When I fell back to earth, our breathing had synced. Sweat began to cool my skin. As our fingers were still linked, David was still inside me, securing his collapsed weight to me.
He drew back and smoothed his hands over my hairline, brushing the strands from my face. He kissed the place the hair had been, then my cheek and neck, lingering with each contact. “I have never,” he whispered into my neck, “nevercome that fast. You drive me wild.”
Gently, he pulled out of me, threw the condom on the ground, and sat back on his knees. The world slowed when I got up to face him. A heavy pit formed in my stomach as we watched each other.
I’d done it. I’d fucked another man.
I’d broken my vows and the trust that had been put in me.
And I’d used the advice of a dead woman who wasn’t even six feet under to justify it.
I looked down at my naked body, opening my adulterous hands. My face contorted as tears threatened. I’d had opportunity after opportunity to walk away, yet I’d fallen so easily into David’s arms. How could I have used Davena to defend my weakness? She never would’ve told me to cheat. She’d be so disappointed.
I shook my head and covered my face, trying desperately to hide from David what was coming. “No,” I whispered into myself.
“Olivia, don’t,” David pleaded.
I lifted myself from the bed. I had to get away now, or I’d never be able to leave his warmth.
But with my first couple steps, my trembling legs buckled, and I sank to the ground.
“No,” I wailed as the truths I’d been fighting washed over me. Davena was truly gone. I hadn’t even said good-bye. Mack had lost the love of his life. I’d made a mockery of my own marriage and had crossed a line I could never come back from. I’d given David more than I ever had my husband, and even as regret descended, I wanted to stay in David’s bubble. “What have I done?”
My entire body shuddered with sobs as I folded over my knees. Tears spilled from my hands and disappeared on the floor. Coarse wood dug into my shins and elbows until David’s immense hands grasped my shoulders, drawing me up. When I was on my feet, he turned me to him, hugging me tightly as I shook.
“I’m here,” he whispered feverishly. “Let me in. Let me help.”
“You can’t.” Despair squeezed my chest, making its way up to my throat. “I don’t know what you think you see in me, but I’m not that.”
He placed his hands on both sides of my head, clearing the hair from my tear-streaked face. “I see a girl who wants to let go.”
His words struck something buried deep inside, and I shook my head harder, stepping back without breaking eye contact. “I’m not that. I don’t want that,” I said, pressing my palm forcefully against my chest. “I’m empty inside, David, and I did that to myself. You don’t understand. There’s nothing left to give.” That was why I’d built the life I had. I’d already opened my heart as wide as it would go, and it wasn’t enough. David deserved a woman who held nothing back. “I’m too fucked up. And you . . . oh, God. You’re sobeautiful.”
Confessing my ever-present void knocked the breath from me. David had a way of drawing out my closely guarded secrets, charming them from me like poisonous snakes.
David looked equally horrified. I didn’t know what to see in the way he stared at me. I only knew that I’d finally managed to drive him away, but not soon enough.
The damage was already done.
26
Iexpected David to release me. To make some excuse about having to work early while gathering my things and ushering me back into the night. Instead, he grabbed me to him, kissed me with a heated fury, and picked me up, urging all my limbs around him. Grasping the nape of my neck, his fingers digging into my skin, he charged forward. My back hit cold plaster as he knocked against a nightstand, overturning a lamp.
“I need you,” he said through gritted teeth, adjusting my weight with his hips, already hard as stone between us. I flattened my palms and upper back against the wall as he stepped back, my legs still clinging to him, took himself in his free hand, and sank into me without checking to see if I was ready. He slid in easily, but I gasped from the unexpected and delicious feel of his rock-hard and unsheathed cock inside me.
He thrust hard and fast, bouncing me against the wall with his urgency. “You feel so good.” He caught my lips in a furious kiss. “Fuck.”
He slipped his arms under mine and covered each of my shoulders, bringing me down onto him harder, going so deep that my ass slapped against his scrotum. I grasped vainly at his slick back, trying to hold on as he continued to buck.
My insides seized with each naked plunge, bringing me quickly to the edge. I threw my head against the wall and winced.
“Shit.” He backed us away.
“It’s fine,” I said, panting. “I’m close. Don’t stop.” I buried my face in his neck as he rounded the bed and stopped at his nightstand. He bent over, cradling my back so I wouldn’t fall, and I gasped with new awareness of how deep he was. He drew back to kiss me quickly on the lips, reached into the top drawer, and pulled out a condom. He stuck the packet in his mouth and tore it open.
Still dangling from his body, I gave him an exaggerated pout. He looked me evenly in the eyes and pulsed his hips once with a groan. My lips parted for a sharp breath.
“I can’t wait to come inside of you,” he said, kissing the underside of my jaw, “once you’re officially mine.”
