Page 43 of Under Your Scars
He takes another drag of his cigarette and leans back in his chair, one hand still firmly on my thigh, while I’m still presenting to him.
“Touch yourself,” he commands. Slowly, I drag my fingers through my sensitive folds and gather some of the wetness on my fingers, smearing it over my clit and sucking in a sharp breath at the sensation. Christian’s mouth is partially open, his cigarette between his teeth as he uses his large hands to keep my legs widely parted so he can get a perfect view of me. When he blows out smoke, some of it wafts up to my face.
I hate cigarettes, but he makes it look so goddamn sexy that I really don’t care.With the way he fucks me, he can do whatever the hell he wants.
Christian absolutely ruins me two more times before lunch. Once on his desk, leaving an imprint of my asscheeks on the glass, and the second time on the couch.
I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror of his private bathroom, and Idefinitelylook like I’ve been railed multiple times before noon.
Christian is insisting that we go out for lunch. It’s easy for him to suggest when he looks deliciously sexy with that ruffled hair and I look like I just came off a porn set. Despite my protests, Christian laces his fingers with mine and tugs me along with him to the garage. Today, he’s driving a blacked-out G-Wagon.
I wonder how he decides to pick a car every morning. I don’t think I’ve seen him drive the same car twice since I met him.Maybe he uses a spinning wheel of car keys or pulls them out of a hat.
I had forgotten how nice it is to not have to walk everywhere. It’s super mundane, but my feet thank Christian every day for the fact that he drives me most places, and when he can’t, he sends a cab for me. He even sends them for my shifts at the Hellfire Lounge, but I am not going to put myself in the vulnerable position of being trapped in a car with a stranger while wearing a mini skirt. I’d rather take my chances on the street.
I’m sure the Silencer is lurking somewhere anyways, watching me go to and from the Lounge and probably jerking off to the sight of my toes in my heels or some weird shit like that. He seems like the kind of man to have very weird fetishes. That’s probably one of the reasons why he murders so many people. It probably gets him rock solid, and then once he’s worked up, he comes to me hoping I’ll put out for him. He hasn’t left me alone since we met, so that’s got to be the only plausible explanation.
Christian and I are in a secluded corner of a small cafe. He brought us here after I offhandedly mentioned tomato soup and grilled cheese sounded good. He drove around the city for an hour before we found this place, to which the owner, upon seeing Christian Reeves walk into his restaurant, claimed he had the best tomato soup in the world.
Then he proceeded to serve us the most pathetic looking soup I’ve ever seen. It was bland and unremarkable, but we silently giggled to ourselves over it. The owner even asked Christian to take a picture with him, to hang up on his wall. Christian politely agreed even though I could see in his face that he thinks being associated with this man’s tomato soup is going to plummet his stock prices or something.
After we finish lunch we talk for a while, and before I even have a chance to think about what I’m saying, I ask, “What was your mother like?”
I want to know more about Christian, of course, but the second those words fall out of my mouth, the way he looks at me has me wishing I kept my mouth shut. It’s like he'd rather drink acid than answer me. “I’m sorry!” I apologize frantically. “You don’t have to answer that.”
After a moment of painfully avoiding each other’s eyes, Christian’s face softens, and he reaches across the table to take my hand in his. His thumb brushes over mine, but I don’t interpret it as a gesture of comfort for me. It’s for him. I rest my other hand on top of his. I try to give him an apologetic look, but he grins down at our hands.
“You don’t have to be sorry. It’s just…nobody’s ever asked me that before. My mother was…extraordinary. At least to me. I know that my parents’ friends thought she was high-strung and pretentious, but I don’t have any memories of that. To me, she was a loving, doting mother. But I was only six when she died, so my recollection probably isn’t perfect.” He sucks in a breath. “I still remember the way her hair bounced when she walked. She loved that old Hollywood glamor, and I don’t think I ever saw her without red lipstick on. Now that I think about it, that’s probably why it’s my favorite color.”
I feel something crack inside him from across the table, and it occurs to me that if nobody’s ever asked him what his mother was like, he’s also never talked about what it was like to lose her or his father. Christian doesn’t strike me as the kind of person to cry often, but if there was a moment where he would, this would be it. I move from my side of the booth to sit next to him, trying to bring him some comfort with my presence.
Christian wraps his arm around my shoulders and tugs me close. His right hand is clenched into a tight fist on the table, and that’s when I notice the knuckles on his left hand are bruised and freshly scabbed over.
He takes a deep breath before speaking again. “I remember the last thing my mother ever did before she died was kiss me on the forehead. My parents had been fighting for a few days. I don’t know why, but they always seemed so upset. Of course, my six-year-old brain came to the conclusion that they needed a burger, because burgers always made me feel better. Ibeggedthem to take me to this shitty place on the North Side I used to love. We never went out to eat because we always had private chefs to make us whatever we wanted, but I was convinced that it would stop their arguing, even if it was just for one night. We ate, and they even let me get a meal to-go so I could have it the next day too. My mother kissed me on the forehead before we got up from the table, and the moment we stepped outside, a man with a gun confronted my parents and told my dad hedeserved itbefore shooting him.” He takes a shaky breath. “They died because I wanted a fucking burger.”
I take his cheeks in mine and press my forehead to his. “It’s not your fault. You couldn’t have known. You were just a kid.”
“You want to know the first thing I did when I turned eighteen and inherited my dad’s fortune?” I wait in silence, because I know whatever he’s about to say will break my heart for him. “I paid the owner of that restaurant a million dollars to hand me the deed, and then the next day I took a sledgehammer, some gasoline, and a lighter, and I burnt the building down.”
Realization pours into me.
“When we went to the orphanage…there was an out of place slab of concrete in the rose garden. That’s where they died, isn’t it? That’s why you chose to build it there.” Christian looks down, and nods. I sigh apologetically and stroke his cheek with my thumb. “I’m so sorry.”
It’s all I can say to try and comfort him, but I know it will never be enough. I knew the bare-bones version of the story. Everyone in this city does. I had no idea the kind of deep-seated guilt he felt about unknowingly choosing his parents’ deathbed. I can’t imagine the kind of pain he’s kept locked away in his chest all these years. I can tell by the way he talks about it, that I’m probably one of the few people that even know that detail.
His eyes are stuck on the booth opposite of us, with a haunted look on his face. It’s like the ghosts of his parents are sitting there, and he’s begging them to hate him so that he can justify the guilt he’s felt all these years.
So he can justify the scars on his wrists.
“What about your mom?” he asks, looking up. The wetness in his eyes is gone, like it was never there in the first place. “You have a picture of your dad on your office desk, but not your mom. Are you close?”
I give him a weak smile. “Yeah, we’re close. I’m just a daddy’s girl, even though he’s impossible to get along with. Sometimes I think he believes he’s used all his luck in this world by getting my mom to marry him.”
Christian goes back to stroking his thumb across my hand. “What do you mean?”
“My mother met him when he was deep in his depression, and from what she tells me, he was nothing like the man he is now. She says she knows he’s her soulmate because she fell in love with him anyways. Demons and all.”
“Do you believe in soulmates, Elena?”
