And my heart breaks.
It breaks for both of us.
I don’t want to cry anymore. “Please,” is the only whimper I can manage, and I don’t know what I’m pleading for.
Maybe just to take the pain away, if only for a little while.
Carter’s strong chest presses hard against mine, trapping me and overwhelming me as he shoves his fingers deep inside of me while ravaging every inch of exposed skin with his lips.
I heave in a breath; my neck bows and my body rocks with the immediate pressure building deep in my belly. It rocks through me like waves. So close and threatening.
My nipples harden and my toes curl, my hips threaten to buck, to move away knowing the heavy hit is coming. But with Carter, there’s nowhere to run. And the pleasure is an onslaught, an unforgiving bliss I’m submerged in.
My body is paralyzed by the blinding pleasure, and it’s only then that Carter releases me. He doesn’t let me sag against the wall, he immediately grabs my body, hugging me to him until he can lower me to the floor and shove his pants down.
He fucks me like it’s the only thing he’s ever wanted.
He takes his time, although each thrust is punishing.
I claw at his back and he bites my shoulder.
I scream out his name and he screams out mine.
Neither of us breathing, save the air from each other’s lungs.
The heat, the passion, the need… it’s all undeniable. I can admit that. Of everything Carter wants me to admit, I can admit that he has a part of me I didn’t know existed and a part of me no one else will ever have.
“How can I hate you and love you at the same time?” I ask him in staggered words as I struggle to breathe. My eyes open wide, realizing what I said, but Carter either doesn’t hear or doesn’t care as he climbs off of me, his cum leaking from me as I lie on the cold floor, panting.
A part of me cracks as he stands and runs his hand over his face and then down the back of his head. Standing with his back to me, a part of me shatters. I’m such a fool. A foolish girl at the whim of a monster. Lost in my pain until he can overpower it with pleasure.
He carried me to his bed. Wordlessly.
He wiped between my legs with a warm, damp cloth and then carried me to his bed. I can’t look at him; I can’t do anything but lie here. And every tick of the clock makes me wonder if I should climb out and go sleep on the floor of the hideaway.
My heart hurts too much.
At least he’s not touching me. Every time the bed groans and the covers shift over my naked body I tense, thinking he’s going to hold me, but he doesn’t.
I replay the last twenty-four hours over and over again.
“Why did you look scared when I wasn’t in the shower?” I finally ask him, breaking the silence and the pretense that I could even try to sleep. “I don’t understand.” I give him the reasoning for the question as it came seemingly from nowhere. They’re the only words that have been spoken between us since the slap, apart from the confession that went unheard.
“Jase had a lover once,” Carter answers me, softly spoken, but rough and deep. I can hear him breathe heavily, feel it even with the dip of the bed and then he adds, “She killed herself in the shower.”
My lips part, although I stay lying on my side, my back to him. More pain. More tragedy. I wonder what Jase did to her that made her kill herself. I didn’t think he was capable of such a thing. The question is on my tongue, but I don’t ask it.
Carter had fear in his eyes when I wasn’t standing in the shower because for a moment, for one brief moment, he thought I was lying dead in the tub.
Chapter 18
Carter
I wonder if she really loves me.
I’ll never forget the way she said it. It gutted me. She may grow to love me, but she’ll always hate me.
I can’t blame her for that, but I want to hear the words apart from the hatred. So, I can pretend it comes without a caveat.
I want her to say it again, and this time to mean it. Those words shouldn’t have fallen so recklessly as I pushed her to the edge of pleasure. They’re addictive and they did something to me I can’t describe.
She’s drawing so slowly today. Lying in front of the fire in the den, she’s only been working on one picture. One single piece of art for the last three hours. I’m still not sure what it is, all I can make out is a field of flowers, but there’s something beyond the black smudges of petals.