, he grabs me by my matted hair and spins me around. He pins me against the wet shower wall and uses his other hand to grab my hips and lifts them so that my ass is in his line of sight.

And then, he does the unimaginable.

He does something that I never thought Damien Reed would ever do to me.

He spanks me. Hard.

It’s just once at first, like he’s readying me for more blows.

And when my breath comes out in one harsh whoosh, he lands another.

And another. And another.

He hits me until I’m panting against the shower wall and clawing at the tiles.

And not because I’m in pain, but because I…like it.

I like him punishing me.

And he gets off on it too. He grunts as he spanks me, his fingers gripping the skin of my ass each time before he pulls his hand away to deliver another blow. His dick is so damn hard and pressed into the back of my thigh that I wiggle to get more of it.

And then…he stops.

And the air is quiet. It is still and tense.

It is full of regret. And not from me, but from him.

But I don’t think it’s regret for hitting me, for punishing me, it’s regret for being here with me in the first place. And stupidly, that hurts more than his punishment.

He rips away from me then, pushing the shower door open as he angrily steps out of it.

“Wash your own hair,” he growls, like he’s disgusted by me.

But I know he’s not.

I know as he grabs his things and rushes out of the bathroom that Damien is not disgusted or angry with me, he’s angry at himself.

And as I wash my hair, as I finish cleaning my body thoroughly, I realize that I can’t be mad at myself for this, for his self-loathing that’s been projected onto me. I realize that none of this has anything to do with who I am and has everything to do with the fact that he wants me and he shouldn’t. And I shouldn’t want him either.

But I do. God help me, stupidly, I do.

And that’s why when I sit on my bed in just a towel, my body scrubbed clean of today’s massacre because of his touch, that’s why I pick up the pen from the bedside table and sign the contract.