It stings deep in my nasal cavity when Monaghan swabs his cotton bud of betadine on the cut but I haven't hissed from the pain since those first few times I'd been here. I often show up at Monaghan's backyard after Vasily has had his fill of kicks, punches, and vodka, and let Monaghan have at it with his first aid kit. To this day, I still don't understand why he keeps helping me-- not like I do anything for him in return but throw a few punches of my own. Or maybe that's the exchange. Monaghan can't afford to get his hands dirty, after all. It helps to have someone to do that kind of work for you.
My shitstain of a boyfriend has a formidable right hook; it's one of the few things I've learnt from him. In an alternate universe, he'd have made a fine boxer. In this one, if he lets me off with just a broken nose, I consider it mercy.
Monaghan is firm when he grabs my chin and tilts my face to the light-- then again, he doesn't have any reason to be gentle. His fingers dig into my jaw. His fingertips register as a dull pressure and distract me a bit from the sting of the cut. Maybe that's the point. Monaghan doesn't tell you when he's doing something good for you. You're either not supposed to know or are to figure it out yourself. In either case, he probably does it because he wants something out of you.
That's just the kind of person he is.
Monaghan's eyes are deep-set and ice-cold and when he looks at you, it's instinct to feel threatened, like he watches you but doesn't care to actually see you, because that's exactly what he does. Often, I find myself avoiding his gaze altogether. Not this time. He towers over me, yet his face stays mere centimetres from mine. His blue eyes bore deep into somewhere on my face. His breath fans the top of my nose, where the cut is. It stings a tad, but I can't find it in me to focus on the sting now.
His grip on my chin, almost imperceptibly, loosens, becomes something less bruising.
I watch his eyes as he draws closer, and when I finally figure out where on my face he's been staring, Monaghan whispers.
"We could snog."
"Sorry?"
"Distract you from the pain? How's that sound?"
Most likely, this is him being nice, him offering because he wants something in return. Monaghan's eyes reflect no mirth, just desire, and not the pretty kind. For me, at least, Monaghan's desire has never been pretty. He doesn't take his time, doesn't tease, doesn't whisper little nothings that make my toes curl-- it's just not something we do. Monaghan and I go hard, fast, urgent, slamming each other against furniture without words like animals. Monaghan isn't gentle with me because that's not the kind of relationship we have.
And I don't have any qualms about that.
So I lean up to meet his lips and Monaghan pushes back immediately, delves his tongue deep into my mouth, slides it over my own, lips flush against mine. Monaghan kisses in a way that gives you no room to breathe, to even think and all you can do is return his favor until he's taken all the air out of your lungs. He has a hand on my back, under my shirt, and another roughly shoving me down so I'm laid flat on his bed.
Monaghan groans into my mouth as he shoves my legs apart. A hand on my hip, he grinds up against me, the bulge in his pants hot, stiff, and obvious. I'm not the kind of person he wastes time on, and he doesn't, because once Monaghan lifts his face from mine, his right hand scrambles to my zipper and the left gathers my arms and to restrain them above my head. I know it's easy to break out of his hold, flip us over, sit on top of him and indulge myself, but I let him take what he wants because I've learnt that when Monaghan disinfects my cuts and snogs me, he's doing a nice thing and he expects submission in return.
Monaghan's slid my pants and boxers off now. He's got two fingers in me, lube-slick, and I don't even know when he got around to that. He and I both know I don't need the foreplay and can just as easily stretch as he pushes into me-- this makes it two nice things in a row. He's about to ask for a favour soon. He's rubbing that spot inside me, because he knows too well where it is, that, soon, will make me come apart at the seams, moaning so loudly even his brothers downstairs can hear it. I keep it together as much as I can and, before long, Monaghan kisses me again-- that's a third nice thing. His kisses are devastating. If I get any more of them than I already do, I might not be able to live without them.
Monaghan's good at that: making you feel like you need him.
But as soon as the spot starts sending tingles to my hands and feet and head and heart, Monaghan runs out of patience for me. He unbuttons his pants with urgency and just as hastily puts on a rubber, then lines himself up, like he's been waiting long and hard for this moment when he really can just corner me against some alleyway and spread me open, have his way with me.
I cry out when he pushes in. It doesn't feel half bad-- not painful, just overwhelming, like blood has done nothing but rushed away from my brain. When I come to again, he's pulled himself out and slammed back in, this time reaching half-way. I shiver as he pours more cold lube where he and I connect, rocking in and out of me to rub it in. His tip rubs into that spot that sends small sparks along my skin, and by the look on his face, it seems he knows it, too.
Monaghan drags himself out again. He's being slow about it. It's excruciating and he's goddamned smug because he knows that I know I can't do anything about this. I'm not someone Monaghan wastes time on and, for that reason, when he does, he expects me to be grateful. And I am.
That makes it the fourth nice thing tonight.
When he pushes in, Monaghan stops at that spot again, which has been so stimulated that every time it's touched, my toes curl. The dim light from the lamp glints off Monaghan's eyes as he catches on. His left hand braces on the mattress around my head for leverage, while his right pushes my thighs back so that I'm bent over myself.
Monaghan thrusts shallowly, staying inside me, rubbing against the spot inside me that gets my breath ragged and my thighs shaking. Monaghan tells me a lot, after the fact, that I'm loud. I frankly could never tell because he knows how to push my buttons and, when he does, my vision blurs around the edges and I can't hear a thing. Monaghan says he doesn't mind me being loud, that me being loud means he's an excellent bedmate, not that he needs the confirmation (his words, not mine), so I don't hold myself back.
Once, I drove myself into panic because when I couldn't see nor hear a thing, I'd be vulnerable to attacks and I couldn't afford to be so. I dry heaved my way through it, still as a statue.
That time, Monaghan finished inside me anyway, then tossed me a towel, told me to get my act together, and dumped me on the street, like he'd always do.
It didn't matter, of course, because that's the kind of relationship I have with him.
Monaghan's grown impatient again. I feel it in his quickening pace. He's not even fully inside me yet and he usually likes it better when he's fully sheathed in me, thrusts brutally fast. He likes it when I'm sore and limping the next day; I think it gives him some sense of possession and pride. It's odd. He isn't actually interested in me, but rather the idea of owning, taming, controlling something like me, of knowing that while others fear me, he's used my body to relieve himself.
