Page 37 of Sorrow

Bracing myself, I wiggle underneath him just enough to signal that I want him to get off of me. I’m surprised when he doesn’t fight me at all. Both of us hiss as he slides out, and his cum drips down my ass as he curses under his breath. “Stay right here.”

I listen. I stay there as he cleans me up like I’m something precious, allowing myself to feel vulnerable for just a little while. Every time we do something, I feel like I understand him more. He wants to break me, but maybe it’s because he likes putting me back together again when we’re done.

Once we’re both dressed and clean, Hayes pulls me in to lay on his chest, his hand mindful of my shoulder as he holds me to him and releases a sated sigh. “Sleep, Hurricane. I’ll give youthe money in the morning.”

The reminder makes me jerk. Holy shit, there’s no way I forgot he was fucking paying me for this.

It’s not real. It was never supposed to be real, it’s never going to be real.

No matter how gentle he gets, I can’t forget that again.

So I sing.

It’s an old song, a quiet one, whispered to the point where my voice cuts out completely every few words — but it’s familiar to me. It’s the song I used to sing the monsters under my bed, but this time, I’m the one in the monster’s bed.

And I’ll sing him to sleep too.

16

Hayes

I wake up feeling like I’ve been out for a week. I don’t know if it was the way she sang to me or how it felt to actually sleep with her in my arms, but whatever it was had me crashing harder than I have in a very long time. She’s still here, too. I can smell her and feel her weight on my chest, making me wonder how well she slept knowing it was me who was offering comfort.

That thought only reminds me how much she hates me. I don’t know why, but it makes me laugh. She hates me yet she’s clinging to me like a baby spider monkey, and I find I don’t even want her to move. How the fuck did we get here?

My laugh seems to wake her — or maybe she was pretending to be asleep, I don’t know — but when she turns her face to lookat me, I move my arm to let her go. “Morning.”

We both ignore the drool spot on my chest as she wipes her mouth and sits up. “Hi.”

I watch her face closely, noting the way her eyes widen and she takes a sharp breath when she sits on her ass and the memories of last night come rushing back. Yeah, that ass is mine, girl. I fucking own it. “Sore?”

I can’t fight the grin that slowly takes over my face, especially when she grimaces.

“Yeah,” she says flatly. “My shoulder hurts.”

“Your shoulder?” Oh, yeah. “Let me see.”

Slowly, I reach out and move her shirt just enough to uncover an almost perfect bite mark. I can see the outline of my teeth, and the dried blood crusted on torn skin only serves to remind me how much she got to me last night.

How much she gets to me every day.

“Is it bad?”

“It’s beautiful.” Leaning in, I inhale the scent of her blood before I pull away. “Might be there forever.”

“Oh. Do you... think he heard?”

The fact that I can’t see her face has me struggling to gauge her feelings on thematter, but I do what I can to put her at ease. “No. If he did, he probably would have knocked or called my phone. I’m pretty sure he conked out the second he laid his head down. What would you say if he did?”

She shrugs, head bowed. “The truth, I guess. That you’re helping me.”

Helping her for some other guy. I hate the fact that it pisses me off because it shouldn’t, but I’d be a fool if I tried to lie to myself about it. There’s a reason I haven’t fucked her tempting little pussy yet, and it has nothing to do with me being patient. I just can’t have her running off to that squeamish little bitch just yet. “Speaking of, I’ll toss in another fifty if you suck me off before we get out of bed. Trust me, men love waking up to a hot mouth wrapped around their cock.”

And maybe I’m just not ready to pretend I hate you yet. It’s your fault for singing me to sleep and making me soft.

I’ll get over it.

“Is it ever the other way around?” she asks, rolling over in between my legs to slide my boxers down. “Do men ever... wake women up like that?”

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