Page 105 of Jensen

“Jensen,” I whisper. “Tell me.”

“It’s like a gang tattoo,” he says roughly. “I had to get it when I joined Brothers’ operation.”

I touch the vertical line. “Does he have one?”

“Yes,” he says, voice grim. “We all did.”

“A crossis a little…hypocritical. It doesn’t make sense, the way he is with church,” I breathe. “Brothers says one thing, but he does another.”

He shifts off me, sliding to his back. I roll onto my side, still resting my fingers on the cross. He doesn’t seem to mind.

“Brothers is all fucked up,” he says finally. “He’s from one of those real fundamentalist sects, snake handlers. He lied, told me he was Baptist for a while. He’s not religious, not the way you’re thinking.”

“Then why?” I whisper.

“I think he acts out his past,” he says. “Maybe he hopes he can rewrite over what’s already been written.”

“But he doesn’t actually believe all the things he talks about,” I muse.

“Brothers Boyd is a deeply fucked up person,” he says flatly. “Maybe I’m the same.”

“How do you mean?”

He shifts, then he sits up and reaches for the bottle, but he doesn’t drink.

“The pain, the rough shit, that’s what she did to me,” he says. “It was consensual, at least insofar as it could be. But it really messed with my head.”

My heart hurts so badly, I can’t move. Deep inside, I sense a part of him that speaks to the denial in me. Neither of us want to be victims. And yet, here we are, all wrapped up in our pain, naked in the sheets together with nothing but a shared bottle to dull the memories.

“You don’t have to do it,” I say.

He lifts his head, face sober. “I want to do it. I like hurting you when you enjoy it. And I like it when you hurt me.”

I push the sheets from my thighs and spread them. He sets aside the bottle and lays back down between them. Our lips brush, breath melding.

“Then hurt me,” I whisper. “All you want.”

“Why?” He reaches one hand between our bodies. The head of his cock slides into me, stretching me, filling me with familiar heat.

“Because,” I breathe. “It makes me feel like a woman.”

He understands a lot, but not those words. I don’t expect him to, but that’s alright. He doesn’t know he’s letting me rewrite the past every time he gives me a choice. He’s allowing me to open myself up in my own time, on my own terms, with a man that I’ll never have to wash away in the river.

His stomach ripples as he thrusts, grinding hard enough in me that pain throbs deep inside.

“A woman,” he repeats, barely audible. “Or my woman?”

My nails pierce his upper spine. “Your woman.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

JENSEN

We fuck again, like we’re trying to put a bandage over our wounds. She’s hungry to have pain with her pleasure, so I take the clothespins from downstairs and pull her into my lap, back against the headboard. Her brow furrows in concentration, watching me twist her nipples and pinch them into place. If we get out of this, I’ll get her real nipple clamps, but for now, these have the desired effect.

Her eyes meet mine, big, vulnerable. I spit in my hand, wetting her bare pussy, and guide myself inside.

She gasps, lids flickering. “You feel good,” she whispers.