“But if I hadn’t…”
Rhys draws me into his arms. “Ssh, it’s not your fault. Don’t do this to yourself.”
I don’t realize how much I need to feel his arms around me until I break down crying. Gut-wrenching sobs that feel like they’ve been waiting to come out of me for a long time.
Rhys turns off the shower and holds me until the tears dry. Until I start to shiver with the realization that I’m cold.
Until I say, “I’m sorry. I’m really sorry for the way I ended things between us.”
His arms loosen then tighten back around me. “Don’t.” The one word is a harsh command delivered on a single breath. “Don’t start apologizing now. Three years after when it would have mattered.”
But I have to.
“I’m sorry,” I say again. “I should’ve done it in a better way. But I didn’t know how.”
“In a better way?” He lets go of me. Steps back as far as he can in the small shower. “You shouldn’t have done it at all. You should have called me. Let me help you when your father died. But no, you had to be tough. Go it alone. Pretty but cruel Nurse America—”
He cuts off with a shake of his head. Looks away from me. Mutters, “I don’t forgive you. I don’t.”
“Okay,” I say quietly. Submissively.
Then I raise my eyes to meet his.
And he….
He grabs me by the shoulders and pulls me in for a kiss.
I kiss him back desperately. Scratching at his chest because I want him so bad.
He picks me up and presses me into the wall, just like he did that one time in the on-call room….
We’d had conflicting shifts all week long and had run into each other when he came into sleep just as I was leaving for the day.
One glance was all it took. He’d pressed me into the wall and taken me hard, with barely a pause to lock the door.
There’s no one to walk in on us now or clothes to remove, so he doesn’t even wait that long.
He wraps both my legs around his waist and pushes into me with an angry grunt.
“Why did you leave like that? Why did you…?”
“I’m sorry!” I cry out. Taking his dick, taking my punishment. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“Sorry is not enough,” he growls. “Go back to Ingrid you told me…do you know how mental you made me? How many women I fucked trying to get you out of my head? Ones that looked like you. Ones that looked nothing like you. And now here I am.”
He grabs a hold of one rock hard nipple. Tweaks it with a ruthless twist.
I cry out. The pleasure and the pain are both spiking and my brain doesn’t know what to do with it the duality of such acute sensations.
He thrusts into my core, his hot and heavy body driving in an out of me with relentless force. “I will fuck you. I will fuck you until I can forget you. And only then will I accept your pitiful apology.”
Something’s uncurling inside of me. This is the punishment I deserve. The only thing I crave. Somewhere to finally put all my pain. I’m not going anywhere, pinned as I am between him and the glass. But I hold on tight to him, taking my punishment, whispering sorry in his ear.
Until I feel the crest inside of me.
“Rhys,” I moan right before I explode.
And then suddenly it’s gone. The pain. The sorrow. The worry. It’s all gone, and there’s only the bliss of coming.
“Not enough,” he’s still insisting. But then he cuts off with a guttural groan.
His dick spasms and he floods into me.
It feels so good. So good!
So damn good, it takes me a long, long time to come down… and realize, “We didn’t use protection.”
Chapter Thirteen
So yeah, the rest of the day is pretty awkward after that.
No more hand holding after that crazy shower sex. Rhys gives me a pair of boxer briefs and another Raines Jewish t-shirt to wear. Then we cobble together some sandwiches for lunch.
We just finished eating when the hospital calls with an update. The good news is that they’d gotten Mavis on a ventilator and her oxygen levels were up. She isn’t out of the woods yet but the prognosis is looking better than when she lost consciousness on the way to the hospital.
The bad news is that the sample that some brave nurse drove all the way out to the test site in Columbia came back positive. Mavis is officially Guadalajara’s first Covid-19 case.
“Poor Mavis,” I say, shaking my head when Rhys is done telling me the news.
Then I find myself in the weird place of having to ask him, “Is it really okay if I stay here? I can quarantine in my room at the big house, but then that means I won’t be able to use the kitchen and I’ll have to depend on the twins for everything.”