Brutal (13 page)

“Yeah, I was just sleeping, no big deal.”

“I’m at Venessa’s,” I say, hoping that about sums it up.

“So?”

“So? I need advice. I don’t know what to do.”

“Do about what?”

“Anything… all of it. Fuck, man, if I knew, I wouldn’t be calling you now would I?”

“You want to get with her?”

“Yeah, eventually, but I want more than that. I want her, but I don’t want anyone else to have her.”

“Then it’s easy,” he states.

“What’s easy, man? This shit ain’t easy.”

“You want my advice?”

“Yeah, sometime tonight would be great.”

“Okay smart ass, it’s easy,” he says. “Love her right, fuck her hard, and ruin her for all other men.” Then he hangs up on me.

I lay there, more confused than I was before I made the call. It seems simple enough. I
would
love her right. It’s the last two that concern me. I’ve never fucked anyone. I don’t want to
fuck
her
,
I want to
please
her. I can’t even sweat the other men at this point, because there can’t be any competition if I kill ‘em all.

Content with my current situation, I start to zone in and out of sleep when I hear moaning. Not the good kind, either. The kind of moaning that comes from your gut. It’s a sound I know all too well. Not bothering with clothes, I run to her room and throw the door open to find her thrashing on her bed. She’s tangled in the sheets and if she doesn’t stop, she’s going to hurt herself. With one light on, I turn on another so she doesn’t come to, staring at my ugly face. I approach the bed, wondering how to wake her.

Some part of me knows that she and I are going to have all of our firsts together, if I don’t manage to fuck it up. I know I can do this, and despite Rafe’s advice, I know Venessa suffers from a lot of trauma. I can’t just dive in; I have to proceed with caution. She lets me touch her, so that’s my first advantage. Trying to wake her without getting my ass kicked might take some doing, though. It's breaking my heart to see her like this. We’re vulnerable in our sleep, and so she wouldn’t like me seeing her like this. Looking around her room, I notice it’s soundproofed. I can see why. I approach the bed, ready to wake her, when I hear her whimpers. Had I not had the audio in her phone, with the way this room is blocked from sound, I wouldn’t have known she was suffering and that pisses me off.

Nightmares have never really plagued me, but they torture her. Watching her thrash and whimper was hard enough, but when she bowed up, that’s when the screaming started. Loudest fucking screaming I’ve ever heard. Seconds? Minutes? I don’t know, but I just stood there hoping it would stop, but it didn’t. Having no idea what’s causing her to scream, I try not to cover my ears or punch a god damned wall, it’s that painful to listen to. Being a cop, I’m trained to handle just about anything, but this ain’t just anything. This is fucking horrific.

I’m man enough to admit this scene playing out laid me low. So much pain. How does she hold it all? I may have been tossed to the wolves by my drugged out parents, but no one ever caused me hurt like this. Not being loved is one thing, but being tortured and abused is another. She knows what being loved felt like. I imagine having it, then losing it, is its own nightmare. She grieves for her family. I don’t remember a time with a family so I can’t comprehend it, but this woman was loved once, and if you look at her you can see it.

Racking my brain for a strategy isn’t working. How do I approach this? If I touch her and she gets worse, I’ll fucking hate myself, but I can’t just leave her like this, either. In the station we connected, tonight at the club when I rubbed her shoulders she relaxed, yesterday when she attacked me, we connected then, too. For whatever reason, my touch calms her, so I cross my fingers and hope I’m making the right call. Starting slow, I sit beside her on her bed, moving her hair from her face with the back of my hand. She’s sweating and tangled in her bedding. I can’t resist rubbing her arms. She seems to like that, and so that’s what I do. She isn’t talking in her sleep anymore, but she’s restless. Again, I touch her face with the back of my hand, so my calluses don’t scratch her skin, and I swear she leaned into me. I move my hands to her shoulders and ask her to wake up. The need to look in her eyes to connect is a strong one. I tell her over and over to come back to me and just as she settles, and starts to drift again. Minutes later, she opens her eyes and looks directly up at me.

“You’re back,” I breathe. She just looks at me. “Tell me about it.”

“Nightmare,” she says, then bites her lip. “Did I hurt you?” she asks timidly.

“No, you didn’t. Will you be able to sleep?” I ask, but she doesn’t speak, just shakes her head , and I know what it feels like to have that adrenaline running through your veins. Falling asleep is impossible. “Is it okay that I’m touching you?” 

She nods , and then surprises me when she asks if she can touch me back. I nod, because there isn’t anything I’d like more. So she reaches up with both hands, and touches my hideous face and thick beard. Though I feel the urge to turn away, I don’t. I can’t hide from her. She goes ramrod straight and sits up, still holding my face.

“Oh, my god, your neck,” she gasps, and she’s so distressed, it’s freaking me out. No one has ever cared about my wellbeing before.

“It’s no big deal,” I reassure her, and it isn’t. Shit happens. Don’t approach a woman with touch issues. Duly noted.

“How can you say that? Look what I did to you! Let me see,” she exclaims, tilting my neck from side to side, and running her tiny fingers over both sides of my neck. “Does it hurt?” 

“No,” I croak out.

“You look like you’re in pain when I touch you, I am so—“

“I’ll only be in pain if you stop,” I blurt out. She cocks her head to the side, which I’ve come to notice is her inquisitive side.

“Will you rub my arms again, if I keep touching you?” she asks, and so I do.

We sit there for a time when I see she’s getting drowsy again. I feel like a fucking king for helping her feel relaxed enough to sleep. After a bit, I move to her shoulders and then around to her back. I think she purrs, but I can’t be sure. Her back and sides have a lot of scars, and one scar runs from underneath her right arm down to her hip. There are broken wings tattooed up across both shoulder blades. For someone who doesn’t like touch, I’m amazed she sat through it. These things are all beautiful to me. She is beautiful to me, I think to myself. My survivor. I trace her scars with my fingers, and then touch the ink when it hits me. She is butt ass naked. I’m alone with the most beautiful woman ever created and she’s full on nude.

“They bother you, don’t they?” she asks, and when I remain mute she asks again. “My scars, they bother you, yeah?”

Struggling with words, I tell her the truth. “Your scars are beautiful. You’re fucking beautiful,” I whisper. She sighs. “Venessa, you’re naked,” I say, pointing out the obvious, but she continues to stare at me like I’m speaking another language.

“Oh, shit, sorry. Am I freaking you out? I was hoping you could just lay next to me for a bit? Maybe forget I’m not dressed?” she asks, out of left field. I don’t respond. I just lay down so we’re face to face.

“Can I tell you something?” she asks.

“Anything.”

“Before, you know… I’m sure you’ve read my file. Anyway. I was a really affectionate kid, yeah? It drove my dad nuts how touchy I was. Since that night, I can’t stand being touched much. Until I met you. Now, I realize how much I’ve missed it. I still don’t want other people touching me. But you can if you want to, just as long as you don’t surprise me. I’ll be okay, I think. It’s been ten years since I lost everything, then I saw you. I feel like I’ve known you forever, and I feel like I’ve lost so much time. I’m not afraid, not of you. I don’t know you yet, but I want to know everything. It’s the thought of
not
knowing you that scares me,” she says quietly, and I’m shocked. Shocked that she’s opened up to me like this. I think it may be because she’s still drowsy, but I’m a greedy bastard so I’ll take it.

“Not sure I’ll do it right. If I don’t, you say so. No other female I’ve wanted to touch ‘til you, either,” I say.

“I have nothing to base it on, so I can’t promise I won’t flip, but I know I want you to, and that’s a start, yeah? Figure it out together?”

“Why would you want me touching you?” I ask, and I still wonder if she has eye issues. “That Gallo guy wants you, it ain’t no secret, he’s a good looking guy – rich, too.”

She gets quiet and I want to stab myself for bringing that dick into this conversation, but she has to see why I’d be concerned about this. When she looks up at me, I’m dying to know what she’s thinking.

 “Up until a couple of days ago he was a friend. I don’t know where the sudden interest came from, but I’m not feeling it on my end. And money? I have my own. I won’t allow him touch privileges, ever. Just you. Yeah? Unless you don’t want to?”

“Have you looked at me?”

“Yes,” she says. “Often, actually.”

“How can you look at me and want me to touch you? How can you stand touching me?” 

“You won’t believe me.”

“Try me.”

“I think you’re beautiful,” is not the answer I was expecting. I want to laugh in her face, but she looks sincere and I just don’t know what to do about it.

“Fuck.”

“Rogan, I’m not normal. Money, looks, that shit means nothing to me, it’s superficial. You’re beautiful to
me
. I feel safe with you. Since I’ve never noticed a guy before, I don’t know what else to say except that to me, you’re perfect. I don’t know about what other women find attractive, but for me, it’s you,” she says simply.

“Fuck normal,” I say. “It’s overrated, anyway.”

She sighs, but it’s a sad one. “You say that now, but I’ve never done anything with a guy, not even kissing. I just don’t want you to be disappointed when I mess this up, because I will. That’s where this is going, right? I want that from you. I have no experience, but if you could teach me, I could learn,” she says.

“I ah, I-I ain’t never been with no one,” I struggle to say. With any other female, I think I’d be embarrassed, but with her, I’m not.

“Kissing?” she asks, and I shake my head.

“Touching?” I shake my head again.

“Blow job?”

“What? No! Jesus! Nothing, alright? No female is crazy enough to get near me, except you,” I practically growl

“So we’re both...yeah okay. You’re the first person to ever come in my room, even Macy hasn’t,” she says with a small smile

“Good.”

“Can I try something?” she asks tentatively.

“Yeah,” I wheeze.

She brings both hands up to the sides of my face and looks in my eyes. Leaning in, her lips touch mine, and it’s so intense that if there had been a woman before her, I’d have forgotten her instantly. We both keep our eyes open. She pushes her lips harder against mine, causing me to straight up moan. I feel that shit in my balls. We try rotating our heads but decide we like it where we are. She stops, leaning back to look at me. I want to roar at the loss of her mouth. She continues to touch my face and stroke my beard. I notice that she’s not bothered by my lack of looks. If she likes them, then who am I to argue?

“I’ve wanted to do that since I saw you in the Cap’s office,” she says. “Can I try something else?”

“Fuck yeah,” I growl. I’m 100% down with being her playground.

She runs both hands from my face, through my chest hair, and the air rushes from my lungs. I keep my eyes open because it’s instinct. She leans forward and kisses my jaw as her hands go lower now…onto my stomach and sides. I’m so hard that it hurts. Do I touch her back? I decide that I like her hair, and it seems a safe place to start. I want to run my hands through it, so I do, and she closes her eyes and lets out a tiny moan. So I take that as a green light to touch her neck. She pauses, and I worry I went too far. Shit, if she says stop, I don’t know if I can.

“Rogan?”

Fighting for air, I groan, “Yeah?”

“Can I touch you more?”

“You can do whatever you want.”

“Will you kiss me again?”

So I do, and it seems to go alright. Having the light on helps. Her lips are soft and warm as I cover her tiny face with my large hands. I get the urge to try using my tongue, so when our mouths open, we take the time to find our rhythm. And even though we’re sloppy, we don’t care because it’s us, and it works. I move my hands to around her sides and pull her closer to me. I can’t get close enough, and she seems to be having the same problem.

She puts her leg over my hip, pulling me closer to her. Taking the hint, I hold her tighter. She seems to like my beard a lot; she’s constantly running her fingers through it or pulling it. Not gonna lie, every time she tugs it, I feel it down deep. This is the first female to ever touch me, and it seems like she can’t stop, either, which is good, because removing my tongue from her mouth is not an option. Her tits are pressed up tight to my chest, with her legs gripping my body while her hands explore me. Being touched like this has my skin on fire, but I don’t know how to put the fire out. I don’t think I want to.

Our mouths get more demanding and then, from out of nowhere, she runs her hands down my stomach to my boxers and reaches in. I hold on to tighter, urging her on. My moans make her moan and I want to touch her deep, too, but her hands feel too good and I can’t move. I’m sweating, and the fire is burning brighter. I don’t care that neither of us has experience, because this is fucking perfect.

“You’re so warm and hard,” she purrs.

“Fuck.” I groan when reality crashes in on me. “You gotta stop.”

She breaks away from me like I’m a disease, but then I see the hurt on her face, and instantly I feel like a dick. Do I want her to stop? Fuck no. But I don’t know what to do to make this good for her, and coming in her tiny hand isn’t how I envisioned this.

“Venessa, look at me.” She looks up, then away, so with my hands I bring her face back to mine. “Never wanted anything more. Just want you to be sure this is what
you
want.”