Page 76 of Intrepid

The door clicked open onto a dark and mostly empty room.

I stepped inside, struck by the cold air that nearly stole my breath. Moonlight shone in on the small apartment, where only a mattress lay on the floor, the wrinkled sheets strewn atop of it. A chair set off to the side held a hard hat and a pair of jeans draped across the arm. To the right, a door sat opened, onto what I assumed was a small bathroom.

A crunch beneath my shoe pulled my attention to the floor, where small glistening specks of glass lay scattered about a smashed bottle of whiskey.

“This is where you live.” I turned to see him leaning against the doorframe with his arms crossed.

He pushed off, stepped past me, into the room, and spun around to face me, arms outstretched. “Home sweet home.”

The place stood nearly vacant and dark, nothing but a cold, hollow room where he slept.

“It looks temporary.”

“It is temporary. Everything is temporary, Sera. Homes. Life. Love. What’s the point of getting attached to anything, if it all ends the same?”

“Because that’s the beauty of life. It doesn’t all end the same. And even if it’s all temporary, it’s worth it.” I thought about the short time with my mother, how I wouldn’t have traded a second of it for anything else in the world. “Love is always worth it.”

“The pain is worth it to you? The struggle to wake up every morning and breathe, after you lost everything that ever mattered to you. That’s worth it?”

A shield of tears blurred him to an indistinct figure. “Every second.”

“So, if I fucked you tonight and walked away tomorrow. Would I be worth it? Would that be worth it to you?”

“Yes.”

His lip curled, as if my response had repulsed him, and for one brief moment, I felt like a whore for my honesty.

In the next breath, he strode toward me, scooping me up into his arms. I let my bag fall to the floor, as he carried me across the room to his bed. The repugnance from before still clung to his face, the veins in his neck pulsing an angry beat as his jaw ticced.

The soft mattress caught my fall, as he threw me down and unbuttoned his shirt. What little I could see in the gap showed a slim but athletic build. Not too bulky, but tight and carved with solid muscle. “We’ll see, Sera. I’ll make you regret every minute you ever spent with me.”

As he tore away my shoes and yanked my pants down, I wondered for a moment, if I should stop him. If I could stop him. Would he rape me? Hurt me? The unknowns swirled in my head, while I remained silent, allowing him rip away the outer layers from my body, tossing them to the floor, until I lay completely bare in front of him.

Exposed.

His brows tightly knitted to a frown, Ty fell to his knees, the thud of his weight hitting the floor startling my muscles.

I waited for it. The harsh slap. His rough hands. I waited to be torn apart by him. I craved it, even.

My heart thrummed with excitement and fear at the same time. In the seconds that passed, I accepted the shredded mess I’d be afterward, because I’d meant what I’d said—I’d rather have one moment with him than not at all. Even if it wasn’t beautiful and perfect. I’d take the ugly and messy just to feel it. To feel everything.

Lifting my head from the bed, I stared down at where he remained knelt at the foot of the bed, head bowed, as if in prayer. “Ty?”

“I didn’t think you’d be so fucking perfect. Christ, I don’t even want to touch you right now.”

“Why?”

Eyes brimming with conflict and torment, he shook his head. “My hands are dirty. Too dirty for you.” Rubbing his hands together, he looked up at me, and the shame in his eyes reminded me of a sad little boy. Perhaps a glimpse of the real Ty under all that hard steel he wore. “These hands have hurt others.”

I sat up on the bed and slid to the edge. I’d dealt with sadists, rough men, and though I’d classify myself more of an emotional than physical masochist, I didn’t fear the things in which some found pleasure. Gripping his nape, I tugged him into me, tipping my head to guide his eyes to mine. “I want you to touch me. You won’t hurt me, Ty.” Snaking my hands inside his shirt, I slid the garment off his shoulders, and frowned at the white marks that pocked his skin, the scars across his body.

His throat bobbed with a swallow, as I examined the destruction scattered over his skin. “Now you see the real me.”

“How did you get these scars?” I hated the question, the same one I’d been asked for so many years, but it was different with Ty. The sight of his mutilation pissed me off, that someone in his life had hurt him that way. Surely not his father.

“Lot of ‘em I did myself.”

My heart burned with an ache, as my eyes scanned over his skin. The circles that looked as if they’d been put there with a cigarette. Cuts and small pinpricks like stabs. “Why would you do this?” I tried not to let the sorrow touch my voice. As if it were my skin he’d scarred.