Page 12 of Palingenesis

My stomach twists and my hands shake.

This isn’t the first time Henry has assumed or accused me of doing exactly what he practically parades around in front of my face. So long as I don’t mention it, he gets what he wants, and I get to suffer.

I didn’t do anything wrong.

Hell, I’m not even insecure enough to have cared that he shared his body with others so long as his heart belonged to me.

And yet, as he commands the space on the other side of my desk, I can’t stop the knowing from creeping in.

So many words stick to my tongue, every nasty thing I’ve squashed down for three fucking years bubbling to the surface. I know that I should just keep quiet and swallow them like I always do. It’ll be over sooner so long as I do.

But I can’t.

“Like that’s not exactly what you’ve done?” I shoot back evenly and push to my feet. “Unlike you, I can have a friend I’m not sleeping with.”

The vein pops in his forehead and I know I’ve struck a cord I can’t backpedal from.

“You think you know, do you?” he hisses through the tick in his jaw. “What it takes to do this shit with you?” He rounds the desk, cornering me. “Feeding you, putting this roof over your fucking head and fulfilling your needs.” The smile that splits his lips is anything but friendly as he crowds me, his shouts getting louder, and my stomach drops out.

We’ve gone rounds before, slinging insults and verbal shit back and forth until one of us concedes. Enough that I knew I should have kept my mouth shut.

But as he steps into my space, close enough that I feel his chest pressing into mine, I know that this time is different.

“If you were so desperate for dick, all you had to do was ask.”

“I’m not sleeping with him,” I growl, my heart thumping hard in my chest when his hands land on my hips. I smack them away, only for him to grab me somewhere else. “He’s just a friend from town.”

Even I can hear the defensives in my voice.

He scoffs and yanks me away from the desk despite my wriggling, manhandling me until he’s pressed against my back. “Sure, he is.”

Rough fingers tug at the waistband of my shorts, and though I fight to keep them on, he manages to rip them off. Ass exposed, he shoves until my face smacks into the surface of the desk.

“Godsdammit, Henry.”

I swing an arm out in defense, sending one of my monitors crashing into the wall.

“Shut up, Shannon. I’m only giving you what you want.”

He kicks at my feet apart, then pins me to the desk with a strong grip on my dominant hand.

Pushing back, bucking against his hold only lands me a solid, stinging slap across my ass that leaves me howling. My spine arching. Skin burning.

“Henry,” I plead desperately, tears burning my eyes. “I’m sorry. Let's just go to bed, okay? To the room and I can go down on you just how you like it. Please.”

“Please, Henry,” he mocks and strokes something blunt down my crease, stopping at my hole. “I didn’t mean it. Please, please, please fuck me is all I heard.”

He presses against me, ignoring the resistance that meets him, and pushes harder.

Forcing myself to relax, I think back to the stillness in front of the fountain, and breathe through the pain when he breaches me, his cock bare and mostly dry.

It fucking hurts.

Yet all I can do is lay there and take it. Watching my bookshelf as my body bounces to the cadence of his hips through the fog building in my eyes.

This isn’t what I wanted. At least, not like this.

But as I stare at the spines of books I’ve written, stung by the slap of his skin against mine, I can’t help but think that maybe he was right: True love is a fairytale for the naïve.