Swallowing hard while wearing that stupid cringe like she wasn’t going to enjoy it, when we both knew that wasn’t the case, she eased her backside onto the edge of the desk. I unfastened my pants. Just because I couldn’t fuck her without leaving marks didn’t mean I wasn’t going to get off.
I knelt on the floor, guiding her feet to rest on my shoulders. Why? Why did she give me that look? For the love of god, I was on my fucking knees in front of her, seconds away from pleasuring her. It almost ruined the moment. But then I imagined making a surprise visit to Evelyn’s shop. I imagined her stainless-steel benches instead of a wooden desk, her legs spread wide for me as I knelt on the soapy, gunky floor. Evelyn would give me that same look, pretend she didn’t want my tongue teasing her, until my fingers entered her.
Lila stiffened when I kissed her there. She wriggled on the edge of the desk, but she had nowhere to go. I fought the urge to grip her hips to hold her still and force her legs farther apart as her knees attempted to collapse inward.
No marks.
I had to leave her without a single bruise.
She left me with no choice, just an uncontrollable need to channel my energy and frustration into something. My eyes closed and returned to Evelyn’s lab. I wrapped my hand around my dick and let my thoughts go where they needed to go.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Lila
He said my name.
Graham pleasured me when I didn’t want it, but he said my name. I hated myself for clinging to that. After everything he had done, he didn’t deserve a pat on the back for saying the right woman’s name during sex.
Still, I had nowhere to go. He trapped my best friend, my only family, and his control reached further than I could even imagine. I wanted to tell Evie everything. But I didn’t trust Graham—not as a husband, not as a friend. It wasn’t just me and Evelyn. She had a husband and two kids. I would die before letting Graham destroy her family.
The irony of my own part in destroying Evelyn’s life didn’t escape my conscience. Her husband needed to touch me to feel good, to be a better husband to his wife.
How did our friendship—the four of us—turn into such a toxic mess?
I had fallen the furthest down the rabbit hole of lies. I kept all the secrets—Graham’s, Ronin’s, my own.
After I washed Graham’s semen from my cleavage, I stood in front of my full-length mirror and contemplated my next move.
“Long blond hair, short skirt, tight blouse … I think you’re asking for someone to take notice.”
I no longer cared if anyone ever took notice again. Gripping a pair of scissors in my right hand, I grabbed a chunk of hair pulling it taut with my left hand while cutting it as close to my scalp as possible. Tears filled my eyes. The point of no return embraced me, swallowing the pain of each handful of hair I cut from my head.
I had cancer.
I could wait for it to fall out or I could cut it on my own.
On my own …
Graham could fuck me at will, mark me, degrade me, and wish I were someone else, but he would never own me. He would never have the final say in my destiny.
When the bulk of my hair rested at my feet, I padded to the opposite end of the hallway, where Graham slept and showered. In a cabinet next to his sink, I retrieved his beard trimmer and retraced my steps to the pile of hair beneath my sink.
The trimmer hummed when I turned it on. It vibrated next to my scalp as I made slow strokes from my forehead to my neck.
Numb.
I felt nothing.
The feeling of nothingness comforted me. It prevented me from blinking and kept my hand from shaking as I sudsed my entire scalp and took a new razor to it. I knew why some cancer patients shaved their heads before all of their hair fell out on its own. Dignity—they wanted something to be on their terms. They needed to control some tiny part of themselves in the midst of something so out of control.
Everything in my life felt out of control.
“What have you done?”
My gaze lifted from the mess on the floor and in the sink to Graham’s reflection of complete bewilderment in the mirror. Did he sound regretful? Was that remorse on his face? The numbness blocked my ability to feel him the way I used to … before he became a different man.
“People going through cancer treatment lose their hair. You said it yourself.”
“What have you done?” Graham repeated, threading his fingers though his hair, clenching and tugging at it. A very unusual reaction from him.