Chapter 5

J ACK

" F uck," I hissed as Joey dabbed the gauze laced with alcohol on my knuckles.

"You should have thought of that before you got into another fight."

I gritted my teeth, thinking about how that piece of shit had talked about my girl. "The fucker deserved it. He's lucky I didn't kill him."

Joey didn't say anything. Looking at the cuts and bruises, she gently kissed each knuckle before wrapping the gauze around my hand.

"Fuckin' perfect."

"Yes, I think I did a pretty good job, even if I do say so myself."

"I meant you, beautiful. You're fuckin' perfect."

"Why did you get into the fight?"

"Fuck." I got up and moved across the bathroom.

I couldn't handle being around Joey when she asked her question. She always pushed, wanting to talk about shit. I hated talking. There was no point to it. Hashing out the past wasn't gonna do any good, but that shit was embedded in me. I didn't want to talk about all the horrible shit in my childhood. I didn't need her fuckin' pity. I didn't like it. I just needed her love, and if she knew the truth, she wouldn't love me. Why would she? My own mother couldn't stand the sight of me.

"Whatever it is, I can take it." Joey walked up to me, placing her soft hands on my face.

All I wanted to do was bury myself in her and forget. That was what sex was with Joey: peace. It was the only place I ever found peace, buried deep inside her.

"But you have to tell me, Jack. We can't keep going on like this. We can't move forward until I know it all. I can't move forward."

"You're gonna leave me," I said, my voice so low that I barely heard my own words.

"I won't leave you if you tell me."

"You don't know that."

"I do because I love you."

"My mother told me she loved me too…until she didn't."

"Please," Joey begged, unshed tears pooling in her eyes.

I hated that I'd made her sad. I hated that my fucked-up past worried her.

I gently removed her hand from my face, not wanting her to touch me and withdraw once she heard everything. I couldn't handle that.

"My mother, the woman who was supposed to love and protect me, left me on my father's doorstep when I was four. My dad was a successful senator but a mean drunk. He got drunk one night and banged a sixteen-year-old waitress in the back of his limo. He stayed around for a while, bringing her flowers and taking her for expensive meals, all things that would make a girl from bumfuck nowhere feel like she was something more than she was. Then, as soon as my mom got pregnant, he up and walked away, only sending monthly child support checks in exchange for my mother's silence. I didn't see that man one day in my life until that day. She didn't even wait for him to open the door. Just handed me an envelope and drove off."

"But didn't your dad raise you? I thought he was neighbors with Lip's parents."

" Raise is subjective. He left me in the hands of my stepmother, who wasn't all there. She did things to me. She called it love, but it didn't feel like it."

Tears ran down Joey’s face, and her hands covered her mouth, trying to absorb the escaping sobs. I wanted to hold her, tell her it didn't matter, and I'd escaped that shit. That Lip had saved me and that she’d given me a soul.

But she needed to hear it all. Everything.

"It's okay. Her illness didn't last long. One day, Lip saw what she was doing and ran home and told his mom. Lori banged on the door and dragged me out of there. She called my father and told him that if he didn't do something about his wife, she would. My father dumped his wife, not 'cause he cared for me, but 'cause he didn't want to kill his political ambitions. It was a better story, a long-lost son he was proud of and loved. A cute kid makes for better photo ops over a pretty sexual predator, which was what Lip's mom would’ve told the newspapers if my father didn't put a stop to it all."

"Remind me to hug Lori the next time we see her."

"She's a good woman. Lip is lucky to have her as a mother. It's why he’s so stable, why he can show you love the way you deserve. Sometimes, I feel like I need to leave so you and Lip can be happy without all the baggage. But I'm a selfish man, and I can't let you go. The two of you are the only people of value in my life. I can't be without you."

"I would never let you leave us, nor would Lip."

"I'm no good, Joey. My genes are garbage. My DNA is corrupted. When my dad kicked my stepmom to the curb, I thought that was the end of it. I thought no one could hurt me anymore, but then my older sister came home from college. She beat me nonstop. She liked watching me cry. I was her personal punching bag, but I took it. I never said a word to anyone but Lip and made him promise not to tell anyone. She was nineteen and angry. I didn't understand why she was like that. She had everything anyone could want, but as I got older, I realized it was our genes."

"She beat you? If I ever meet the fuckin' bitch, I'm gonna bash her head in."

I touched the angry bite mark on Joey's shoulder, the one I'd inflicted. I saw the broken skin and my teeth marks embedded in her flesh. I turned away, unable to handle what I'd done to her. It wasn't the first time, and I knew it wouldn't be the last.

"Even when we fuck, my need, the biting, it's all messed-up shit from my fucked-up genes. I fuckin' marked you. This has to hurt. Why do you let me do it?"

Joey shrugged. Her fingers brushed mine as she glanced at the mark I'd left on her pale skin. "I like it. It's hot. You never do anything to hurt me outside the bedroom. It's hot knowing I drive you so crazy that you can't hold back. It's primal." She turned her eyes on me, the brown so rich, so warm. "I trust you. That's why I let you do it."

"You shouldn't trust me. I fuckin' don't trust me. Right now, it's biting, but who knows what else I'll want from you? What if I want something you can’t give?"

"Jack, stop this. I don't believe you'd ever hurt me."

"Until I do."

"You won't hurt her." Lip spoke from the doorway. He'd been so quiet that I hadn't even heard the door open.

"How long have you been standing there?" I asked.