“You thought?”
“That if I told you about my past, it would confirm everything horrible you’d ever thought about me.” Her voice grew smaller with each word, like she was realizing how fucking stupid they were.
My rage pulsed harder. It leaked from my veins and spread into my chest, hollowing it out until nothing else remained.
Half of it was directed at Max for what he did to Jules.
The other half…
Breathe.
“I see.” No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t summon an ounce of warmth. My blood had iced into one solid, painful pool, and I was afraid any movement would crack it. Splinter it into a thousand icicles that would shred me open from the inside out. “So why are you telling me now?”
“I didn’t want to lie to you anymore. I never wanted to lie to you, but I...” Jules took a deep breath and straightened her shoulders. “I wanted us to have a fresh start. No more secrets or lies.”
“I see,” I repeated. The cold in my chest intensified. “I forgive you.”
She faltered, her face twisting with confusion at the contrast between my words and my chilly tone. “You do?”
“Yes.” I smiled. The movement felt strange, like I was contorting my mouth into a position it was no longer capable of. “Come here, Red.”
The nickname tasted bitter on my tongue.
After a moment’s hesitation, she stepped toward me.
Even with ashen skin and dark circles shadowing her eyes, she was the most beautiful, treacherous thing I’d ever seen.
I curled my hand around the back of her neck and rubbed a gentle thumb over her skin before I yanked her toward me and kissed her hard enough to draw a whimper of pain.
“That hurt?”
Jules shook her head, her muscles taut beneath my touch.
“Good.” I softened the kiss, soothing her lips with my tongue. “You shouldn’t have lied, Red,” I whispered. “You know I hate liars.”
I detected a soft tremble in her shoulders. “I know.”
“But you…” I dragged my mouth over the line of her jaw and down her neck. “You are so beautiful. So sweet beneath that prickly armor you wear. You know things about me no one else ever will.” I sank my teeth into the curve between her neck and shoulder. “How can I stay mad at you?”
Jules let out another whimper when my hand inched beneath her skirt and brushed over her pussy. For once, she wasn’t wet for me.
But we would change that.
I slipped my hand inside her underwear and caressed her until she flooded my fingers and her body melted into mine.
My movements were cold. Mechanical. I’d done them a million times, and I watched her mouth part in little moaning gasps with apathy.
My cock strained against my zipper, hard and angry. It was a physical reaction more than anything else, but it was the only part of me that still felt alive.
Jules was teetering on the edge of orgasm when I yanked my hand away.
“Get on your fucking knees.”
She jerked at my harsh tone, but after a second’s hesitation, she slowly sank to her knees without argument.
“Do you want this?” I tilted her chin up, forcing her eyes to meet mine. “Tell me if you don’t, Red. This is your last chance.”
Jules’s throat bobbed with a swallow. “I want this.”
I released her chin and tugged her head back with one hand while freeing my cock with the other. “Tap my thigh if you want me to stop.”
That was the only warning I gave her before I shoved myself down her throat. She gagged at the brutal invasion, her eyes welling with tears, but her hands remained planted in her lap.
I gripped her hair with both hands and fucked her mouth, deeper and deeper until the obscene sound of my balls slapping against her chin mixed with her choked gurgling.
My jaw clenched as I stared down at her. The sight of her kneeling before me, tears and mascara running down her cheeks while she choked on my cock, sent an irrational wave of fury through me.
I closed my eyes and tipped my head back. That turned out to be a mistake, because the minute I did, unwanted memories banged through my brain.
Vermont. The clinic. Hyacinth. The picnic. Ohio.
Every puzzle piece that shaped our relationship into what it was now, tainted.
It wasn’t about the size of Jules’s lies. I didn’t give two fucks about a stupid painting and some gadgets. It was about trust.
All I’d ever wanted was honesty, and all I’d ever gotten was deception.
Tension knifed through my gut.
I opened my eyes and yanked my cock out of Jules’s mouth. Sweat coated my skin, and my heart drummed a painful rhythm in my chest.
She was a mess—hair tousled, mouth swollen, cheeks streaked with tears. She stared up at me, those huge hazel eyes saying words I didn’t want to hear.
“Get on all fours.”
I couldn’t bring myself to look at her, but even when I fucked her from behind, images of her seared through my brain.
The glint of her hair in the sunlight. The fire that sparked in her eyes when she insulted me. The softness of her palm against mine and the way her mouth tilted up just a fraction higher on the right when she smiled.
Pressure suffocated my chest.
Jules was close to coming. I could hear it in the way she breathed and feel it in the way she squeezed around me.
It was funny how sometimes, I was attuned to her every movement, and other times, I didn’t know her at all.
I leaned down until my mouth hovered next to her ear. “Remember when I said I forgive you?” I reached around to pinch her clit. “I lied.”
Jules’s orgasm hit her at the same time my words did. She gasped out a half sob, half moan while I came right after her.
The empty release did nothing to ease the pressure behind my ribcage.
I disentangled myself from her and stood. She slumped forward on the ground, her dress bunched around her waist, her shoulders shaking with soft cries.
“How does it feel to be lied to, Jules?” The raw, angry words sounded like they came from someone else. Someone crueler than I ever thought I could be. “Doesn’t feel good, does it?”
The ice in my veins had melted. I was drowning from the inside out, and part of me wanted to give in, sink beneath the surface, and never come back up.
Michael. Alex. Jules.
Three of the people I trusted most all stabbed me in the back. Michael and Alex’s betrayals hurt, but Jules...she knew how fucked up I was from what happened with the others.
Intellectually, I understood her reasoning for not telling me earlier. Emotionally, I couldn’t stop the hurt from poisoning every memory of us.
Careful, Red. Keep saying things like that, and I might never let you go.
You’re one of the few people I trust...even when we couldn’t stand each other, I could always count on you to be honest with me.
Heat blazed across my cheeks.
I was a fucking idiot.
Jules pushed herself off the ground and faced me. Giant blotches of red bloomed across her face and neck. She’d stopped crying, but her breaths sounded abnormally loud and shallow in the silence.
“It seems only fitting for us to end things with a goodbye fuck.” A cruel smile slashed across my mouth. The unyielding pressure had crawled up my throat, and it took twice as much effort to get my words out. “At least you got an orgasm out of it, so don’t say I never gave you anything. I’ll miss that tight pussy of yours though. No one takes my cock better than you do. It’s your best quality.”