Page 4 of Nasty
“I should never have touched you. I know that. It was fucked up, and I had no right. I don’t blame you for hating me. I won’t blame you if you can’t forgive me for it. But I was never using you, Sera. I didn’t fuck you because I considered you sport. You have to believe that.”
“Then why? Why would you bother? You could have any woman you wanted,” she gasped through her labored breath. “You had no reason to screw me, unless you wanted to demean me before you put me down.”
“I fucked you because I care about you!” I roared. “I spent two weeks watching you, every single hour of every single day. When you slept, I slept.Barely. When you ate, I ate.Barely. While you worked, I sat there and I memorized the shape of your face. The way you would stretch at your desk. The way you would constantly tap a pen against your leg whenever you were on the phone. The way you would force a smile at that fat woman who brought you a coffee every morning at eleven. The way your eyes were always so utterly distant and unfocused while you listened to your friends talk. The way you looked so withdrawn and removed from nearly every aspect of your life. I saw how fucking haunted you were. And I saw how absolutely fucking breathtaking you were. How your smile, rare though it was, completely transformed your face. That smile…” I swallowed, trying to rein myself in. It was a fool’s errand, though. There was no marshaling myself now. I’d opened my stupid fucking mouth, and the words just kept on spewing out of it.
“The first time I saw you smile, I forgot how to fucking breathe. You were talking to someone on the street, some guy with a shaved head, and he gave you something. You looked down at whatever he’d placed in your hand, and you laughed. And I…I couldn’t fucking move. It was as if I’d stepped outside of my body and lost complete control over myself. I sat there at the table in a coffee shop across the street from you, and I was filled with this incomprehensible rage. I was furious at that guy with the shaved head. I fucking hated him, because he was on the receiving end of that smile, and not me.
“I’m the boy who fell for you from afar, Sera. I should have done the right thing and walked away. I’ve never had a problem walking away from anything in my whole damn life, but I was weak. I couldnotwalk away fromyou. I don’t know how I thought this was going to all pan out. It was fucking crazy of me to believe anything real could come of this. But there was a moment in that motel room, a moment when you looked at me and I could see that you were attracted to me. I could tell by the way you were watching me drink from that bottle, how blown your pupils were, how restless you were, and I fucking caved. I was going to stay my hand. I was going to get up in the morning and I was going to leave you far, far behind. But the chance to be the guy that made you smile? That made you purr and shake? To make you come undone? Just once? I couldn’t stop myself. And then, your tires were slashed, and you pleaded for my help, and…” I finally moved my hands from my knees, turning them over and splaying my fingers. “Here we are.”
Sera had stopped crying. She was a statue of a woman, sitting on the floor in front of the fire, her eyes wide and round. Her throat worked, as if she was trying to swallow unsuccessfully. “You didn’t know me. You didn’t know anything about me. You barely know me now. How can you say you care about me?”
“Because,” I said, sighing. “I know myself. I know I’ve never been so fucking obliterated by a woman before. I know you and I aresomething, Sera. I don’t know what, or why, but I know it down to the very marrow of my fucking bones. If that’s not good enough for you, I can accept that. I can disappear, and you’d never see me again even if you came looking. But it’s the truth, and I’m willing to put up a goddamn fight to prove it.”
She looked stunned. Fuck,Iwas stunned. I had no business saying this stuff to her, but in the moment, it felt right. It felt honest, and that’s what I wanted to be with her from here on out. I had no idea how to try and pursue a relationship with a woman, especially one who thought I was trying to kill her, but it was what I wanted. Come hell or high water.
Sera wiped her tears away with the back of her hand. “I don’t—”
“Don’t say anything. I don’t want you to. For now, let’s sleep. I’ll take the couch. In the morning, you can tell me where you want to go, and I’ll make it happen. I’m sure you need time to process all of this.”
Her face was a mask of incredulity. Yeah, there probably wasn’t enough time in the world to process this mess. “Iwillstay here tonight. I will try and get some sleep,” she said. “And I will think this whole thing through, Fix. But I want two things from you before I walk into that bedroom.”
“Tell me.”
She narrowed her eyes at me, tilting her head to one side. “I want to know who hired you to kill me.Now. And I want a fucking gun.”
TWO
THE TRUTH
SERA
I waited to see what he’d do. If he gave me both weapons—the truth and the gun—I’d know his story, or at least part of it, was genuine. If he refused, I’d know he was bullshitting me, and I’d have to try and find a way out of here as soon as dawn broke.
Fix didn’t even flinch. He reached back, lifting his shirt, and he pulled a matte black handgun from the waistband of his jeans. He held it out to me with a steady hand. “Do you know how to take the safety off?” he asked, his voice rich, deep, and penetrating.
My hand wasn’t as steady as his as I took the gun, staring down at it. “Yes,” I answered.
“Do it. Show me,” Fix commanded.
I held the gun aloft, releasing the small safety catch by the trigger so he could see what I was doing.
“Good. Now point it at me.”
“What? Why?”
The growl that issued from his throat was frustrated. “You want the gun to protect yourself. From me.So show me how you’d aim it, if you were going to kill me.”
“Don’t be fucking stup—”
He grabbed me by the wrist, jerking out my arm and pulling the weapon forward so that the muzzle was butted up against his chest, directly over his heart. “Like this, Sera,” he snarled. “Keep your arm locked at the elbow. This is a big gun. It has a wicked kick. You need a stable base in order to hit your mark.”
“Felix, let go of me.”
“When you pull the trigger, don’t just jerk at it. You have to breathe out. You have to exhale andsqueeze…”
I couldn’t fucking breathe out. I couldn’t fucking squeeze. I couldn’t do anything as he held his hand over mine, pressing the gun up against his chest. “Is it loaded?”
Slowly, carefully, he nodded. “Helps to keep your gun loaded if you’re planning on using it at some point.”
