His eyes flare, flashing like blue bolts of lightning.
Then suddenly, I’m on my back. And his hand is at my throat, and I don’t curse…I’m a good, boring girl. But there’s no other way to describe it.
He’s beast-fucking me, pinning me down to the bed as he takes me hard with his raging cock.
Yes, yes, this. My thighs spasm, and my nails scratch into his back. And then…And then…he squeezes that hand around my throat.
And the world becomes a silent scream. It’s too much, it’s too much. I blink out for a second, clawing at the line between unconsciousness and insanity.
But then I’m back. And Griffin’s groaning like a wounded animal in my ear. His hips punch forward one more time, then he’s shuddering, like he used to, releasing into the condom with violent force.
What was that? The question comes back at full roar as I lie underneath him with aftershocks popping off inside of me like fireworks.
I’m boneless. Unable to think. Or regret.
A happiness I’d forgotten—the happiness of completion—makes me feel like I’m glowing from head to toe.
But then he rolls off me and says, “Get out.”
The two words fall out of the dark like acid rain.
“What?” I’m so far removed from the disassociation I wanted to pull over me like a numbing blanket when I got into bed with him. It doesn’t even occur to me not to keep the confusion out of my voice.
“You heard me.” He sounds like an animal. Something dark and starving that will kill anything that comes across its path. “Get out. I’m done with you.”
My heart catches in my throat. And that’s when I realize…
My plan…
It worked. He’s done with me, throwing me away, just like I guessed he would.
But there’s no joy as I climb out of his bed. Just shame—so much I can’t form words to speak.
Stones replace the fireworks in my chest, battering at my heart. But I pull on my dress and do exactly as the monster says.
CHAPTER 30
GRIFFIN
I’m not a cuddler, but I wake up with two arms wrapped around me from behind, two thighs nestled underneath mine, and a luscious pair of tits pressed into my back.
Just beyond the window, the lake sparkles under the morning sun.
“What are you doing, Red?” I ask with a warning tone.
“Ssh!” she answers. “Just lie there and let me little-spoon you. This is my favorite position.”
“Your favorite position, huh?”
I twist in her arms and roll on top of her, grabbing hold of her wrists.
God, she’s beautiful. Looking up at me with that wicked smile. I wipe it off with a kiss and punch forward—for once not worrying about a condom.
She doesn’t fight me this morning, just gives in with a sweet whimper as her sopping-wet cunt swallows me whole.
I’m not a believer, like Waylon. But I’m in heaven as soon as I’m back inside her, riding her, subduing her. Making her mine.
“This is where you belong.” I drill into her, but I can’t get in deep enough.
A bad feeling chews up my chest. She’s sand slipping through my hands, and my strokes become fast and desperate, trying to stop it.
“Griff…” she moans underneath me. Her body’s even softer than I remember, but her voice is farther away. Fading.
And for some reason her hair is black now, instead of red.
Red…Red…Red…
I slow down with the sense that I shouldn’t come. She’s here now, but I’ll lose her if she comes.
The realization comes too late, though. The coming orgasm ripples off my spine, even after I stop moving.
“Don’t leave,” I beg as my balls tighten up to shoot. “Red, stay.”
“Griff…” she says again. Her voice is so far away, it could be mistaken for the wind blowing leaves into the lake.
“Red, don’t le—”
I explode before I can finish begging her to stay.
And then I open my eyes for real.
There’s no winter lake outside my windows. No wind blowing leaves.
No Red cuddled up behind me or underneath.
There’s just a mess in my boxer briefs.
I wish I could say this is a first-time thing. But wet dreams—what I’ve been privately referring to as Red dreams—have been a problem ever since I kicked the woman claiming not to be her out of my bedroom a week ago.
I’d had a plan. A plan to punish her. To prove to her and me that she had no power over me. And I was so excited when she told me Red had been a lie. Maybe sex with Bernice, who claimed to be boring, would work the same way as with other girls. I’d fuck her, and that trusty dead inside feeling would steal over me.
But my plan didn’t work.
That old-but-never-forgotten hunger reared up inside me as soon as I saw her new body. Curvier and changed by the child she’d carried inside of her. My child.
Putting her on top hadn’t worked either. Being inside Red for the first time in years had felt like coming home—the opposite of dead chest. My entire body had lit up, letting me know I was truly alive.