Does It Hurt?

by H.D. Carlton

It was… passionate yet unhinged. Like, murder me and stuff me, then try to spoon-feed me beans because he thinks I’m still alive type of unhinged. Some Norman Bates shit. It was a mix of I want to strangle you and I’ll never let you go.

“What happened?” he asks urgently, twisting my body back and forth to check for injury. I manage to squeak out, “Ghost. Knocking. Scary. Get the water police.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s not true. Have you ever seen The Conjuring? Or literally any other paranormal horror movie? They definitely get hurt. People die. Demons are like, serial killers, Enzo.”

“If I need to fight a ghost, I will.

The angry knocking is back. And this time, it’s on our fucking bedroom door.

“Fuck this goddamn island,” Enzo mutters beneath his breath,

Seconded!!! Fuck this place!!

I notice the deep gouges in the wood and how it’s splintered from where it must’ve been ramming its shoulder.

I’m not going to stand there and argue about a ghost defying the laws of physics. I’d rather spend my time gurgling caffeine like I’m a porn star surrounded by five dicks.

“We need to look for the beacon today,” he announces. No shit. What the hell else are we supposed to do? Sit here and come up with a super-secret handshake for kicks?

“You’re a goddamn siren, and I’m the fool who would gladly drown just to get a taste of you. Starve, for all I care, bella, but I will be eating tonight, and the only thing I’m hungry for is you.” Surprise muddles my thoughts. I blink at him, ready to ask him to repeat himself just to make sure I heard him right, but when I open my mouth, he’s crashing his lips into mine.

We’re the perfect storm, where he is the thunder, and I am the lightning.

“How do you keep making me do that?” I pant. He’s not the first man to go down on me and bring me to orgasm, but I feel like fucking Pavlov’s dog, and somehow, he’s managed to train my pussy to drool for him on command.

“You’re a natural, baby. It’s just that no one has hit the right buttons,” he says, climbing off the table and dragging me with him to the edge.

I legitimately have never felt more seen 🤣

“Show me, bella,” he rasps. “Show me where you hurt so I know where to love you most.”

“There’s a place in the ocean, so deep, where not a single point of light penetrates through it. And for so long, I’ve been trapped there, unable to breathe. When I met you, you lifted me out of that darkness, and it was the first time I came up for air. You’ve become my oxygen, bella ladra, and I can no longer breathe without you.”

“Being loved by me will hurt like hell. It’s everything you deserve.” Then, he declares passionately, “I love you, and you will love me.”

“I do. I do love you,” I respond,

“You said he was after you.” I shake my head, tears once more burning the backs of my eyes. “The police are after me—his friends. Not because I steal identities or because Kev is trying to find me, but because I killed a cop. I murdered my twin brother.”

I release her and head toward the bathroom for a shower when I hear someone moving around downstairs. Not just their footsteps, but the sound of chains dragging.

NOPE! NO. ABSOLUTELY NOT! FUCK THAT!

“I’m too excited now. So, you get behind me. Being a man doesn’t make you special. Last time I checked, I’m the murderer, not you.”

Sapevo che lo stronzo stava mentendo.

“I love you,” he murmurs, which makes me angry because that sounds more like an omen than a profession of love. “I love you, too,

“You look beautiful painted in his blood. È il colore che preferisco su di te.”

“Sei così dolce. Sei un angelo,”

“We don’t have to go anywhere.” “What will we do then?” “If you want to live free for the rest of your life, then you need to kill Sawyer Bennett.”

“I would lie for you as easily as I would kill for you. If you getting the best of me requires the world getting the worst of me, you will want for nothing in life, bella ladra.”

”And we’re under the agreement that her identity will stay hidden from the media?” “Of course,” Jones agrees. “We will protect her.” I hear everything he’s not saying. That doesn’t mean we will protect you.

Surrounded by nothing but a vast, blue sea. It’s an entire universe below the surface and arguably a greater mystery than the one outside our planet.

Troy looks over at me, and I meet his stare when I feel how deeply it’s burning into the side of my face. He looks amused, but something else also resides in his expression. Something like relief. “Keep her.” As if magnetized, I turn my focus back to Sawyer, where she’s following the clownfish around the building. “I plan on it.”

“You’re strange,” I tell him finally. Simon smiles. “He fits right in, doesn’t he?” Meeting Enzo’s stare again, I say, “I suppose he does.”