He jerks his head. As quick as it came, the fury is gone. A look of horror replaces it, like he just realized how disproportionate of a reaction that was. Losing his shit because I forgot for a moment to use his nickname?
He drops his head, burying it in the curve of my neck. I hear him mutter a string of curses before he slowly, slowly starts to move again. “No. Lucy,no. I’m sorry. You don’t have to be sorry because you didn’t do anything wrong. Idid. I’m sorry.”
Dallas matches his gentle thrusts to the heat in each repeated apology. And I know, without knowing how thanks to my missing memories, that he might just be as broken as I am.
“It’s okay,” I tell him as he continues to fuck me, and this time, I think I might be the one who is lying.
SIXTEEN
OPEN UP
DALLAS
For a moment, I think she’s going to pretend it didn’t happen. God, I hope that’s what she does. The mirror is fogged with our breath, her fingerprints smeared across the glass where she braced herself while I made her watch us.
Watchme.
Watch the way she moved against me like her body remembers something her mind doesn’t, and it can be just me and Lucy and no one else.
For a moment, I think we’re okay, that she’s going to look past the way I lost my fucking shit all because she murmured the name of another man while I was inside of her.
It’s not her fault. How can it be? She doesn’t know better. I had to introduce myself to her as Julian when I first told her I was her husband. I had no other choice. After the patient advocate, her care team, and the cops confirmed that she was Lucy Wright—because, oh, something as simple as fingerprinting wouldn’t work when shit like that wasn’t done in Harmony Heights unless you get caught outside of it doing something you shouldn’t—all through her phone, it would take aquick look through online records to see that she was married to Julian Fairchild.
I was lucky that she didn’t question it when I gave her my real surname instead of his. Julian, though… she believed that was my name, and until right now, she’s never used it so I figured I was safe.
I never expected she would whimper it while I was fucking her—or that it would be a trigger that set me off. Something inside of me snapped, and I did everything I could not to take it out on her. I wouldn’t hurt her. Irefuseto hurt her, but damn… did it do a number on my heart to hear her call his name.
She told me to go ahead. That, for the moment, we could drop the subject, then talk about it later. I was still throbbing inside of her, Lucy up on the tips of her toes so that she could take me, and though you’d think that would’ve been enough for me to lose my hard-on, it wasn’t. She could still feel me stretching her out, and determined to please me even though I know I scared her, she bent over enough to entice me to finish.
And I did.
Idid.
She didn’t.
Gripping her hips, holding her place as I fucked her, hoping that she could feel the apology caught in my throat in the way that I dug my fingers into her skin, pinning her in place, chasing the high that had been within our reach mere moments ago… I fucked her and I came, and only after I slowed my rhythm to passive thrusts as she accepted every drop I had did I realize that—for the first time ever with Lucy—I finished before she even orgasmed once.
Feeling like a world-class jackass, I immediately offered to focus on her until she got some, too. Did she want me to fuck her with my semi? Finger her, using my come as lube? Eat her out again? She found it scandalously wicked the first time that Ieased on her back and ate my own jizz out of her pussy before making her come on my face. I begged her to let me do it now, but Lucy…shit. Lucy just stepped away from me, using her trembling fingers to smooth her nightie back down over her hips before she stumbled away from me on weak legs.
And I know then that I fucked up again, and no matter how much I hoped she’s look right past my freak-out, she’s not ready to do that. She still let me come first, but now that I have, she needs her distance.
How do I know that? Because, without even meeting my eyes, she stares down at the floor and murmurs, “I’m going to go take a shower.”
The words are so quiet, they break my motherfucking heart.
I swallow roughly. “Okay. I’ll come with you. Scrub your back for you.”
“No, thank you. I’ve got it.”
“Lucy—”
She doesn’t answer me. She just shakes her head slowly before walking out of the room.
Mom’s room.
I haven’t been in here since the day I put the urn on top of the dresser and closed the door behind me. I know that the cleaning lady that Jack hired would come in here weekly to dust—otherwise it would’ve been too much of a closed-in mess for me to bring Lucy in here—but I put her on leave as soon as I knew that I was bringing Lucy home with me. I’ve been paying her anyway, but I told Louise that I had a new guest that I wanted to be comfortable. Once she was used to the penthouse, I would love for her to resume my duties. It hasn’t been a month yet, not long enough to get too dirty so long as I send our laundry out to be done, and I don’t even think that Lucy noticed that this room was more of a shrine than an extra guestroom.
But that’s what it was. Up until I brough Lucy in here to show her Mom’s mirror and ended up losing control long enough to fuck Lucy in front of it is, that is…
