“For the love of fuck, woman, give me a straight answer. Why are you bleeding?” I growled, shifting towards her but stopping short of touching her, my hand opening and closing with the desire to grab her and a sick kind of horror which was entirely aimed at myself if what I was thinking turned out to be true.
“I think it’s normal, isn’t it?” she asked. “For virgins to bleed the first time?”
A stillness fell around the room and I just stared at her as my heart raced and thrashed and tumbled its way through my chest and panic clawed its way deep inside me in a way I’d never known before.
A virgin?
She was a fucking virgin? Was being the operative fucking word.
How the hell could I have done this? What the fuck had I done?
“Jesus,” I breathed, pushing to my feet and backing away from her as I shook my head, my fingers clawing through my hair as I tried to think of a way back from this.
I’d known she was too young for me. I’d fucking known it and I’d said it, but I hadn’t thought for one moment that her innocence had run as deep as this.
“What the fuck have I done?”
I turned from her, unable to bear the way she was looking at me as I swiped a hand down my face and shook my head in disbelief and self-loathing. Ava’s screams finally came crashing back into my skull as every moment of bliss I’d just stolen in that bed turned to a sour taste on my tongue. I’d known I was a damned man long before this girl had ever come into my life. I’d known it and embraced it and accepted every tainted inch of me, but I’d always thought I had some lines. Some few sacred things I’d never done or ruined, but now I had. I’d ruined her. I’d found her in a cage and I’d gone and bought her like a pet to keep me company. I’d brought her to my home and worked to train her in all the worst things I knew without ever once considering the morality of encouraging that behaviour in her. And now this. This.
“Don’t do that,” Brooklyn said behind me, her voice low and full of hurt. “Don’t turn away from me like I’m some mistake you made or some burden to you. Everyone I’ve ever known has always seen me as one of those things or another, Hellfire, but never you. Never before this.”
I spun back to face her, unable to take the hurt in her voice and shaking my head in refusal of it, not allowing her to bring those thoughts and fears into this. “You’re not the mistake, love,” I growled. “I am. I’m the biggest fuckin’ mistake you ever had the misfortune of meeting.”
“You’re not,” she replied, her eyes brimming with unshed tears, and I snapped because her denial was only further proof of the ruin I’d brought on her, of the thing I’d created here and the reality of what I’d taken.
I stared at her for several long seconds then turned away and upended the nightstand, hurling it against the wall and letting a roar escape me as the self-hatred I was feeling made my mind thrash. Fear filled me over what I could bring down on her head just by feeling what I did for her.
The heavy thump of the music still pouring up to us from downstairs had likely covered the worst of that noise, and I was more than inclined to keep testing my luck on that in the aim of banishing some of the furious energy which was pulsing through my body.
“I know it was a first for me, but it was a first for you too,” Brooklyn breathed behind me just as I took a step towards a chair in the corner of the room, having every intention of destroying that too. “And it was beautiful, Hellfire. It was pain and pleasure and all the things in between just like you and me and I wouldn’t take it back. You can’t take it back, it’s done now and there’s no undoing it, and I wouldn’t let you, even if you could.”
I looked over my shoulder at her, my brow dropping further as I saw the pain my reaction was causing her and realising that it was far too late for temper tantrums and pointless regrets now anyway. We were past that point. Long past it. And the bloody stain between her thighs which mixed with the evidence of the pleasure I’d taken in her body said that all too clearly.
She didn’t seem all that young when I looked at her now, a fire in her eyes and the mark of a warrior blazing through her. But it didn’t change the facts.
“Fuck,” I muttered, realising that I was only making this worse. Further ruining something which she never should have wanted me to take in the first place. But there was no refusing what I’d done now. No changing it. And if her words were true then that wasn’t what she wanted either. So what could I do to fix it? Because if I didn’t do something, I was fairly certain I was going to lose my grip on my sanity entirely.
I strode across the room, grabbing my clothes and tugging them back on while her eyes trailed me and those tears continued to threaten to fall. She’d ripped the buttons from my shirt so it remained hanging open but that didn’t matter, nothing mattered now besides fixing this.
I headed into the bathroom which joined onto this room, finding a washcloth and soaking it in warm water before hunting the cupboards for a couple of pain pills.
Brooklyn was still sitting on the bed when I returned and I moved to stand over her, grasping her chin and encouraging her to part her lips so that I could give her the pills.
“Will they make me sleepy?” she asked, her eyes brightening with fear. “I don’t like the ones that make my head foggy.”
“They’re just pain pills, love,” I promised. “I don’t want you hurting for me over this.”
She stared up at me for several long moments then opened her mouth to accept the pills, the trust in that simple action enough to make my racing heart skip a beat as she fought aside her fear of doctors and medication in favour of believing in me.
I wasn’t worthy of that. Not even close to worthy. But I was damn well going to do what I could to fix this fucking mess I’d made.
The moment she swallowed them, I released her, encouraging her up onto her knees and gently cleaning her blood and my cum from between her thighs with the washcloth, my skin prickling at the small wince which fluttered across her features as I tended to her, but she didn’t try to stop me.
“You’re angry,” she said, not a question but an observation.
“Fucking furious,” I agreed and I wasn’t sure if she could tell how hard I was working to contain my rage right now but she didn’t push me further on it, allowing me to finish cleaning her in silence before I drew her upright and off of the bed.
Her eyes met mine as I lifted her dress from the floor and helped her back into it, my fingers drawing goosebumps up her spine as I closed the zipper for her and a harsh breath escaping me as my damn cock got all kinds of ideas over that.
I released her quickly, turning to the bed and stripping it, bundling the sheets and the washcloth together and scrunching them in my fist as I glanced around for any further evidence. I wasn’t on any databases anyway and my pa had had me burn my fingerprints off when I was fourteen, so I never had to worry much on that front. Brooklyn on the other hand would already be a prime suspect in this crime and she needed a whole lot more training when it came to keeping crime scenes clean.
I retrieved the knife she’d tossed at me from the corner of the room, then lifted my phone and took a few snap shots of Cedric Rawlings’ body in case she wanted to have a little trip down memory road later over the sight of it.