Page 35 of Cut Me Down

“Now that, I will take.” I point to the box before grabbing it and we laugh.

“Yeah, sorry, I couldn’t help myself. You are just so irresistible.” I look down to the floor at his compliment. His words feel like ice shooting through my ears, only to melt the further they travel. The only time I’ve heard such compliments was when Cooper wanted me to forgive him for the horrors of the night before. I should feel a sense of déjà vu, but I don’t. Damien’s soothing voice saying it is nothing like that, but I still don’t know how to accept the adoration.

“Well, and to be fair, I kind of jumped you. So, not entirely your fault.” We smile at each other as I painfully swallow the pill.

“So, why can’t you eat? You need more in your system than those terrible looking smoothies you make.” He chuckles as I look back up at him and take a deep breath. Why should I be worried about telling him anything? Who cares if I've only known him for eighteen hours? He’s known me longer and seems to know a lot already. His note about the cathedral walls pierced my heart that morning, and I think that’s when I started to feel this pull to the mysterious admirer.

I should care that this stranger I fucked last night is in my apartment making himself at home, but I don’t. If he wanted to hurt me, he would have. He obviously thinks he knows me already, and call me trauma-bonded, but after what I watched him do last night, and after I jumped him like a kid on a trampoline, I don’t mind sharing this tiny detail with him.

“When I was with Cooper, I developed an eating disorder. Mostly it’s under control now, but the mornings are still tough sometimes.” Looking into his eyes, I see waves of anger and sadness flash across his gaze. Whether it’s anger towards Cooper or me, I'm unsure of. “It’s not like I do it on purpose, it just became my body’s reaction to food to throw it up. That’s why I make the smoothies, I can keep those down majority of the time.” His eyes soften at my confession.

“I saw that.” Saw it? Saw it how? I'm guessing the same way he’s found out everything else. “But your medical files said it was involuntary? I didn’t quite understand that part.” I swallow much harder in response than I expected to, the gulping noise making its way through the kitchen. He had access to my medical information? What else has he gotten into? Court records? Police reports? Credit report? He must know more than I thought. Has he seen the carnage before my tattoos? I whimper at the thought and sip on my water to relieve my dry mouth before my next confession.

“When Cooper would be upset with me, he wouldn’t allow me to leave the apartment we lived in. Sometimes even locking me inside our bedroom. I would just stay in there sometimes even if he didn’t lock it, too afraid to come out, and the next thing I would know it would be two days and I hadn’t eaten or drank anything. Then when he either let me out, or I would get the courage to come out and eat, I obviously was very hungry and would eat too quickly. After about a year of that back and forth my stomach started rejecting food and I started throwing it back up. They classify it as bulimia, but it’s different. It was never intentional.” I see the anger return to his gaze as he sinks into his thoughts. His shoulders tense with him. I’ve never told anyone other than Serena about these details of the abuse I endured. Not even my old therapist or group. His eyes slowly come to life again, the blue in his gaze brightening again the more I stare at him.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t think to…” He pauses, his mind obviously racing. “I should have asked.”

“No, God no, don’t be sorry. This is so sweet, really. I want to try and eat it. It smells phenomenal.” It does, and I am starving. The kind gesture from a man, such a man at that, is just unfamiliar territory that I'm not sure how to tread.

“You don’t have too.” He says as he leans into the bar on his elbows, lightly shaking his head with a sincere look, his eyes running across my features as if he wants to reach out for them like he did last night.

“No, really, I want to. It’s been a long time since I’ve tried toactuallyeat before noon.” He huffs out a slight chuckle, pulls out two forks from my utensil drawer, and hands me one.

“We’ll share it then.” He smiles at me, and I can’t help but grin. Something about his smile abducts any worry from my mind, as if the confession I just spilled only fueled his wanting for me, and that alone scares me. He should be repulsed, and I should be cowering in the corner of the room at the sight of this attractive stranger, but that's not it at all. His grin has me leaning into the cheap laminate bar top, yearning to be closer to him.

“How do you do that?” I ask, practically at a whisper.

“Do what?” He tilts his head and looks at me.

“Make everything okay.” He stares into my eyes, only for a moment, before he shrugs gently at me.

“Natural talent I guess.” His scent suddenly races up my nose, and I find my breath hitching to it. He’s intoxicating, and someone I could easily become addicted to. From his eyes to his hair, his gorgeous body, and delicious smell, it all has me in a whirlwind. How am I ever going to survive this?

I sit back slightly as I take a fork full of eggs, since it seems like the lightest thing besides the sausage, potatoes, and bacon. I moan slightly at the taste, and I'm suddenly embarrassed by the gesture. Heat floods my cheeks as I look away from him. I couldn’t help it though; I’ve never met someone who could season scrambled eggs.

“This is so good.” I don’t normally talk with my mouth full, but the moan and him thrusting his dick in me last night kind of opened that door.

“Yeah?” He seems genuinely surprised by my compliment, and unbothered by my lack of manners, as his eyes light up to the thought of pleasing me.

“Yeah. Now if in ten minutes you have to hold my hair back for me, I don’t want to hear you complain.” We chuckle.

“Am I allowed to pull on it too?” I eye his devilish grin as he looks me over seductively. The thought of his large hands yanking on my scalp sends shivers down my legs, making me close them tighter to conceal my true thoughts.

Hell yes, you can.

“Does my answer matter?”I decide on that reply instead.

“No.” He grins again as I fight back my own, and I take another small bite of the food.

“So, you said we’d talk this morning.” My poor attempt to change the conversation clearly amuses him as he smirks.

“That’s what we've been doing so, yeah.” He chuckles as he takes a bite of bacon. “Ask me anything you want.” I think of the thousand questions running through my head as more flood me from the recent revelations of his words this morning.

“How have you been able to see everything I do?” He raises an eyebrow as if he thought my first question would be different.

“I hacked the security cameras in the hallway and in Cut Me Down. Also, that apartment building beside this one? Across the alley? I stay there. Directly across. I can see everything through the windows. Speaking of you need curtains. You never know who’s lurking in the shadows.” His blue eyes pin mine against a wall with that comment alongside his devil’s grin.

“I will buy curtains later then.” I say back in a snarky tone.

---