“Some sort of…hate-fuck, I suppose.”
“Ah.” There was a glint now in his gaze. “You think I hate you, Eleanor?”
“Don’t you?”
“Mm,” he hummed. “I’ll let you decide.”
CHAPTER FIVE
sully
FOR ONE MINUSCULE MOMENT in time, everything was perfect.
Her eyes grew wide as I thrust inside her hot, tight body, and the world stopped spinning. It was just Eleanor and me in a world of crisp sheets and white bed linens, soft sighs and summer highs, and I wanted to stay here forever.
It was so very overwhelming—to go from being so distant, from feeling that distance in my fucking bones…to being inside her, to feeling hereverywherelike this.
I’d spent all night watching her from afar because I hadn’t known how to be near her again, but then the minute we’d been forced in that elevator together, the second we’d touched…I’d been consumed by the unending need to have her again.
But I didn’t have her—not fully.
Ellie’s eyes shut. Suddenly. Like she didn’t want me to see how much this was affecting her. It was almost comical, the way she thought she could hide from me. As if I didn’t know every single part of this woman.
Because fuck the idea that she’d changed, that she’d become an entirely new person that I didn’t recognize. She might have put on ridiculous lacy underwear that I’d never seen before. Shemight have become someone who packed an entire box of condoms for work trips—condoms that would likely take years off my life when I thought about how they were meant for someone else. She might have cut her bangs a little shorter, and her hips might have more curves to them, but I’d always recognize her. Always see her for what she was. Always know what she needed, and tonight was no different.
She wanted to rationalize this. She wanted to fuck, but do it from a distance, like maybe if she didn’t feel me fully, the impact of my absence afterward wouldn’t hit as hard.
Call me an ass, call me whatever the fuck you want, but I badly needed her to wake up tomorrow morning with the imprints of my fingertips still on her skin and a deep, lingering ache from having me inside her. I wanted—no, needed—the memories of tonight to be just as raw for her as they would be for me.
I pulled back and then drove my hips harder against her, sinking further into the woman I’d thought I was going to marry.
Fuck,this was…everything.
Ellie’s eyes flew open.
Finally.
“Sully,” she whined, desperate for something. More of me, less of me—it was hard to say. But that wasn’t what I was concerned about at the moment.
“Eleanor.” I shook my head, staring down at her. “If I wanted to hear someone moan that name, I could have found another pussy to bury myself in over the years.” I jerked my hips, and Ellie’s jaw dropped, eyes rolling before quickly finding me again. She could pretend all she wanted that she wasn’t always going to find me again, somehow, but I knew the truth. “Let me hear you cry my name, and say the right one this time.”
She made a whimpering sound in the back of her throat, like she was anticipating what was about to come next, and I struggled to keep the slight smirk off my face when I pulled back and thrust even deeper into her sweet, perfect body.
“Sawyer,” she gasped. “Oh my God, I?—”
Ellie broke off with a groan, and all I could do was succumb to the full-body shivers that trickled down my spine as I repeated the motion, needing more of her—of everything.
“That’s better, baby,” I breathed. “That’s so much better.”
A softness appeared around the corners of her eyes, and I instinctively dropped my head lower. But then the panic appeared. Like she realized I might kiss her and wasn’t sure if she wanted that. I turned hollow inside, like my heart and lungs and everything that made me a living being ceased to exist.
She thought that I hated her, but the only thing I hated was how hard she kept trying to avoid reality, avoid me. Like me, she’d spent the night walking on eggshells around the party, strategically placing herself across the yard from wherever I was, avoiding my eye contact. And then in the elevator, she was forced to look at me. Forced toseeme for the first time in years, and it felt like I could breathe again.
But now she was retreating again. I was so deep inside her but still so far away. Fuck, it was crushing. Ellie waskillingme. I felt a part of me actively dying, but I couldn’t stop, wouldn’t have any clue how. Because this was also the closest thing to euphoria I’d ever experience again. Touching her, feeling her, getting to look at her like this. I’d sacrifice everything for this.
Which was good because it felt like that was exactly what I was doing.
It was an addiction. She wasmyaddiction. And I knew the second I pulled out when this was over, that I’d never, ever be free from her. I’d still feel the ghostly sensation of Eleanor Summers all around me.
