Sordid (Sordid 1)

He broke the kiss. “We’re out in the open.”

He was worried about Vasilije? “Fuck him,” I said. “Let him see you taking what’s yours.”

We tore at our clothes together, hurling my shirt and our pants to the floor. I wrapped a hand around his cock, stroking him, and in two pumps down his length he was hard as steel. I needed him inside me. I had to know what it felt like to be joined together with the man I loved.

He hurried, preparing to take me.

When he slid inside, our moans mingled together. My arms banded around his shoulders and I held on, wrapping my legs around his hips. His mouth never left mine as he began to move. He was fucking me on the dining room table in the same spot he’d bent me over my first day here.

The dark need roared inside. I’d looked at him so long ago and wanted him to do bad things to me, and he had. Making me fall in love with him was the worst of all.

Luka typically didn’t do fast. He took his time and drew things out, but there wasn’t time for control now. I groaned with satisfaction as he pistoned his hips, fucking me like he had to, before we woke from this beautiful nightmare.

“I love you,” he breathed.

His words sent me soaring, and gave me the courage to admit the truth. “I love you, Luka.”

We were two bodies moving as one. He eased me back on the table and moved inside, claiming me over and over again. The room was a million degrees, burning away doubt and guilt and shame at loving him when I knew he wasn’t nice or good.

We erupted together. It was so hot I worried we’d scorch the tabletop.

He slowed to a stop, resting on top of me and still lodged deep inside, his face buried in the side of my neck. His hurried breathing was loud in my ear.

“You have to let me go,” I whispered.

He tensed, knowing I didn’t mean physically.

“I have to know this is real,” I continued. Because Vasilije’s words weren’t wrong. Did I love Luka because I had no choice?

He rose up on his arms and peered down at me with an expression that was a mixture of unhappiness and . . . fear. He was afraid of losing me.

“No,” he said.

“Give me space to find myself as this girl who can love you, and I’ll come back.”

“I need you here with me. How can I go back to how it was before you?”

“Please, Luka. This matters. You said anything that matters to me, matters to you. Please.”

Hearing me beg for freedom broke him a little. He retreated, and I followed him up, wrapping my arms around him.

“I don’t know if I can do it,” he said finally, his voice unsure. “Let you walk out the door and not follow you.”

“You can. You got me to fall in love with you.” I pressed my forehead against his. “You can do anything.”

Chapter

Twenty-Six

Avery was pissed when I moved my stuff back into the dorm room that was microscopic in comparison to the mansion. She stood with her arms crossed over her chest and annoyance smeared on her face as the final bit of clothes were hung in the tiny closet on my side of the room. She’d been using both closets as her own in my absence.

Luka straight-out told Avery to leave when I was finally settled, so we could say goodbye without her angry glares.

He lingered and stalled, not wanting to leave, and part of me felt the same.

“You’ll come back to me,” he said, his order sounding less confident than normal.

“Give me this space, and yes, Luka. I will.”

Would I be back at his house within the week?

His goodbye kiss was brutal. He lashed at me with his tongue, controlled me with his mouth, and made my knees go weak. When the words were on the tip of my tongue for him to stay, for him to take me back home, he abruptly released me and left without saying a word. There was no goodbye or I love you. He’d been reeling and unable to process this foreign feeling of relinquishing control.

The first week back was incredibly strange. It was like a limb was missing. We chatted nightly on FaceTime using the iPad he’d given me, and although his house wasn’t that far from school, the divide was fucking enormous.

I almost caved my second week when Luka threw a temper tantrum. He was used to getting his way. So he started to give me assignments again, and when he had some control, even just for a few minutes, things improved.

He drove me home from school for spring break, and took my family out to dinner. His hand had curled around mine under the table in my lap, and he was every bit the doting, love-struck boyfriend we’d pretended he was at Thanksgiving. Only this time it was real.