“Act like I am,” she said, trying to sound like she was confident in that request. “I mean it. Rail me so hard I see sound and taste colors.”
She rolled onto her stomach, even though the position left her feeling even more bare and exposed. It got the point across, she thought.
Tom put one hand on the back of her thigh and waited. Probably for her to say she was kidding.
“If you say so.” His tone wasn’t convinced, but he pulled her underwear over her hips and tossed them away. Her body felt like a taut wire, one filled with enough current to spark and ignite. Something was going to snap tonight, she was sure of it.
Tom put a palm against the hollow of her back and swept it down a few inches, but the movement was more soothing than authoritative. When he took a step closer and leaned over her, she thought he’d gotten on board with the idea, but then she felt his lips press tenderly against her shoulder as he curled his body around hers.
“Tom,” she warned him, heart aching.
“Don’t you want me to go down on you or something first?” he asked against her skin, letting her feel just the edge of his top teeth against the muscle in her neck. His hard cock pressed against the back of her thigh through his jeans, a lot more eager than the rest of him to do what she was asking.
“No,” she said, thinking that a little burn, a little imperfection,a little pain might trick her brain into thinking this wasn’t the same person she’d slept with hundreds of times. She risked a look back over her shoulder, saw that Tom’s expression was growing even more uncertain.
Tom’s lower lip pressed against his teeth as he slowly slid his hand up her back to tangle in the hair at her nape. He caught a handful of her curls in his fingers. Rose closed her eyes when he closed his fist, but her breath caught involuntarily at a firmer pull of his hand. He let go.
When she opened her eyes, Tom was half a step farther away. He shoved both hands into his pockets.
“I would pull your hair and spit in your mouth if you thought that was hot,” he said with shadowed eyes. “If I thought you actually wanted that, I’d do it. But if you’re asking me to pretend like I’m not in love with you, I don’t think I’m that good of an actor.”
Rose covered her face with her hands and curled her knees up to one side. This had been the worst idea she’d ever had. Why had she thought she could get away with this? This wasn’t her.
The mattress bounced as Tom lay down next to her, fingers gently trying to pry her hands away from her face.
“It just feels a little unhealthy,” he told her. He interwove his hands with hers, holding them tense between their bodies. “Different proposal. How about tonight we just do the things Iknowyou enjoy? I call you nothing but nice words, I’m allowed to kiss you whenever I feel like it, we both come, we both cry…and if you still want me to bruise your ass afterward, we do that tomorrow?”
“It won’t work,” Rose mumbled.
“Why not?” Tom laughed, the sound forced. “Babe, I know how itworks. I remember real well how itworks.”
“You can’t think we are going to have frilly, floofy, emotional sex. Like, we look into each other’s eyes and declare our undying love for each other from the missionary position? That sounds like a performance. Who are we trying to convince?”
“I mean, it doesn’t have to be cheesy or anything,” he said in a mildly incredulous tone. “But I think I could make you feelveryloved, in the right position.”
Rose made an unhappy noise in the back of her throat. Telling him felt much more exposing than bending over the mattress and asking for him to make it hurt a little, because it felt like asking for everything he hadn’t given her and could never go back in time and give her.
“I want you not to have been in love with me,” she said. “You weren’t. You aren’t. Stop saying you are.”
“That sounds like a real bad game, Rosie,” he said cautiously.
“I’m not trying to play a game. I don’t get it. Why you want to act like it was all flowers and romance. Or why you’re interested in that now. I’m not saying there was none of that ever, but we ended with you walking out of my life like it meantnothingto you.”
His dark eyes widened in surprise. “I didn’t walk. Youthrew me out—”
“We hadonefight, and after that you never came home again. You couldn’t treat someone you loved like that.”
Her body felt tight and trembly, because all the adrenaline and desire and anger were mixed up together with no outlet.She could have clawed the sheets or his shoulders, but he wouldn’t do just this one thing she’d asked of him.
“We don’t have to have been in love,” she said. “It’s fine that we weren’t. That’s why we got divorced. But that means we aren’t now either.”
She looked up at the ceiling, because the plan had been to get spectacularly laid, not to cry, and she didn’t want to deviate from the plan any more than necessary.
She heard Tom’s reluctant exhale as he propped himself up on an elbow. She flinched away from that and made a first move to roll over and start looking for her clothes. His hand on her shoulder pulled her back.
“No. You can’t go. Because here’s the thing, Rosie—I’m in love with you. I was always in love with you. We were in love. And I wish that meant we couldn’t ever hurt each other, but I think you know it doesn’t work like that. It doesn’t work like that for anyone. So, yeah. I treated you badly. But I always loved you.”
She tried to squirm away, but Tom kept his gentle grip on her wrists. Oh,nowhe was comfortable holding her down.
