I feel her getting closer, wetter, tighter. My hips pick up speed, and I thrust harder and deeper. Over and over, until she’s shuddering hard beneath. Her arms tighten around my neck and she’s breathing heavily, panting and moaning and still staring right into my eyes. The arch of her body intensifies, pleasure spirals through my body and I peak, white hot and sharp and like nothing I’ve felt before.
Her body softens, muscles loosen. Her legs slide down from around my waist and slip down my thighs. “That was intense,” she whispers.
I nod, not able to find the right words. It’s never been that intense for me with anyone else. I’ve never stared into someone’s eyes and felt that desperate need, that frenzied…it’s love, isn’t it? Not just the word love, but real…deep love. I love Claire Radcliffe. I always have, and goddamn, I always will.
Claire nuzzles into me, and emotionally and mentally exhausted, we both drift off to sleep in front of the fire.
I don’t know how long I’m asleep for, but when I wake the fire is burning lower, the skies outside are darker than before and Claire is no longer in my arms. She’s standing, facing opposite me in the kitchen looking inside one of the drawers. I don’t move. I don’t make a sound or call out to her. I just watch as she takes something—a paper or an envelope out of the drawer and tiptoe to where her coat is hanging and slips it into her pocket.
So, she found the accounts.
She’s not running to me and waking me up. She’s hiding them. She’s taking the money for herself—that’s all she wanted. She doesn’t want me. I’m a fool to think she did.
She’s no different than her mother.
My chest is on fire, my brain a twist of fury. I want to slam my fists through the walls of this shitty house. Do I give her a chance to tell me? What if she never does?
My entire body numbs.
I need to get myself away from all of this—my father’s money—this Montgomery-Radcliffe war. I want out. Fuck them all.
She slips back under the blankets and snuggles her warm body against mine, but I don’t wrap my hands around or pull her close like I did before. I’m a stone statue, boiling with rage under the surface, and the hardest thing I’ve ever hard to do is lie here still next to her and not crush her with the pain she’s caused. As soon as she’s back asleep, as soon as her breathing evens out, I’ll call Matteo. If his mother knew about our parents, maybe he knew or at least he’ll be discrete about this whole thing when I ask him to come get me. I don’t want my mother or Chloe knowing about any of this. He’s my oldest friend, I could trust him with my life. He could bring the snowmobiles in his truck and get us out of here. Then I would never have to see her again. If my father left any secret offshore accounts for her mother and she did find them, I hope Claire drowns in them.
