Having Her: Lies We Tell, Book 2 (21 page)

Vin paused. Looked into her eyes. And the expression in them was just as hard and sure as that word had been.

“You told me that if you did anything I didn’t want, all I needed to do was tell you to stop, right?”

Oh yeah, he remembered. “Yes.”

“Well, I’m telling you to stop.”

Chapter Ten

Vin’s eyes darkened and she saw something she could have sworn was pain flash through them. But she didn’t back down. She couldn’t back down.

Her whole body was trembling, fight or flight reflex kicking in. It was the sound of her name that had done it. She’d never liked it when he turned gentle. When he became tender. It made her feel threatened in a way she couldn’t have articulated. But it hadn’t been until he used her name that she’d realized she had to stop this.

It broke the fantasy. And tonight of all nights, she’d needed the fantasy. She’d even pleaded with him for it, for God’s sake.

“Why?” he asked. “Did I hurt you?”

“No.” Shit, if only he’d hurt her. She could use a little pain right about now. “But I’m not your bloody girlfriend, I’m your slave. I don’t want to be treated like fine-freaking china.”

His expression hardened. “Why not? You don’t think you deserve to be treated like fine china?”

Kara turned away, the panic from earlier curling fingers around her throat again. “I just don’t want it, okay?”

“Why? What’s wrong with it?”

“We’re not having this discussion.” She got to her feet. “If you’re not going to give me what I want then perhaps it’s best if you leave.”

Vin stared at her. Then he rose in one smooth, athletic movement, making her aware of how fluidly he moved and how much that turned her on.

Man, this was all so insane.

She was just like her mother, escaping reality with something that would only screw her up more. Only with her it wasn’t alcohol. It was a slave fantasy with her best friend’s older brother.

While she was pregnant.

Self-loathing twisted, the sharp edges digging into her. An old, familiar pain. Like whenever she got one of the letters she sent to her mother back again. Unopened. Unread. A silent, envelope-shaped rejection. A reminder of the guilt she never seemed to be able to escape from.

“I thought you wanted this,” he said. “You begged me.”

“Yeah, well, I changed my mind, okay?”

“Why? Because I treated you like a human being for once and not a slave?”

“Hey, you were the one with the slave fetish, Vincent. Not me.”

His whole posture went rigid. “You didn’t want it?”

She cursed under her breath. Because she couldn’t lie. She’d wanted it. “I…I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Then what the hell did you mean?”

“I meant, we had rules with this…whatever we’re doing. We had boundaries. And I was okay with that. I don’t want it to change.”

“Bit late for that now, don’t you think?”

Kara took a breath. “Look, all I wanted was a quick, hard fuck. If you can’t give that to me then piss off.”

The look on his face had become unreadable. And she gradually became aware of the aura of leashed violence around him. That he had blood on his knuckles and circles under his eyes. He looked tired. Like he’d had something taken out of him. By force.

She’d always tried not to be curious about him. Tried to keep her thoughts of him purely sexual because that was easier. Safer. And yet now an unfamiliar and unwilling sympathy tightened her chest. What had he done after she’d delivered her bombshell? Where had he gone?

“Vin, I—”

“Save it.” His expression shuttered. “You wanted me gone, I’m gone.”

He turned then disappeared down the hallway and she heard the front door slam shut after him.

Pain bloomed inside her.

Fuck, it was always this way, wasn’t it? She seemed to screw up no matter what she did. But how could she tell him that tenderness hurt far worse than violence? That gentleness cut far more deeply than being rough ever could? He wouldn’t understand.

Her throat closed up, her eyes burned. But she wasn’t allowed to cry. And the one release she used to allow herself she’d promised her favorite social worker she wouldn’t do anymore.

For long minutes Kara stood naked in her lounge, as a familiar pressure began to build, the burning behind her eyes becoming more intense. A pressure there was only one way of relieving.

She hadn’t had it this bad since she was sixteen.

Kara wrapped her arms around herself, suddenly cold. The pressure grew, pushing against her skin from the inside like a tire constantly filling with air, becoming harder, tighter.

There’s razors in the bathroom.

Oh God, so there was. But she’d promised that social worker she wouldn’t cut again. Promised she’d make a go of trying to fit in with the foster family she’d been placed with. And she had tried, getting rid of the razors, allowing the scars to heal. She hadn’t touched one for ten years, using a razor only to shave her legs.

Only a couple of cuts. Ease the pressure.

Ten years, hell, that was a long time. She’d never even had a slip up. So would having one now be a bad thing? She’d feel better afterwards. She always did.

Kara turned and went down the hall to the tiny bathroom. She tried to avoid her reflection in the mirror as she pulled open the drawer in the vanity, but the movement of the stupid slave chain fastened to the collar around her neck kept catching her eye.

The pressure thickened, the burning sensation behind her eyes even worse.

She was such a mess. All she’d wanted was normal. That was all she’d been looking for. And what had she got instead? A master/slave fantasy where she got off wearing a collar and a chain and taking orders from her best friend’s older brother.

Maybe she couldn’t do normal. Maybe she’d never be able to do normal.

Some life you’re going to give your baby.

The pressure constricted in her throat.

Of course she couldn’t do normal. She didn’t even know what normal was.

Tearing off the collar and chain so she stood naked in front of the vanity, she then took a new razor from the drawer and pulled open the packet. The metal gleamed in the light, comforting. She extracted it, holding it lightly between her fingers then turned her other wrist over. There were faint, pale lines on her skin, the legacy of her troubled teenage years. Her foster mother had seen them, thought she was doing drugs and had threatened to get rid of her.

If only it had been drugs. At least she’d have gotten some fun out of it.

Gently Kara laid the edge of the razor against the delicate skin of her inner wrist.

Like pricking a balloon…

That’s what she used to tell herself. When the pressure behind her eyes and the pain in her heart got too much she’d feel like a balloon too full of air. All she needed was a way to release the pressure, let it out. A small cut and all the air would escape, the pressure would ease. She’d feel better.

Lightly she drew the razor across her skin, careful not to cut too deep. It stung but it was a good pain. An easy pain. She let out a shaking breath as red sprang up in a line across her wrist, the blood a rich contrast to the pale flesh beneath.

It felt a little better but one cut wouldn’t be enough. It never was.

Kara laid the razor on her skin and cut again. The pain deepened. Just a little more maybe.

“What the fuck are you doing, Kara?”

She whirled around, her mind blanking with shock.

Vin stood in the doorway, a look of such incandescent rage on his face that she took a helpless step back. He moved, so fast she couldn’t stop him. Clamping strong fingers around her bleeding wrist, he then reached for her other hand, twisting it so she gasped and dropped the razor.

“Are you trying to kill yourself?” he nearly shouted. “Is that what you’re doing?”

“No! God, no, of course not.” She hissed in pain as his fingers pressed down hard on the cuts. A line of red had run down her arm, dripping onto the floor. “Vin, stop it.”

“Are you out of your fucking mind?” He hauled her close, staring down at her. “If you don’t want the baby there are easier ways to go about it!”

The pressure was back, as was the fierce burning behind her eyes, the tightness in her throat, her heart swelling up with guilt and pain and fear. “What are you doing here?” she croaked. “I thought you’d gone.”

“Clearly you did. Is that what you were waiting for? Me to go so you could slit your fucking wrists in the bathroom?”

The stormy blue of his eyes had darkened into black, fury staining his high cheekbones red. An avenging angel. An angel with a sword sharper than any razor. “I-it’s not what it looks like,” she forced out, a wave of shame swamping her. Of all the people to catch her cutting it would have to be him.

“Then what the hell is it?” he demanded. “You have scars on your wrists. Scars you wouldn’t talk to me about. Are they from a previous suicide attempt? Don’t lie to me, Kara.”

The humiliation was like acid, burning her. She tried to pull away but he wouldn’t let her. So she did what she always did when she was threatened. She attacked.

“I’m not trying to kill myself, Vincent,” she said, enunciating his name sarcastically.

“Then what are you doing?”

“I’m a cutter. You know what that is? I cut myself with razors.”

Shock passed over his face. “Why?”

“Because I like it. Because it makes me feel better. Because I have to get this pain out any way I can!” The words spilled out of her like the blood out of her cuts, helplessly, hopelessly. Words she’d never said to anyone else. “Because it hurts. It hurts so much. I just wanted normal. I just wanted sane. But I’m not. I’m screwed up. I always have been, I always will be and now I’ve screwed up your life as well as my own. This kid doesn’t stand a chance. And I can’t cry about it. I can’t even do that one, simple thing!” Her voice echoed around the tiny space of the bathroom and the shame of the admission was so intense she wished she could die of it. But there was no escape from herself or those piercing blue-gray eyes of his that stared into her, through her. Seeing her like no one else could.

“Don’t look at me,” she cried, desperate. “Don’t look at me like that!”

For a long moment he said nothing. Then with a sudden, violent movement that took her by surprise, he turned her in his arms so she ended up facing the mirror, not him. He still gripped both her wrists, the hard warmth of his body pressing against her spine.

“I won’t let you hurt yourself,” he growled in her ear.

“Then go away. You don’t have to watch.”

“I want to help you.”

“I don’t want your bloody help!”

“Yes, you do. You need it. You need someone, Kara.”

“Yeah, okay, you’re right. I do need someone. I need someone to hurt me.”

The statement had the desired effect. She could feel him go rigid behind her, the grip on her wrists faltering. Good. Perhaps he’d go away. Leave her to deal with it herself in her own way.

Oh yeah, because that way worked so well in the past.

“Hurt you?” Vin echoed.

“You said you wanted to help.” She could see him in the mirror, the achingly beautiful lines of his face set and hard. His body tall and broad and powerful behind hers, somehow emphasizing her nakedness. Making her feel small and feminine and vulnerable. Defenseless.

She dragged her gaze away, looking down at the sink instead. “And that’s what I need. I need pain. Because it makes everything else easier to bear.”

He said nothing. But the warmth at her back didn’t move.

Oh God, why wouldn’t he leave? She’d been torn open, the darkest parts of herself spread out for him to see and now she was drowning in humiliation. Suffocating. And the pressure was still there, building and building. No way to escape it or release it.

Kara struggled to breathe, tried to pull away.

And Vin bit her.

Shock froze her to the spot.

He’d sunk his teeth into the sensitive cords at the side of her neck, sending a bolt of pain right down her spine. She inhaled sharply. His head moved and he bit her again, a little lower this time but no less hard. Kara let out a gasp because it hurt.

He released one of her wrists, the one that wasn’t bloody, sliding his hand across her stomach. And down.

She stiffened. “What are you—”

“You want pain. So I’ll give it to you. But I’m doing this my way. If you don’t like it, all you have to do is say stop and I’ll stop.” His hand pushed through the tangle of curls between her thighs, long fingers finding her clit. Stroking her. And this time when she gasped, it wasn’t because it hurt.

He moved his head, biting the other side of her neck, his fingers stroking, rubbing gently, around and around. And the pain of his bite began to mesh with the pleasure of his fingers on her. Becoming something else. Something even more powerful.

Kara couldn’t stop the moan that tore from her throat. This wasn’t right. Pain couldn’t be pleasure. She wasn’t allowed a release like that. She’d managed to stop herself from having it that day he’d screwed her up against the wall in her hallway but this, tonight, was different.