This feels like an ending.
“Vivienne.” Nate pulls back from my lips with my name on his tongue. Only it’s laced with hurt. Deep-rooted pain. All thingsI wish I could erase with the three words on the tip of my tongue.
They’d been circling my mind for a long time.
He asked me, “Where do we go from here?”that night in the hotel room. And it’s only when I froze up that he suggested something more casual.
Go with the flow.
Is that why he’s acting this way? Did I not make it clear enough that I like this man more than anything? Could we go back to normal if I told him how I felt and overcame my fear of losing the people I care about?
A large hand circles the back of my neck, drawing me closer, while the other kneads my breast till I’m left wanton and grinding against his rock-hard cock.
I arch against his touch when he pulls me closer by the hip, giving him just enough access for him to latch onto my jaw. He sucks and nibbles on the delicate skin. Hard. Feverishly. And it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that he’ll inevitably leave a mark.
“You’re going to leave a mark.” The words leave me on a sigh, my eyes rolling to the back of my head from the pleasure.
“I know.” Nate leans back, gaze strained on the area before resuming his attack. “I need to leave you something to remember me by.”
I’m slowly unraveling—from bliss, from pain. And I want to scream—scream at the world for the cruelty of it all. For making me believe in happy endings once again. I thought I could have that with Nate. I thought I was going to make it past my fear of admitting my feelings to him and finally come clean.
Clearly, I’d been fed a lie, and those may not exist after all.
Instead, the only scream I let out is Nate’s name on my lips.
“Mission accomplished,” he says as he leaves another mark right above my collarbone. Then on my breast. And finally, on myheart.
Like he hadn't already left his mark there long ago.
I gasp when Nate pulls back from my skin with a loud pop, a crazed look to his eyes as he admires his work. My hands instinctively go to the places where the purplish marks stand.
Tender skin.
Broken blood vessels.
Fragile heart.
He tore down its cage one steel beam at a time, wrapped it in fuzzy blankets, and put it back in. He left me with nothing to protect myself, showed me he could do that for me, and now he’s the one tearing apart what he helped rebuild.
I’d like to say he’s ruined me for other men, but the truth is, there never was, and never will be.
It’s only ever been Nate Archer.
I take in a sharp breath when the tip of his cock teases my entrance. My hand grasps onto his steely length, squeezing hard and eliciting a low groan from him as I line him up with my cunt.
Nate looks me in the eyes, and I look into his—nose tingling and tear ducts on the verge of betraying me. I’m at a loss for words, a loss of hope for where our future might take us. And at this moment, I only pray that my body shows what my mouth won’t say.
Please stay.
Please don’t leave me.
I’ve lost enough people in my life.
I lo—
I slowly sink onto his length, staring into his eyes to see a similar pain reflected in his own.
He groans. I gasp. And I move. Slowly.
