Blade (RBMC: Dallas, TX #4)

Chapter Seventeen

“ AnotherLife:MotionPictureCollection”—MotionlessInWhite(feat.Kerli)

N ever in a million years would I have done something to intentionally inflict pain upon another human. I wasn’t a cruel person. Yet in the time that I’d been held captive, I’d been conditioned to obey, and I had instinctively complied with Blade’s demands.

Tears coursed down my cheeks. They dripped off my chin. They ran down my neck, wetting my shirt. With each swing of the soft and worn black leather, I saw a face. With that face, I saw the things they did to me. Anger surged within and I lost myself in my painful rage.

Red obscured my vision as something snapped inside me, and I swung over and over.

But suddenly, I stopped, and my hand fell to my side. I blinked away the haze and dropped the whip to the floor. I trembled from head to toe.

“What have I done?” I whispered as I stared at the beautiful, tattooed man that fought to remain on his feet. His blond head hung forward and I experienced both shame and overwhelming freedom which made no sense to me. My chest felt lighter than it had in months.

Lighter than it had after years of therapy.

Angry marks crisscrossed his back over the mess of scars. Some were raised, others simply flaming deep pink. My chin trembled as I approached. When I gently placed a cool hand on his hot back, he flinched and so did I.

Slowly, he lifted his head and turned to look at me. His eyes resembled chips of arctic ice.

“I’m sorry,” I murmured as I traced the mess I’d made. He tried to hide it, but he couldn’t help the twitch of his skin at my touch. It hurt my heart.

“Stop apologizing, baby. I deserved it and you needed it,” he replied through clenched teeth.

My hands trembled as I ripped the Velcro loose from his ankles, then from his hands. He sagged forward and caught himself on the footboard. I helped him to the floor where he knelt with his head resting on the footboard.

Deserved that? There was no way.

As I stood there, I hesitated. I didn’t know what to do for him. Cautiously, I reached for him, but before my fingers could brush his inked skin, I jerked my hand back. The entire experience had left me shaken. Unsure of what he needed, I went to the kitchenette and got ice from the freezer and placed it in a plastic bag. Then I wrapped it in a towel I found when I was searching for the bags.

When I returned to him, he hadn’t moved.

“Blade?”

He lifted his head and the pain in his gaze was nearly my undoing. With halted steps, I approached and got to my knees behind him. Gently, I pressed the ice to his back, but he still hissed.

“I’m so sorry,” I blurted out as tears once again cascaded down my cheeks. Each time I moved the makeshift cold pack, I kissed the cool skin it vacated. I noticed that each time I did, goosebumps spread over his skin.

He sighed. “I’m gonna say this one last time… don’t be sorry. If you knew the things I’ve done, you would know I deserved every second of that and then some. I want you to use me until you feel you’ve exorcised the demons that haunt you. Even if it’s forever.”

I gasped. “Don’t say that!”

“It’s true and I want you to be able to take back your confidence and freedom, Eliska.”

“No, it isn’t true. And I decided I’m going to continue my therapy. I was talking to some of the women about it and Sloane knows someone who will come here to see me. Someone she trusts. I’m certainly not going to inflict pain on you to dispel my own. I hate that my anger and self-loathing allowed me to lose control like that. By hurting you, I’m no better than the people who hurt me,” I explained. A shudder rippled through me at the thought.

His pale blue eyes met my own. “It’s more than that. Pain is the only thing that makes me actually feel something. It shows me that I’m still alive—that I can still feel. That I’m not just a husk of the human I once was because of the things I’ve done.”

I scooted closer and cupped his cheek. The coarse hair of his short beard rasped against my palm when I slid it up to curl around the back of his head. He closed his eyes briefly, but then stared at me without speaking.

“Maybe there are other ways to do that,” I softly suggested as I threaded my fingers through his hair. “Maybe we can heal together. In a way that doesn’t cause someone else, or ourselves more pain.”

He inhaled a shaky breath and slowly released it. He didn’t answer me, but he didn’t say no, either. I took that as a minor win as I pressed a gentle kiss to his lips.

In a move that I wouldn’t have thought him capable of in that moment, he grabbed me, turned to sit, and placed me so I straddled his lap. With my lips against his, I gasped in surprise.

“Did I hurt you?” he whispered as he gripped my braid and gently tugged me away from him.

My gaze immediately dropped. “You just startled me,” I murmured.

“Look at me, Eliska,” he softly encouraged.

I blinked slowly, as I worked up the courage to do as he said. His brilliant gaze seemed to see into all the dark parts of me that I hated.

“You didn’t hurt me,” I whispered. “I hurt you.”

“No, baby. I needed it.”

“We’ll agree to disagree,” I wryly replied, causing him to grin. The effect that smile had on me was profound. My heart stuttered, my cheeks warmed, and something stirred in me that I thought had died.

Love.

It bloomed in my chest and unfurled through every inch of my body. I’d developed a massive crush on this man after arriving in Iowa. Anytime he was in the room, it was like a magnetic pull on me. I wanted to be in his orbit like a moon. He was the only man that hadn’t terrified me for months after my rescue. He was why I chose to stay there instead of going anywhere in the world I wanted.

“When you left Iowa, I was broken hearted. Did you know that?”

He reached his callused hands up and brushed my hair off my face to cup my cheeks. “I did it for your own good.”

My forehead tightened and pinched between my eyebrows. “What?”

“I could feel that the attraction was mutual. Each day that I was around you, it got harder and harder to stay away from you. Venom told me you were off limits, but I didn’t need him to tell me that. I already knew. But that didn’t make it easy to stay away.”

“Then why did you?”

He dropped his head briefly before looking at me again. The pain I saw there was almost tangible. “Eliska, I’m not a good man. I’ve done things that would have you running for the hills if you knew. But worse is that I revel in those things. I shouldn’t like what I do, but I still do. It’s like there is a beast or a demon within me that craves it.”

“D-D-Do you do things like what was done to me?” My breath held, I waited for what he had to say.

“No! Never,” he insisted, and I breathed a sigh of relief. “I mean I have some uh, kinks but it was only with willing partners. I promise.”

Though I nodded, a little green-eyed monster awoke within in my chest. Of course, the man had women before me. I’d be an utter idiot to think otherwise, but that didn’t mean I liked to think about it.

“Will I always be safe with you?” I rested my palms on his bare chest. The warmth of his skin made me want to curl up into him.

His hands pressed tighter as he brushed the tip of his nose to mine. “Always.”

“Will you still be… doing those things… with other women, I mean?” I dropped my gaze to stare at my pale hands where they were in such vivid contrast to the inked designs on his skin.

“No. Now that I’ve had you, I don’t think any other woman could compare.”

I looked up and made eye contact with him.

“Then I don’t care what you do behind closed doors or in the dark of night. Just be mine and we can deal with the rest.”

Disbelief had his mouth falling open as he tried to figure out what to say. “Deal.”

“Now do you have something I can put on your back? That has to be hurting you.”

He blinked and swallowed. “Yeah. There’s some gel in the bathroom cupboard. I’ll go get it.”

I got to my feet. “No, I’ll get it. You lay face down on the bed.”

Where he said it would be, I found some arnica gel. That must be what he was talking about because the only other tube in there was toothpaste. I grabbed it and went back out to the bed.

Though I’d already observed it up close and personal, seeing his back again was a shock and I sucked in a sharp breath.

He lifted his head and met my gaze over his shoulder.

Giving him a smile, I held up the gel. “This one?”

“Yeah, that’s it.” He dropped his cheek back to the bed.

Slowly, I climbed up next to him and sat on my heels. While I unscrewed the cap, I traced the scars with my eyes. I squeezed some of the gel into my palm and set the tube to the side. Gently, I began to smooth it over the raised welts and redness.

He sucked in a gasp, and I froze. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you, it was just cold.”

“Oh. Okay.” After a few moments, I cleared my throat. “What are these from?”

My fingertips trailed over the scars.

He turned his head to put his face in the pillow. At first, I didn’t think he was going to answer. Then he returned to his original position. “I got tied up with the cartel. I made a mistake and I paid for it.”

Tears welled in my eyes, but I blinked them away. I had no idea what to say to that and I decided maybe it was best I not say anything.

When I was done, I set the tube to the side.

He rolled to his side and patted the bed. “Snuggle with me.”

Hearing this big bad tatted biker, who by self-admission did and does scary things, say he wanted to snuggle, made me grin.

“What?”

“Nothing.” I snuggled into his body heat. Though it was hot as Hades outside, it was cold in his cabin.

He wrapped an arm around me, tucking it in between my boobs. Then he kissed the top of my head. I fell asleep with his nose buried in my hair and his even breaths fanning the back of my neck.