Hurt So Good: A Break So Soft Novel Read online

  Deep and long and hard, I empty myself into her.

  She squeezes tighter, tighter, milking me of every last drop, a high-pitched gasping wail escaping out her lips.

  Fuck but she’s cumming, too.

  She really did want it.

  I drag my cock out and then shove back in, rougher than I have yet, positively jackhammering into her and shoving her pelvis painfully against the hood of the Corvette.

  So good. It’s so good. So fuckin’ good and I haven’t had it in so long. My fantasies can’t even compare—

  Her nails scrabble against my arm where I hold her wrists and she shuts her eyes, pressing her forehead into the hood as her ass jerks and grinds against me. More pleasured whines escape her mouth. Jesus Christ, is she still cumming?

  My cock jerks inside her, still hard even after I’ve cum.

  She’s fucking magnificent.

  She frowns and I can see she’s finally coming down and I shake my head because fuck that.

  My cock still impaling her, I drop her wrists and reach around to her clit. I pinch it cruelly at the same time I spit on my forefinger.

  I reach down and then ruthlessly shove it up her ass.

  Her eyes shoot open and her mouth drops into a wide O. But a second later her face is transformed again as she’s lost in another wave of pleasure.

  Oh fuck. Oh fuck yeah, that’s right.

  I pinch harder and shove another finger up her ass. I’m not gentle about it, either.

  “You like that,” I growl. I drag my hips back and forth slowly, my cock still stiff in her cunt. “You like it when I fucking defile you.”

  I shove a third finger in her ass. Fucking invading her. A stranger finger fucking her ass, almost dry. It’s gotta hurt. It’s gotta hurt a lot.

  When I look at her face, I’m not disappointed. There are more tears. Pain amidst her pleasured whimpers.

  She’s hurting. You’re hurting her.

  The horror hits. What the fuck am I doing?

  But then her back arches. She thrashes against the car hood and it’s not in pain. Or maybe it is, partially. But by the look on her face, it’s more pleasure than pain.

  I shove my fingers ruthlessly farther up her ass. Pull them out. Shove them back up again even harder.

  Her forehead scrunches with the pain. But she thrusts her ass back against my hand.

  And I start fucking her again. With both my cock and my fingers.

  Mercilessly.

  Pulling out.

  Then hammering back in.

  Out.

  Jackknifing in again.

  The car bounces on its shocks with my every thrust and Miranda lets out small grunts each time.

  I pull my fingers out of her ass and move my hand up her body.

  To her throat.

  I curve my hand around her neck, thumb at her pulse point. Her heartbeat is thrumming like a frightened rabbit’s as I continue to fuck her.

  I fuck her and fuck her and fuck her.

  How long has it been since I last came? Five minutes? Ten?

  I squeeze my fingers around her throat and her breath hitches. I test the pressure and her rasping gasp makes pleasure spike down my spine.

  She can still breathe, but barely.

  I lean over her back and growl in her ear. “I could end it so easily. If I squeezed just a little harder. Is this how you like to play? You want the pain? You like the fucking danger of meeting strangers on rooftops where no one will hear you scream?”

  She nods into my grip.

  Fucking nods.

  It infuriates me so much that I lose my fucking mind and squeeze harder for a couple of seconds just to teach her a damn lesson.

  She needs to be scared fucking straight.

  Almost the second my grip tightens, though, she comes. Fucking comes. Again.

  “You stupid fucking idiot,” I hiss in her ear, loosening my grip on her throat and moving my hand to cover her mouth.

  I’m disgusted with myself the second I do it. But it also feels so fucking right. She can’t scream now. I grip my hand over her mouth even harder, pulling her head back against my chest as I ram my dick into her cunt.

  My fingers offer just enough clearance of her nose so she can breathe. The thought is a distant comfort.

  It doesn’t change the brutal scene.

  Or how much I’m fucking getting off on it.

  Because being back inside a slick cunt, having my hands on a woman again, like this, after so long, so many years without—Jesus Christ.

  Her silky, dark hair is up in an elegant updo and I lean down and bite the back of her neck, roaring as I come again. Harder than the first time. So much harder.

  My teeth sink into her sweet, soft flesh as the last of my cum pumps into her cunt that’s squeezed like a vice around my cock.

  She cries out against my hand and I roar into the nape of her neck in animal satisfaction.

  And then—

  Then…

  I’m left heaving over her back, my mouth slack against her neck.

  I blink and it’s like coming back from a bout of insanity.

  I pull my hand away from her mouth and jerk away from her, my cock finally slipping out of her.

  I stumble backwards and my mouth drops open in horror at the scene before me.

  Miranda is splayed face down on the hood of her car, legs awkwardly spread as cum drips down her leg and fuck—

  I can see the bite mark on the back of her neck from five feet away. Did I draw blood?

  She’s blinking too and turning to look at me. Her face is a mess of mascara and tears. She looks fucking battered and broken.

  By me.

  Another voice rings out in my head. Not my father this time, but another monster even more insidious. If you do it right, you can break them and they’ll still beg you for more. That’s when you’ll know you’re a god.

  “I’m sorry,” I rasp, roughly jerking my pants up and shoving my dick back inside. “I’m so sorry.”

  She starts to shake her head but I hold up my hands and then I turn and fucking sprint toward the door.

  Chapter Four

  MIRANDA

  I’m still shaken the next morning as I sit in my office and check my lipstick in the small compact I keep in my desk. Cherry ripe red. My signature color. At least it has been for the last few years.

  Back in college, I wore a shade called Pale Iris. It might as well have been called Insignificant Iris. Invisible Iris.

  I wanted so badly to stand out back then. To be somebody. And when, right out of college, the budding mega-star in the business world, Bryce Gentry took notice of me, meager Miranda, minor Miranda, miniscule Miranda, it felt like the light of the universe was finally shining on me.

  Like maybe finally, after a lifetime on the sidelines, I could be the star of someone’s show. Maybe even my own.

  And look how well that went. Maybe that was what you got when you relied on someone else to find you.

  I got swallowed up in him instead.

  And he was the worst kind of man, the kind who will devour you whole instead of giving you the strength to stand on your own two feet beside him.

  And Dylan?

  What kind of man is he?

  I check the rest of my face in the small mirror. I was in a rush this morning because I overslept my alarm after tossing and turning all night. After two back to back meetings, it’s the first time all morning I’ve had a second to myself.

  In the mirror, my blue eyes look too large and cartoonish in my face. At least the circles under them from my restless night are only slightly visible after working my magic with concealer.

  I snap the compact shut and run my hand from my temple down to my throat, brushing my fingers across the skin where Dylan’s hand gripped me so roughly last night.

  I once read an article that said you can tell everything about a man by the way he fucks. And I wonder if, after last night, maybe it’s true.

  I shudder again as I
close my eyes and relive every moment. I bite my lip as I recall the feel of his huge cock breeching me. The merciless way he thrust into me.

  But then his hand was on my clit, making sure I was right there with him. Occasionally I felt him pause like he was checking in on me before continuing.

  Or is that just wishful thinking?

  After all, how many years have I been searching for the perfect man? Someone who will be a bastard to me in the bedroom—or on the hood of my car—but could be a gentleman the rest of the time?

  Of course I don’t know if Dylan Lennox is a gentleman the rest of the time. But I’ve read up on him. He and his brother Darren are the entrepreneurial duo who came on the robotics scene six years ago with a vengeance, taking up an impressive market share almost from the get-go.

  Dylan’s never seen with women in public. Some speculate it’s because he’s still in the closet but I know the real reason.

  It’s because of Bryce Gentry.

  The mutual skeleton in both our closets.

  When Bryce finally went to jail for his crimes two years ago after the man he was blackmailing, Jackson Vale, caught him trying to commit corporate espionage, all the dirt Bryce had on Jackson and everyone else in his blackmail files went public.

  Including a story on Dylan Lennox that was a small blip in the flood of the Gentry Files, as they came to be known. A story about Dylan brutalizing a prostitute.

  It was there and then gone the next day. Disappeared.

  I made it my personal mission to follow every story that Jackson released. Because though the story might have disappeared, Jackson was my ex and we were still friendly. I contacted him and he gave me a copy of the files directly.

  There were pictures of Dylan and the prostitute. Him holding her down, hands around her throat. Her crying and trying to shove him away from her. They were the kind of pictures that would have made any other woman shrink away and avoid Dylan completely.

  But both Jackson and I were willing to suspend judgement a little longer. We both know that Bryce liked to create circumstances and then take pictures as ‘proof’ of a salacious story, or even a crime, to get dirt on a competitor or enemy. Then use it as leverage against them to blackmail them, whether or not it was true.

  I now know it’s how Bryce’s company Gentry Tech rose in prestige so quickly. Every permit he needed, he was granted. Funding he requested magically went through. Contracts were won amid stiff and more experienced competition. He got patents before anyone else.

  But it was a house of cards that Jackson brought tumbling down. Bryce bribed judges, government officials, contractors, employees from other companies to get confidential product information to reverse engineer and delay their patents so Bryce could get the patents first.

  Bryce tried to take as many people down with him as he could. Hence the story on Dylan. But why had it disappeared so quickly? Jackson didn’t know why.

  So I tracked down the prostitute, Lenore Richards—who was no longer a prostitute, but living in a two bedroom in south San Jose with her two children—and asked her.

  And got a door slammed in my face.

  But I persisted. At the time, I wasn’t even sure why. I just had to know. What kind of man was Dylan Lennox?

  Was he the kind of man who hurt women against their will?

  … or with their permission?

  It’s a difference that wouldn’t matter to a lot of women. But to me? To me it meant everything.

  So I staked out her house like a crazy person. Every time she left, at least when she wasn’t with her children, I followed her to her car, peppering her with questions.

  “Look, lady, I could call the cops on you,” she exploded on the second day. “I got rights. Reporters can’t just be showing up at my house—”

  “I’m not a reporter! I told you I’m not. I just need to know. Did Dylan rape you that night? Please. I’m only asking for myself. As a woman.”

  Lenore breathed out and looked around us. She lived in the bottom level of a townhouse and the small cul-de-sac was quiet.

  “Look, I don’t want no trouble. I ain’t said nothing to nobody just like I promised in the paperwork.”

  Paperwork. So she was paid to stay quiet. Did that mean Dylan was guilty of what they said he was?

  I held up my hands. “I won’t make trouble. I just need to know. For myself.”

  She frowned. “You know him or somethin’?”

  I nodded even though it wasn’t exactly true. “We’ve run into each other here and there.”

  She hefted out a long breath. “Naw, he didn’t rape me. Paid me extra for all that kinky shit is all. But you didn’t hear nothing from me.”

  Then she backed away from me. “You leavin’ now?”

  “But if he didn’t…. then why didn’t you just say so? Why would he pay for you not to clear his name?”

  “You said you’d go if I answered your question.”

  She looked pissed so I backed up just like she did, nodding vigorously. “You’ll never see me again.”

  She narrowed her eyes at me but I was already halfway back to my car. I had what I’d come for.

  Regardless of the reason for the payoff, I believed her. Dylan Lennox wasn’t a rapist.

  But he did like the game.

  Just like me.

  I check my reflection one last time in the mirror, flashing a smile.

  Packaged perfection.

  My smile drops. Outwardly perfect, anyway. I can only keep up the illusion for so long. And being this person, the Miranda in the Mirror, means I can never be truly intimate with anyone.

  I just want someone I don’t have to pretend with.

  So no matter how much last night might have scared him or freaked him out, I’ve been excited by the possibility of him for far too long to let this go without another try.

  I look at my calendar for the day.

  Yep, I can afford to take an early lunch.

  I’m just pulling my purse out from under my desk when there’s a knock on my door. Then Chet pushes the door open without waiting for my reply, naturally.

  “Miranda,” he says, his smile wide, bright white teeth flashing. “You look lovely today.”

  “I’m just on my way out, Chet. What is it?” I swing my purse over my shoulder to illustrate my point.

  Chet steps further into the room and lets the door shut behind him. “Can’t I stop in to see how you’re doing?”

  I sigh, looking down at my phone.

  “Chet, we aren’t dating anymore. If you have something to say about something work related, you don’t have to come by, you can just—”

  “I just don’t understand it, Rany,” he says, coming in and sitting down in one of the chairs in front of my desk. Ugh, I always hated that nickname. “We were so good together. Everyone looked at us and thought we were that perfect it couple. We had the kind of relationship everyone dreams of having.”

  I can only stare at him, my mouth slightly ajar. Is that what he really thought?

  Fine. Apparently we’re having this conversation here and now. I broke up with him two weeks ago and he’s been calling and texting every day since. At least I assume he continued to. I blocked his number on day four because I didn’t want to deal with it anymore.

  I sigh and look at him now. “Didn’t you think it was strange how I always wore my makeup all the time when we were together? Or odd that I never wanted you to sleep over?”

  Chet frowns. “I guess. But girls get weird about how they look or whatever. And you have insomnia and can’t sleep with someone else in your bed. I respected that. And I lov—”

  “No, Chet, you don’t.” I shake my head. “I was never myself when I was with you, don’t you get it? You don’t even know the real me.”

  No one does. Because I don’t let them in. I’m so careful with the Miranda in the Mirror. Maybe Chet fell in love with her. But she’s a fantasy.

  “I was tired of pretending,” I say, coming around the desk.
For a while, when I first started dating Chet six months ago, I thought that maybe, if I tried hard enough, just maybe, I could be her. That pretty, normal woman. Maybe if I worked hard enough, I could get it to stick. If I had the right man, the right job, the right clothes…

  But then we’d have sex, and no matter how Chet tried, he couldn’t make me cum. He was too much of a gentleman in bed. Or, more likely, too much of a wimp. I asked him to spank me a couple of times and he half-heartedly smacked my bottom. Eventually I gave up and just pretended to cum every time because it was easier and made Chet happy.

  I ended it after I woke up in a cold sweat after another nightmare. I was back in Bryce’s apartment and he was humiliating me and hurting me. I woke up sobbing. And then I touched myself and came almost immediately after a months-long dry spell.

  I broke up with Chet the next day and went to see that woman Lenore the day after that.

  “I’m sorry. I wasn’t fair to you and I’m sorry.”

  Chet stands and walks to the door, not looking at me. He’s hurt and obviously trying to hide it. “Rod wanted me to ask you if you made any headway with Lennox last night.”

  “What?” I ask, too sharply. What do they know about what happened with me and Dylan last night?

  Chet looks my way, frowning at my overreaction.

  “He asked you to talk to him at the conference, right? To see if he’d give up any information on if they were considering ProDynamics’ bid? On our processors?”

  “Oh, right.” My heartbeat slows a bit. “No. I didn’t get a chance to talk to him.” It was true. We hadn’t done much talking. Our encounter had been more of a… physical nature.

  “Dammit, you know we need that contract, Miranda. Why didn’t you try harder? God knows you don’t have a problem using your… attributes,” he looks right at my chest, “when you really want something.”

  And here’s the other reason why I broke up with Chet. Because sometimes he can be a misogynistic asshole, which, if I’m honest, was part of my attraction to him. Cause I’m fucked up like that. He just couldn’t keep it up in bed, which is the only place I really need or want it.

  “Don’t let the door hit your ass on the way out, Chet. I’m taking an early lunch.” I brush past him.