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Plus, his apartment was never exactly clean, but the littering of take-out wrappers and beer bottles on the floor and coffee table was just gross. It didn’t exactly put me in the mood for sex.
And that was the other thing. The sex had always been good, not that I had huge amounts of experience, but it was nice. Lately it was… not as nice. He was rougher with me. He didn’t care when he squeezed too hard, or drew blood when kissing.
So, I was wary of this.
Which had started the pacing.
And the yelling.
“It’s because you’re fucking someone else, isn’t it?” he yelled, stopping in front of me.
I crossed my arms, mainly to hide the shaking in my hands. “How could you even say that, Gray?” I asked in a small voice. “You know there’s only you.”
He rolled his eyes. “No, I fuckin’ don’t. Not when you dress like a whore, won’t fuck your man like you should and hang around with biker assholes,” he hissed, eyes going down to my black tailored shorts and slouchy tee.
Not exactly whore chic.
I narrowed my eyes at him, despite the wild look on his face and the volatile atmosphere in the air. “Don’t you say a word about them,” I ordered quietly, my own fury nothing like the roar of his. “And I’m leaving. Before you say something you regret and won’t be able to apologize for later.
I went to turn, planning on walking out the door and calling Laurie to pick me up. She wouldn’t judge me like Rosie would. No, Rosie would never judge me. She’d judge Gray, though. Might even try and do something like burn his apartment down. She had kind of a track record.
We both did.
But instead of leaving, I was yanked back by Gray’s rough grip on my wrist.
I cried out in pain at the pressure of it.
But it was nothing compared to what came after it.
He stopped eventually. Grew bored. Or maybe his fist got tired. He tried to do… other things after that. Things that would have scarred me worse than what his fist could do. Despite the pain, I’d tried to fight him. But I didn’t fight enough. He’d ripped off my tee, grasped my breasts so roughly I could already see purple on them. But then he couldn’t perform. That made him angrier. And his fists found a bit more energy.
Then he just stood over me. My thoughts were jumbled, and I was in a lot of pain, curled small so he had less surface area to hit. Blinking up at him through swollen eyes, for a split second, it wasn’t Gray. And I wasn’t in his filthy living room. I was in my trailer, looking up at my father holding a beer bottle by the neck and wearing that same empty and cruel expression.
And then I was back.
I didn’t know how close hate and love were before that. How quickly one could cross from one to the other. But looking into those empty eyes I’d tricked myself into thinking were full, I hated him. With a placid kind of purity that felt much more right than the love I’d been convinced was real. True.
“You don’t leave. Ever. You try, I’ll kill you,” Gray promised in a voice so cool and ugly it hurt like an invisible punch.
Then he walked over to the sofa, slumping down on top of paper wrappers and switching the TV on. Watching it like nothing happened.
Like I wasn’t curled on the stained carpet, broken.
Because it had hurt. A lot. Him hitting me. But not the most. The most pain came from that empty and cruel look from the man who held my heart. That empty and cold look that was identical to the man who had done the exact same thing to my mother.
To me.
Yeah. That killed.
But I didn’t sink into it. That feeling. Instead, I found whatever strength I had left and crawled into his bathroom, grabbing my bag along the way. I’d discarded it on the floor in my excitement to see him.
The man who called me a whore, beat me and left me on the floor like a battered animal. The man I hated more than I’d ever loved.
Once I made it inside the filthy room, closing the door and locking it behind me, my fumbling and shaking hands fastened around my phone.
I stared at it for a long time. The longest. It wasn’t that I didn’t have anyone to call; I had too many. All the numbers promised different outcomes. Safety. Love. Escape.
Revenge.
That was the one I picked.
“Bull,” I whispered in a scratchy voice.
The roar of the Harley was what signified his arrival. He must have ridden fast, considering Hope was at least a half-hour drive away. Or maybe I’d nodded off. My head had taken a lot of knocks and it did feel cloudy, like I needed the oblivion of sleep. Though I didn’t think it was my physical injuries that craved oblivion.
