Now?
Now, I’m not feeling much of anything because I’ve demanded that blessed numbness be my crutch for right now.
Gabe takes my hand and we walk together back out to the living room, where Marissa stands waiting. She at least gives him a warm smile and says, “I’m sorry to do this, baby. Mommy has to do something important, but you can see Daddy next weekend and he’ll take you to Coney Island then. Okay?”
My son isn’t so easy to forgive this right now, so he just glares at her and then turns to hug me. I kiss him on the head and as I pull away, I look one more time at Marissa. I go ahead and open my gaze to her so I can get another hefty dose of her bitterness and gloating hate that would normally come after a victory such as this.
Instead, she just stares at me passively, as if she’s trying to see something that maybe wasn’t there a moment ago. I quickly avert my gaze, because I don’t want to give her anything she’s seeking, and turn my back on them both, walking back into my kitchen. I hear the front door open and close, and then they’re gone.
Putting both of my palms on my kitchen counter, I hang my head down and close my eyes, trying to replay the conversation with Marissa in my head. Trying to figure out where it got out of control.
She told me I didn’t give her a chance to atone for her sin.
It’s true enough. No apology would have ever made a difference to me. But I’m thinking by the mere fact she brought it up, it may have made a difference to her. It may have absolved her of her guilt. It may have made things better for her.
Savage rage such as I have never felt except for one other time in my entire life, and that is when Cal confessed to sleeping with Marissa, rises in me. How dare she try to make me feel guilty after what she did to me? How dare she try to put any of this on me? The blood is pounding so forcefully through my veins that the light actually dim a bit in my eyes.
“Are you okay?” Mac asks quietly, and I realize she’s walked into the kitchen.
My head snaps up, and she flinches by what she sees in my eyes. That makes me feel guilty, and it seems like I can’t f**king win with women these days. I apparently do nothing but hurt them.
“No, I’m not f**king okay,” I snarl at her, and she flinches again. “How can I be okay after that?”
But between the two of us, only I know that the thing with Marissa was so much more than what Mac actually observed. She didn’t get to see the really juicy stuff that occurred after she took Gabe back into his bedroom.
“I’m sorry,” Mac says quietly and she’s saying that not only because she feels bad that Gabe was just stripped away from me, but she’s sorry that I’m obviously hurting and she’s sorry that I’m angry right now.
Fuck… appears everyone is just sorry.
Except for me, of course. I apparently don’t understand the concept of apology. Otherwise, I’d have let Marissa “atone for her sin”.
What a crock of shit!
I push away from the counter and look at Mac. Her face is lined with worry, she’s got her hands clasped tight, and she’s on edge. I know I must be putting off some seriously angry vibes, and I make her nervous. That should appall me but it doesn’t. It actually sort of pisses me off more.
Fucking women and their tender sensibilities.
The anger that pulses through me, coupled with disappointment and choking guilt, are too overwhelming and I need some way to purge this out of my system. And what better way than the fantastically amazing woman who f**ks like a goddess standing before me.
Stalking up to her, I wrap my hand around her neck and palm the back of her head, pulling her in close. I know my eyes are hard and bitter right now, my voice harsh with rage. “Do you see, Mac?”
“See what?” she asks quietly, almost fearfully.
“Do you see why I am the way I am?”
“Because of Marissa?”
“Yes… it’s all because of her,” I say, gripping her head tighter.
Mac stares back at me, completely confused and utterly worried. I watch her, wondering at what point Mac may lay the same guilt trip on me in our relationship. It’s bound to happen, right?
I’m startled momentarily when Mac raises her hands and lays her palms on my cheeks. Lifting up on her tiptoes, she pulls on me slightly so my head bends down. She touches her mouth to mine, lightly, and at first, I do nothing. Instinctively and immediately, my body wants her, but I don’t capitulate right away, holding my arms tight with pure refusal to embrace her.
Then Mac plays me… because she knows how to get me to react. She flicks her tongue out over my bottom lip and that one touch causes me to groan and my dick to get hard. Mac seizes the opportunity and plunges her tongue in my mouth.
She kisses me… almost frantically, but I still don’t make a move to hold her.
She’s not daunted though. She merely moves her lips from my mouth to my neck, murmuring, “I need you,” before biting at my skin.
Okay, that packs a punch right there, and lust seizes me.
My hands come up, not to grab ahold of her, but to grab ahold of her shirt and pull viciously at it, ripping every button from the fabric so they scatter across the tile floor.
See Mac… that’s how you rip a shirt open.
Mac merely gasps, not in outrage, but in desire. My hands frantically pull at her jeans, pushing, pulling, tearing at the denim, trying to pull them loose from her body.
I manage to get them and her underwear off, and drag her to the floor. I don’t even bother with her bra but do lean down and bite at one of her ni**les through the silk, causing her to cry out.
Fumbling for my own zipper, I get it down and pull out my painfully hard cock, while nudging her legs apart with my own. Desperation seizes me.