It’s urgency without tenderness, contact that is less about pleasure and more about rage. The risk of the unlocked door pushes everything sharper, faster, brighter.
I hurt him in the worst way possible. I don’t deserve to feel this good. Never again. But I can’t stop myself either.
I love him too much.
I hate myself for what I did, and yet I can’t tell my body no. The pleasure swells and erupts, like that guilt is my own personal G-spot that he’s stroking with his anger. Damian feels it—he joins me over that edge, shooting deep inside me.
When he finally stills, forehead pressed between my shoulder blades, I feel the tremor in him. He’s not calm. He’s barely contained.
For one terrible second, I wonder if this is how he says goodbye.
24
DAMIAN
The lights burn overhead,indifferent to what just happened beneath them. The mirror throws our reflections back at us—flushed, disheveled, breathing hard. My tie is crooked. Her lipstick is gone. The peachy fabric of her dress sits slightly wrinkled where my hands were.
We stand there, sweaty, sated, confused. She doesn’t speak. Neither do I.
The music from the reception filters faintly through the walls—bass vibrating through tile, laughter cresting and breaking like a distant tide. It sounds like it belongs to another building entirely. Another life.
Father. The word sits in me not as shock but as weight.
Fatheragain. At forty-five.
I straighten slowly, but I don’t step away from her. My body is still keyed up, adrenaline and something darker braided tight in my veins. What just happened was not careful. It was not planned. It was not wise.
It was a reaction. A stupid one.
The silence stretches long enough to become fragile. But there’s been enough fragility between us, and I can’t stand it any longer, so I break the silence. “I don’t know what to say.” The honesty tastes strange in my mouth.
Her expression is no longer defiant or braced. It’s open in a way that unsettles me more than her secrecy did. “I didn’t expect you to,” she says quietly. Her voice doesn’t tremble.
That makes it worse somehow.
I step back from the counter and adjust my jacket automatically, a reflex I’ve had since residency—restore order externally when the interior is in chaos. She smooths her dress with her hands. Her hairstyle remains intact.
“You should have told me,” I say again, but the anger is muted now. Quieter somehow. Like fucking her took the edge off.
It’s an illusion. I know that. There is no taking the edge off of this.
She nods once. “I know.”
“I would have…” I stop. Would have what? Handled it? Left? Stayed? Panicked?
I don’t know. That’s the problem.
I move to the sink and turn the faucet on, splashing water over my hands though they don’t need washing. Cold helps. It sharpens thought. The shock against my skin is grounding in a way the room is not.
Private practice. The phrase resurfaces.
I’ve been researching it for weeks. Running numbers. Reviewing office spaces. Imagining autonomy without hospital politics and Meron’s hovering and Amber’s proximity.
I thought it was about independence. Now it feels like inevitability. Starting over at forty-fucking-five. Two newborns. A woman I love, who chose fear over trust.
I shut the faucet off. The room feels smaller than it did five minutes ago. I have to tell her the truth, even if she’s been neglecting the courtesy for months. “You understand this changes everything.”
She swallows. “Yes.”
