It was the strangest thing to sleep in a bed beside Angel. He showered and got into the bed while I lay on my side, pretending to sleep in the darkness.

I was hyper aware of how the bed moved, knowing he was beside me. I wasn’t sure this was something I was going to be able to get used. Being able to calm my mind enough to fall asleep was impossible and I lay there for a while, keeping my breathing stable hoping he would believe I was fast asleep when I wasn’t. I could still feel his hands on me when he had man handled me from my room to his.

“Quit fidgeting,” he said.

I frowned. Hadn’t I been lying perfectly still?

“I’m not fidgeting,” I huffed, trying to lie on my side with my back to him. “You riled me up and now you expect me to be calm enough to go to sleep.”

“If you had just moved into my room like I asked you to I wouldn’t have had to rile you up.”

He had a way of making me angry with the least amount of effort. But there were times he made me feel so many other things and that’s what made him much more dangerous to me.

“There are ways of helping you sleep…” His finger trailed along my shoulder and I held my breath. The soft touch was amplified in the darkness. Closing my eyes, I allowed myself to consider accepting his proposition. Memories of him taking to me to heights I had never even been able to imagine.

Even though he annoyed me and at times I truly disliked him I couldn’t refute the physical attraction I had for him, it made me weak.

I wanted to tell him no but no words came out when his hand moved from my shoulder down the length of my body. The exploration was slowly and deliberate as I held my breath, closing my eyes to concentrate on the feel of his touch.

I didn’t want to think about all the reasons to stop him, instead I wanted to hold close every reason to let him touch me in a way only he could.

He drew closer and I could feel the heat from his body against the length of mine. I held my breath in anticipation of what he was going to do. His breath caressed the sensitivity of my ear as his hand moved into my pyjama shorts and down the front of my underwear to the junction between my thighs. I sighed as his finger traced my sex and his lips touched my throat. There were no words to describe the feeling.

When he touched me there was no denying the power he had over me, and in that moment I didn’t care if it made me weak or tipped the balance of power into his favour.

“Do you like that Kira?” he whispered against my ear and I sighed as he inserted a debilitate finger into me.

My hips moved against his hand, striving for the release I know he would give me.

“Do you want more?” he asked stilling the movement of his hand. I protested. “Tell me you want more Kira.”

I would have told him anything he asked, absolutely anything.

“I want… more,” I whispered, not wanting him to stop for fear it would consume me.

His tongue traced my neck and I groaned as he added another finger inside me and began to move them in the same way he would fuck me.

My breathing grew heavy and I reached a hand behind me to hold his neck as he trailed kissed up to the sensitive spot behind my ear.

The ache between my thighs tingled and I strained my hips against the movement of his hand. I was wet and his fingers moved with ease inside me. His thumb moved to press down on the small bud and I panted, knowing I was even closer to coming than I had thought.

He knew exactly what to do and when, and I didn’t care how he knew. Every women he had ever been with before mattered none. All that mattered was what he was making me feel.

My hand tightened and I gasped when my body tightened a moment before the orgasm trembled through me. My hold tightened on his neck. His teeth scrapped my neck and the mix of pleasure and pain intensified the moment. His hand continued to move, wringing every last moment of ecstasy before I lay sated, my body warm and satisfied.

Angel moved beside me and I realized when he moved above me he was naked. He knelt as he removed my bottoms. I sat up as he removed my top. When I lay back down he moved to kiss me. It was deep and I moved my arms to link around his neck to pull him closer as my legs wrapped around his waist. I could feel his arousal against my already slick core.

“I want you to fuck me,” I said as I broke the kiss. There was no logic to my brazenness. It made no sense but I needed him more than I needed the air I breathed.

He moved to get some protection before he moved me onto my hands and knees in front of him. I knew the position but had never experienced it and I felt a moment of nervousness. I peered back as he positioned himself against my folds. With his eyes locked with mine he began to slide into me with ease and I stilled feeling the fullness of him. His hands held my hips in place, his eyes dark with desire as he sheathed his entire length in me.

My hands curled the sheet into fists as I gasped when he began to move. I moved to steady myself as he began to fuck me with deep deliberate strokes. I had never imagined being taken this way and all I could do was hold on while he joined our bodies together. His hands gripped my hips when he increased the speed of his thrusts and I panted.

The only sounds was our heavy breathing. I steadied my hands to be able to push back against him each time he thrust into me. He moved his hand to press down against my sensitive spot and I could feel myself nearing my next orgasm.

“Please Angel,” I said, knowing he had the power of me.

“What do you want Kira?” he asked softly, moving over me, his chest against my back.

“Please make me come Angel.”

He kissed my shoulder and began to fuck me again. Just as his finger circled and pressed against my clit which made me tumble and I came.

“Angel,” I sighed as I rode it out.

His movements intensified and his strokes increased until he grunted and came. Digging his fingers into my hips that it caused a second of pain and I knew I would have bruises.

He held me in place as he emptied himself. I dropped my head before he moved away and I lay on the bed, moving onto my back.

There was no way to describe what had just happened. With him, it felt out of this world. Something I was sure I could never feel with anyone else.

His chest rose and feel with each breath and I watched him. His eyes moved to meet mine.

“I like it when you say my name when you come,” he said softly as his hand caressed my face.

I beamed at him, feeling warmed by the small show of affection.

“I like it when you make me come.”

He did something unexpected. He smiled and I felt a flutter inside my chest.

But when he moved off the bed I felt my heart drop and I hated the feeling of being used. How could he discard something that felt so special to me so easily?

I covered myself and lay on my side as I waited to hear the sound of the shower, feeling the heaviness in my chest intensify.

But I never heard the shower start. Instead I heard him return to the bed and get in.

He never touched me again but it was enough to have him beside me in the bed. It made me consider how little I expected from him. Right now this was enough but I wondered if it would always be. Especially when I knew that deep down that my feelings were changing for him. The dislike and hate was giving way to something I was too scared to admit.

I didn’t want to admit to myself let alone to anyone else that I was starting to care for him a way that would allow him to hurt me in a way that no one else had the ability to.

With those deep thoughts I lay awake listening to the steady breathing of Angel in the bed next to me wondering how long it would be before I needed more than he was capable of giving me. He had already told me there would be no declarations of love, what would happen when he couldn’t give what I needed.

The annoying sound brought me out of my deep slumber. My alarm was going off. Still half asleep, I shifted in the bed and sat up. I rubbed my eyes and found my phone beside the bed and switched the alarm off. Luckily I had remembered to get it from my room otherwise I would have been late for James again. Yawning, I took in the strange surrounding.

“Why have you got an alarm set for such a ridiculous time?” Angel’s voice beside me reminded me what had happened yesterday and that I was still in his room. And his bed. I experienced a moment of vulnerability I had to face now. My abandonment to him in the throes of passion were hard to face in the light of day. What had felt so right, didn’t feel so right now. Not when logical reasoning was making the decisions and not my hormones.

He caught me off guard. “I like to gym early in the morning,” I lied, quickly not ready to tell him about my secret sessions with James when it was obvious James hadn’t mentioned it to him.

There was no way he would have believed it if he hadn’t seen me running in the gym before.

“Switch it off and go back to sleep,” he mumbled, still lying on his stomach next to me. His eyes closed.

“I got to go.” I slid from his bed and maneuvered my way to the door in the darkness without bumping into anything.

I hurried to my bedroom. There was no way I was going to be late again, I remembered James’ warning. I had the quickest shower and pulled on some sweats and a shirt. Five minutes later I was downstairs patiently watching the time in my phone and waiting for James.

As always he was on time and at exactly four am he was walking toward me. He was the most punctual person I had ever known.

“Today is going to be a little different,” he offered cryptically as he headed past the place we usually trained.

I continued to follow him, my curiosity peaked even though I was feeling more nervous as I hurried to catch up to him. I had to take two strides for every one of his. I wasn’t sure I was up for something different than our usual sessions. Surely he couldn’t make me do anything worse than what I had done the day before.

He led me to another building that was on the far side of the property. It was another I had never been allowed inside. The door to this building had a keypad and a guard. It was strange I thought but I followed James inside. There was a small corridor and he led me into a small room. It had a window into the room beside it.

It was what was inside the other room that made me stop in my tracks. A man was tied to a chair. His head hung forward, sweat intermingled with blood dripped from his face. His arms were behind his back and each of his ankles were tied to the legs of the chair with rope.

I didn’t understand how this was part of helping me. My eyes shot to James who was watching me. There was no hiding my alarm. Maybe he was used to this but I wasn’t.

“How is this part…” I couldn’t even finish my sentence. The sight of the man and his injuries turned my stomach. Flashbacks of the Bruno bleeding from the kitchen table made me tremble. It felt like it was happening again, my inability to pull myself together in violent situations.

“Remember, you were the one who came to me.” His eyes went to the window and that’s when I realized it was a two way mirror. “You wanted me to toughen you up.” His eyes met mine. “That’s what I’m doing.”

This was not what I had in mind when I had begged him for help. This was crazy, wasn’t it? It was not what I had imagined.

The man in the other room groaned. I couldn’t help but think what had he done to deserve this? It must have been something severe to require this.

“How is this going to toughen me up?” I asked, not sure I was going to stay no matter what his explanation. There was a lot of things I could cope with but this was a step too far for me.

“The night Bruno got shot you said the sight of blood made you want to faint. The only remedy is to be exposed to it to build up a tolerance to it. The more you see the less it will affect you.”

His explanation was cold and clinical. He could have been talking about the weather and not a living breathing person.

“This is our life Kira, it always has been. When you were younger you were protected from it.”

My eyes moved from the stranger to James.

“You want me to help you survive, trust me. This is the only way. If you want to be able to deal with all of it this you have to be strong. Can you be strong Kira?”

I didn’t think I was strong enough for this. Learning how to shoot a gun, learning self defense moves and even learning how to protect myself with a knife was very different to what he was proposing now.

“How James?” I managed to ask in a whisper.

“Violence. It plays a big part of our day to day lives. Like the violence of watching Bruno bleed out of a table after being shot twice. You think that’s the first time something like that happened and it definitely wont be the last.”

He folded his arms as he studied me.

“I think you need to have a good hard look at what you’re getting yourself into and decide if this is truly something you can deal with because if you can’t, it will destroy you.”

It was the most insightful thing I had ever heard him say and it scared me. What if I wasn’t strong enough? Would this lead me to the same fate as my mom? Would I look to numb the pain until I took my last breath?

“This is your choice. Stay or leave, it’s immaterial to me but know that you can’t lie to yourself.”

He left the room and I watched with mixed feelings as he entered the room with the prisoner.

James removed his jacket and hung it off the back of another chair in the room before he began to roll up his shirt sleeves. I knew what was to come but couldn’t look away or leave.

I was torn between trying to face the hard reality of the life I was committing to and the need to preserve what little innocence I still had.

I knew what was going to happen but when James hit the guy I jumped at the action. A cut just below his eye began to bleed. I tried to breathe through the panic. It was the same panic that had frozen me when Bruno had been bleeding from two gun shot wounds.

I fisted my hands trying to do everything I could not to turn and run. If I did I would be just as useless as I had been before. I needed to be strong, I had to be able to weather what I was seeing otherwise this life would break me. It was then I thought about my mother. I didn’t want to end up the same way.

There was no sound, so I couldn’t hear what James was saying to the guy but I could see the blood drip from his exhausted and pained face. He had brown curly hair. He looked like he was in his early thirties. What on Earth had he done to get on the bad side of James? As brutal as James was, he would never do something like this to someone who hadn’t crossed them.

James hit the guy again. And again. I put my hand to my mouth to smother the hitch in my breathing every time he struck. Blood splattered from his face onto every nearby surface. The wall, the floor. More blood dripped from his chin.

I closed my eyes giving myself just a few moments of reprieve before I forced myself from open them again.

At any time I could have left but I didn’t move. I don’t know why I stayed or why I watched.

Maybe there was no way to make myself strong. Either I was fit for this world or I wasn’t and there was nothing I could do to change that and I was kidding myself that I could change any of it.

When James finished with the guy his head hung and there was so much blood. On the floor and there was blood smeared on the front of James’ shirt. When James looked to the mirror to stare at me all I could concentrate on was the blood dripping from his fists.

This time the sight of blood hadn’t made me want to faint but there was only horror in what I had just witnessed.