Scandalize Me

She couldn’t seem to help herself.

Hunter nipped at her lower lip even as his hardness nudged her center, insistent and demanding where she was molten and soft, teasing her. Making them both shudder.

He said her name and then he thrust into her, hard and deep. Then they were rolling, and she was on top. He sat up, too, his hands at her waist, and it was her turn to move, to ride him, to tease him, to take him deep inside her and then pull back, to writhe and dance them both to that edge—

“I love you,” he said, as he threw her straight into that fire.

And Zoe shattered all around him, into so many pieces she knew she’d never be the same again, especially when he said it again as he followed.

But when she could breathe again, the words he’d said still echoed inside her—like a wish, like a prayer—and she knew it was time.

Past time.

“Come on,” he said into the crook of her neck, those possessive hands still clasped to her, still holding her against him. He was still deep inside her, and she was so miserable it felt like being wrenched apart, deep within. Like some kind of organ failure. “I need a shower.”

Zoe pushed herself away from him, and it was much harder than it should have been to sit up. To let go of him. To climb up off that couch.

To do this thing she didn’t want to do, but had to do. She knew she had no choice.

She never, ever had a goddamned choice.

“I’m going,” she said, pushing the words out hard. Fast. “I have to go.”

Because she wasn’t sure she’d say them, otherwise. Hunter was the most tempting thing she’d ever seen, stretched out on that couch of his, the stark whiteness of it calling only more attention to what a perfect specimen he was. As if he’d been carved from marble, gilded in bronze. His eyes were still bluer than all the California days she’d ever seen, and they were lazy on hers now. Indulgent.

“Okay,” he said. He didn’t understand. “Where are you going? Also, you’re naked.”

“This is over,” she told him, aware that she sounded too stiff. Too awkward. “I’ve wanted revenge for over a decade, and we did it. But there’s no reason to continue this...” But she couldn’t think what to call it, and he was sitting up with that narrow look on his face, and she couldn’t seem to pull in a full breath. “I want to thank you, of course.”

“Don’t.”

“Don’t thank you?”

“Don’t do this.”

Zoe could tell he understood then, in the way he stared at her as if she was killing him. The way his voice came out, too dark and too rough.

“Besides,” she said, making herself sound cheerful, though she was afraid it came out psychotic, “you have the attention span of a gnat. Everyone knows it. I think you deserve a starlet or two after all your hard work, don’t you?”

“And don’t pretend this is about me.”

Zoe couldn’t look at him anymore. She found the royal blue dress she’d worn to the law firm in a heap at the bottom of the spiral stair, and felt better once she’d pulled it on. She’d taken down a monster in this dress. She could survive this last battle, too.

“I love you,” he said again.

But that was impossible.

“No,” she said, clipped and certain. “You don’t.”

She hadn’t seen him move, and now he was standing there right in front of her, pissed off and hurt and she hated this. She hated that she couldn’t reach out the way she wanted to do. She couldn’t have this. She couldn’t have him.

Zoe was furious with herself that she’d pretended otherwise, when she knew. She’d always known.

“You can run out of here naked if you want,” Hunter gritted at her. “I won’t stop you. I won’t make you do something you don’t want to do, Zoe. Ever. I meant that.” His face went fierce, and that made her feel soft and tremulous inside. “But don’t you fucking tell me what I feel.”

“You don’t know what he did to me,” she threw at him. “You have no idea what I did. How many times I did it. What happened to me.”

“You did what you had to do to survive,” he said flatly. “Do you really think I’m going to blame you for that?”

“Maybe not now. But you will. It’s inevitable.”

“There isn’t a single thing you could tell me that would make me want you less,” Hunter told her, his voice hoarse and those blue eyes so intent on hers. “Not one thing.”