closed my eyes and admitted softly, “Embarrassing.”
His hold loosened as he muttered, “What the fuck?”
I took advantage, pulling out of his arms and taking a quick step away, turning to him but not quite meeting his eyes. “I’m sorry. That was…” I shook my head. “I’m sorry. So, so sorry. I shouldn’t have started that.”
“You shouldn’t have started that?”
“No.”
His head tipped to the side and his tone turned nasty. “So golden girl Carissa Teodoro thought she wanted rough trade, got it, and now she’s woken up and realized in gettin’ it, she didn’t want it and more, she’s tainted.”
I blinked and immediately found his eyes. “What?”
He didn’t tell me what.
He bit out, “Fuck this.” To demonstrate this, he threw his hand up between us, his face cold and hard and scary before he went on crudely and seriously offensively, “And fuck you. You wanna leave, fuckin’ leave.”
I stared at him as his words processed through me. All of his words.
When they processed fully, I did not like it one bit.
“Are you…do you think…?” I couldn’t finish because I was struggling to get a lock on what I was feeling.
No, I was struggling to get a lock on the fact I was feeling angrier than I’d ever felt in my life.
“You wanna leave?” He turned to the side and swung an arm toward the door. “Fuckin’ leave.”
“I conked you on the jaw!” I shouted.
This time, Joker blinked.
I dropped my eyes to his side and saw the red welts my nails made. I fought back the wince and looked back to his face.
“I hurt you,” I snapped.
“Caris—”
I leaned into him. “You had to instruct me,” I hissed. “That was embarrassing,” I kept hissing. I leaned back. “I mean, I’ve got a son. I’m hardly a virgin, but I couldn’t cope with all I was feeling and I messed it all up!” I yelled.
He made to move to me but I lifted my hand and he stopped.
“That was supposed to be beautiful. It was supposed to be perfect. You were perfect. You’re flawless. Look at you!” I cried. “You’re like…top-to-toe beauty. Every inch. And I’m…” I slashed a hand down my front, “not.”
“Butterfly—”
“No. Butterfly doesn’t work here, Joker. That was awful. I made it that way. Not for me. For me it was amazing. But for you…in the end, you didn’t kiss me, barely touched me, just did what you had to do to get it over with.”
Suddenly, with those words out of my mouth, making them real, I wanted to cry, and just as suddenly, I wanted more than I ever had in my whole life to have the strength not to do it.
But I knew I was going to do it so I had to get out of there.
And to do that, I needed my T-shirt, my shoes.
I looked to my feet.
I also needed my footies.
I didn’t even notice him taking off my footies.
When did he take off my footies?
He did and I couldn’t dwell.
I had to go.
In order to do that, I bent and snatched my top from the floor and then started tearing through the bedclothes to find my footies.
“Baby,” he called gently.
I found one and balled it in my fist, looking for the other one.
His hand lighted on the skin of my spine just above my jeans.
“Carrie,” he said softly.
“This is…this was…I can’t believe I messed this up,” I whispered, my voice breaking. “It was supposed to be special and I…I…c-conked you on the jaw.”
I got that out (barely) and then I was on my back in the bed with Joker on top of me.
I looked to the side and begged shakily, “Please let me go.”
“Tell you something,” he replied and I pressed my lips together as I dropped my stuff and lifted my hands to the unyielding warmth of his shoulders and pushed (again to no avail, he didn’t budge an inch). “The first time I had you mostly naked, wet and hot in my bed in a way that I was gonna get to bury my cock inside you, the only way that was gonna go down was with me watching the whole fucking thing.”
I froze.
Then my head righted and I stared.
“It gets hot like that, Carrie, shit happens. I don’t give a fuck you nearly bust my jaw with your head, especially when you do it after ripping my tee off and going for me with your mouth.”
My lips parted.
“And, trust me, you can’t scratch too hard. It took me by surprise but I liked