Page 45 of Hurts So Good

Not yet, I reminded myself now. Make him work a little harder. Don’t be as easy as a signature on a piece of paper. I elbowed back against him, and, laughing, he finally stepped away.

This wasn’t my first time at a dartboard. Usually when I throw, I connect. Somewhere round the edge, sure, but definitely on the felt. I’m not pathetic by any means, but bull’s-eyes are rare. This time, with his eyes on me, I would have loved to have hit that board dead center. When my dart landed in the wall outside of the ring, I felt my cheeks go scarlet.

The laughing behind me continued.

“You make me nervous,” I said out the side of my mouth. “The way you’re watching me.”

“How am I watching you?”

I turned my head to gaze at him. “Like you want to fuck me.”

As soon as I said the words, I realized I had everything wrong. Because his eyes became an even darker shade of blue, and he pulled in his lower lip, catching it between his sharp teeth. Suddenly, from that look alone, I understood.

You hear about time stopping. You hear about the crowds disappearing, about the world coming to a standstill. But not this evening. The bar was still there. The customers milling around us were still talking. Pool cues clicked. Foam frothed over glass mugs.

And yet there was only him and me.

He held my gaze, as if with his fists instead of his eyes. I could sense the hunger in him, and I realized that I’d become sure-footed, nimble even in my glossy high heels. My smile was the first real one I’d felt that night, one that was natural. In a heartbeat, I was glad for my dress, thin to the point of near-transparency yet no longer feeling flimsy. You had to be bold to wear a dress like this in a dive bar. That’s what I suddenly was. Bold.

“I got that wrong, didn’t I?” I asked, not bothering to lower my voice. His flippancy seemed to have vanished. He didn’t respond. “I’m the one who’s going to fuck you, aren’t I?”

I didn’t wait for his yes. I didn’t need to hear the word. The game was on. I turned away from him, found the proper position, stood my ground, threw the dart. If I hadn’t made the shot, where would we have been? I don’t know. I don’t have to worry about that. The dart flew clear and swift, hitting dead center as if to seal the deal.

Bull’s-eye.

We were out of the bar in fast motion. No words. No need for them. To my place, down the street and up the steps. Three quick flights side by side. He seemed to have grown thinner, sleeker, a black cat at night. Into the apartment in a rush, no time even to put on the fan. The heat seemed to part for us. We were drawn forward, down the hall to my bedroom through the wet, sticky air. I didn’t have to tell him to strip.

How had I missed the signs during all of those flirting conversations? How had I not seen the truth? He didn’t want to fuck me. He didn’t want to be on top. Elijah didn’t want to cuff me to the bed.

I pictured the way he’d looked when I’d said the words aloud. I saw that glint in his eye, the nervous tug of his teeth on his lip. The knowledge changed me, like his hand on my arm had. Positioning me. Giving me the power to do what I wanted.

“On the bed,” I told him once he was naked, my voice sounding so very much like the way he had told me how to throw that dart. “Hands over your head.”

He obeyed without a word while I took in his lean body. The tattoos on his shoulders, twisted colorful images I’d never seen before, ones previously hidden by his ever-changing parade of concert T-shirts. His chest, ribs, hard flat belly. Sterling silver rings adorning both of his nipples. Another vibrant tattoo winding down toward his groin.

I had dressed like a princess, like a present to be unwrapped, when all along he was the one who needed undoing. He was the one who wanted my power. Fuck it all, the boy was stunning. Why hadn’t I known he was sub?

His belt pulled easily from the loops of his jeans. In seconds, his body was held in place, wrist cuffs linked together and then looped through and attached to my bedframe by his own leather belt. I watched him swallow hard. I could hear the sneer still in my head, his voice plucking at me: “You throw like a girl.” Then I gazed at the mirror over my 1940s vanity and saw the way I looked now.

A girl. Yes. I was a girl. But a different kind of girl. The kind of girl who could make Elijah’s dreams come true. The kind of girl who could give a boy some pain if that’s what he needed, if hurt was what made him fly.

Transformations can happen in the strangest places. Don’t fairy tales teach us this when we’re young? Magic is all around us. If you look hard enough. If you say the right words and click your ruby heels three times. If you know how to pull back your arm and release the weapon, the dart flies swift and true every time.

“On your stomach,” I said, and he rolled over without a word of protest. I saw the rest of the tattoos now, the way the art made his bare skin more naked looking. The pale parts so vulnerable, the colors so alive.

He’d lost the game at the bar, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to win.

For six months we’d bantered, each time he’d come into the office. Dropping off packages, a courier with an attitude, never even glancing at the blonde buxom Trish, eyes only on me. I’d grown to look forward to his visits, began dressing better in anticipation of his 4 p.m. arrival. How had I missed the signs?

I found what I needed in my closet, a belt with silver studs, something hard, something fierce. The studs felt cold when I ran my thumb over the raised design. The tremor that worked through me now came from me imagining what this belt would feel like if I were the one tied to the bed. I pressed the leather against his skin, saw him grow still. Felt him waiting. The pressure between us was palpable. I could have traced the electricity in the air with my fingertip.

I looked down at the belt in my hands, imagined that dart in my right, and the feeling of shooting to the bull’s-eye filled me once more. Then I doubled the leather and let the belt slap against his ass. Once. Hard. He sucked in his breath but didn’t say a word. Did I hit like a girl? Was he thinking that? I knew I wasn’t. I was whipping him like a dom. Slashing into his skin with a ferocity that couldn’t be associated with male or female, but with sex in general.

The studs on the belt caught his skin and he groaned, but he didn’t protest. The cool silver metal must have hurt like hell, but his body told me to continue. Again I snapped the leather. Again. His hips beat a silent rhythm against my mattress. He wanted what I had to give. That’s what his looks had told me all this time. I simply hadn’t known this was something I could offer. Hadn’t looked into myself to see what he had seen.

Magic—what one person can do to another.

My panties grew wetter as I worked him. I could breathe in the slippery scent of my own arousal, growing brighter with each line that bloomed on his skin. He sucked in his breath as I pulled back my arm, as I struck him evenly, neatly across his ass.

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