Tears leak down my cheeks. “You know why.”
“Do I?” he barks, and I flinch back. His eyes soften and he steps forward, bending down to kiss my forehead. “I’m sorry.”
“Please, you have to believe me.”
“I can’t, I’m sorry,” he tells me, stepping back. “I think it’s time I go. It’s clear you don’t want me.”
My stomach rolls as he walks toward the door, and for a moment, I think I might let him go. Then his hand touches the handle and something inside of me snaps. I rush forward, slamming the door shut. My pulse races as panic claws at my chest.
I can’t lose him.
He’s my chance at a happily ever after, even if we do have to work at it. He isn’t what I expected, I’ll admit it, but that could be fear talking. Fear of taking the next step.
“Don’t go,” I plead, my voice hoarse.
He lets out a heavy sigh. “Give me a reason to stay.”
I rise to my tiptoes and press my lips to his, then grip the back of his neck and deepen the kiss, like he taught me.
He’s been my first in so many things. And he has been patient.
“Charlotte,” he groans, pushing me away at arm’s-length. “I’m not doing foreplay again.”
With a nervous flutter in my stomach and a ball in my throat, I reply. “I want more too.”
He arches an eyebrow. “You aren’t going to pull back?”
Biting my lip, I shake my head. “No,” I answer. “Please don’t leave.”
He grins, and suddenly his mood changes and I’m being swung into the air. I wrap my arms around him, laughter spilling from my lips.
This is the right thing.
Love takes work.
And we are going to work on it.
The floorboards creak under him, and with each step he takes toward my bedroom, the harder my heart hammers.
This is what I want.
It is.
The words are a chant in my mind, and as we reach the bedroom, everything becomes a blur. I no longer feel like I’m in my body, or in control of what is going on. It’s like I’m not present, just going through the motions.
He strips me of my clothes, his lip curling as he throws the jumper to the side.
Once I’m down to my underwear, I begin to feel self-conscious and curl my arms over my stomach. When we did stuff before, we were under the sheets and I always left one or the other on when it came to my knickers and bra.
But this is what I want.
I close my eyes, chanting it inside my head as he lies me down on the bed, ridding me of my underwear. My lashes flutter open when I feel him shift off the bed, and I watch as he begins to strip out of his own clothes, his eyes hooded as he gazes down at me.
This is what I want.
I’ve read about a woman’s first time in romance books. It hurts at first, but the guy is always gentle, always takes care of them.
Scott will take care of me.
He’s always saying he will take care of me.
A flush covers my entire body as he looms over me, manoeuvring between my thighs. He rolls a condom on, grinning at me.
“This wasn’t so hard, was it?”
My pulse races as he kisses me, and when he pulls back, I smile. “I love you.”
He doesn’t say it back. He never does. He says he doesn’t need to tell me because he shows me.
This is what I want.
The sharp sting from the penetration has my back bowing off the bed. I squeeze my eyes shut, crying out as he rams inside of me again.
There was no warning.
There was no foreplay.
No gentleness.
No love.
This is what I want.
“Slow down,” I croak out.
He shoves his face into my neck, panting heavily. “I can’t. You’ve driven me crazy for months. Now it’s finally done, just enjoy it.”
“Please,” I cry out, the pain becoming unbearable. It’s more than a tear. I feel like I have been ripped open.
The books didn’t describe this, none of it.
Maybe you’re doing it wrong.
I reach for him, but he moves away, leaning up to look down at where we are joined.
“So fucking tight.”
He thrusts inside me harder, and each time he fills me to the hilt, he grunts, the sound like a knife to my soul.
This is what I want.
Tears gather in my eyes and the fight to make this special, to make this once in a lifetime milestone the best it can be, leaves me.
This isn’t how it was meant to be.
This isn’t what I want.
“Stop!” I croak out, trying to push him off. He grips my wrists, pinning them above my head, using them as leverage to slam harder inside me.
I cry out, and not with pleasure, but with pain. Each thrust feels like shards of glass entering me. There’s no lubricant, nothing.
Because this isn’t what I want.
“God, I’ve been dying to fuck you,” he growls. “A virgin. All the best girls are virgins.”
“Please, stop.”
His gaze meets mine, and his eyes harden. “The hard part is over. You’ll love it, you’ll see.”
I don’t love it.
“You’re hurting me, Scott. Please, please stop,” I plead, unable to keep the tremor from my voice.
“So close,” he rasps, ignoring me.
My head bangs against the bedframe and I stare at the tiny crack in the ceiling, imagining the love Amelia told me about, the love she found with Maddox.
I imagine a love like that and my heart tears in two.
This is never going to be like that.
Scott grunts before shifting his weight off me. He kisses my cheek and I feel him move off the bed. “Just going to have a shower to get the blood off me.”
Once I hear the bathroom door shut, I sit up, clutching the sheet to my chest, but not before catching sight of the blood between my thighs, the bed stained like I’ve started a period.
A sob catches in my throat. “That wasn’t what I wanted.”
I’m stupid. Naïve to believe. Gullible to love. I’m everything those school bullies said I was.
He didn’t stop.
A phone chimes from somewhere close by and I startle, my entire body shaking. Numbly, I slide my legs off the bed and glance around the floor, trying to find where the sound is coming from.
It’s Scott’s phone. He’s a private person and normally doesn’t let the thing out of his sight. Maybe if it’s important, he’ll leave.
I need him to leave.
Or at least, I think I do.
Is there any going back now? Do I want to go back?
Another sob catches in my throat.
What have I done?
As I reach for his jacket, the answer comes to me. I love him, or love the idea of loving him, but he doesn’t love me. No one in love could have treated someone like that. Something cold and metal falls to the floor as I pull his phone out and I bend down, picking up the gold-plated ring, before numbly turning to the phone in my other hand. The call ends, but the message on the screen has my heart stopping.
Sophia: Love you too. Will you be back home to put the kids to—
I don’t need to read the rest to know what it says.
He’s married.
I sit down on the edge of the bed, my vision blurring. I slept with a married man. A married man.
I love—loved a married man.