All I wanted was him.
All he needed was me.
Sex.
The rawest link that could come with the strongest of love or the most painful of hate.
Gil had suffered both.
His body had been used against him. My heart had been used against me.
I was in the wrong to do this, but he followed me into despair because that was all our future held. Despair and complication.
Our kiss turned far too hungry.
Our patience snapped.
“Fuck, O.” Breathing hard, he tore his fingers out of me. “You’re trying to make me hate you. But you’re only making me want you more.” He hauled me up, imprisoning me against the cupboards. “You’re it for me. Always were.” The tip of his cock nudged my entrance.
I sucked in a breath as he swallowed a curse. Pain etched his features, his healing side adding another element of torture.
Our eyes locked and held.
Glowing and wild. Hungry and hurting.
“You’re mine. You always will be.” His voice sucked shadows from the room, a vow of irrefutable possessiveness.
And then, he thrust.
One.
Thick.
Long.
Blistering thrust.
One second, we were separate, the next, we were joined.
We froze.
Panting and moaning, stripped to our most basic core.
We looked at each other as if we couldn’t quite believe what’d happened. Shaking against the crack of our hearts and the thunder of our souls.
Every joining felt like this.
Like the earth shattered and the skies cried and the only place we belonged was with each other.
He was right.
We are a curse.
Softness slipped between our passion, covering me with goosebumps and the poems I hadn’t wanted. His gaze whispered that he would never let me go, even though he would always do what I asked. His cock throbbed with fury that I belonged to him, even while he accepted that he’d lost me.
All of that emotion. All of that pain.
It punched us in the chest and we buckled beneath it.
His hips rocked.
He broke the spell.
And I was immensely grateful.
Clinging to his shoulders, I bowed into his control.
And he began to move.
To fuck me.
To eradicate the agonising moment we’d shared.
His mouth captured mine, his hands held me prisoner, his hips were the polar opposite of his lovesick gaze, punishing me, pistoning quick and deep inside.
Wordlessly, he fucked me exactly like I wanted.
He ignored his injury and showed no mercy.
He treated me with no kindness.
The countertop wedged into my spine.
My breasts bounced.
My core clenched.
And an orgasm spindled out of nowhere.
I kissed him violently.
He kissed me brokenly.
We rode each other as if the world would end in twenty-eight heartbeats.
I didn’t try to slow it down.
I didn’t nurse the idea that this was it.
That I’d made this happen because I wasn’t strong enough to hear his secrets after weeks of begging to know.
I was weak.
But this made me strong.
This is goodbye.
“More. Gil, more. More!” I dug my nails into his neck, riding him as he rode me, our skin slicked with sweat. Pain radiated in his eyes. Agony lived in his kisses. And the finality of farewell added a sharper, sinister flavour to our release.
Thrust.
Thrust.
Thrust.
I exploded.
My insides ricocheted with broken bliss.
He roared into my mouth with fractured feeling.
We shivered and convulsed in each other’s arms.
And then, his phone rang.
Ring.
Ring.
Ring.
A sense of déjà vu struck me. Whenever something momentous happened between us, the phone always managed to ruin it.
At least this time, there was nothing to ruin.
I’d done that.
And it was over.
Gil winced as he pulled out of me, his cock glistening and angry. Hoisting his jeans up, he pressed a hand against his injured side, and ripped his phone from his back pocket. Breathing hard, his face lined with fear. “Shit.” Pressing accept, he held it to his ear, his eyes locking onto mine. “Justin. What’s up?” His breathing was tattered and torn.
The faint voice of Justin echoed in the silence.
Gil’s cum trickled down my inner thigh.
I made no move to dress. No move to hide.
“Okay, I’ll rush back straight away. Tell her I’m coming. I’ll be as fast as I can.” Gil hung up, shoving his phone where it belonged and buckling his belt. “I have to go.”
“I understand.”
“Olive woke up. She expected to see me but found Justin instead. She’s broken down and barricaded herself in her room crying.” He backed toward the door. “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s fine. Go to her. I hope she’s okay.”
“Will you be okay?” His eyes cast down my nakedness, focusing on the remnants of the explosive, hurried sex we’d shared.
I nodded, forcing a smile. “I’ll be fine.”
Unlocking the door, he paused as he opened it. “I don’t feel right leaving you like this.”
“You don’t have a choice.”
“But...this. What happened between us—”
“Was closure.”
He winced. “Closure? That wasn’t fucking closure, O. That was...I don’t know what that was.” He raked a hand through his hair. “Most of it was way too fast and sudden, and I feel guilty as fuck for taking you when we should’ve talked, but it’s far from over. We’re not done here. Not by a long shot.”
“We are. We have to be.”
He stalked toward me, his hands fisting by his sides. “And if I don’t want this to be over?”
I hugged my breasts, cursing the goosebumps covering me. “It’s already happened.”
“It hasn’t. Nothing’s happened apart from the realisation that I was wrong to stay away. I thought I was doing the right thing letting you walk out of my life, but fuck, it was totally the wrong thing. I’ll do whatever you need to make you trust in this, trust in me. I’m not going to quit, O. I’m going to fight to keep you—”
“I don’t belong to you, Gil.” I rested my hand on the door handle, growing weaker by the second.
This was what I wanted.
This was what I needed.
I needed him to fight for me.
To prove he cared above everything.
Above court dates and murder trials and a life he might have to abandon.
But just because I was cruel to need his undying declarations didn’t mean they’d throw me back into his arms.
He wasn’t mine.
He was Olive’s.
And soon he’d be locked out of my reach.
If we didn’t choose for this to end now, his prison sentence would do it for us.
His face waged battle between calm and furious. “I’ll come back. We’ll talk about this. Talk about everything.”
“No.” I locked my knees from trembling. His body still summoned mine. The crackle of electricity, the sharp serenade of desire. Even though we’d just had sex, the lust between us never died.
And that was why this had to end.
Now.
Here.