Jesus. “Yes.”
She’d never felt anything like it.
She stole another look at him as their bodies slammed together. God, he was gorgeous. Intense. There was something so erotic about having all that focus on her. Wes always made her feel like the one, the only, and it was a potent sensation, to feel like someone’s whole world.
Too soft. Now she was being too soft.
“Harder.”
The command made Wes groan. His hand came down again with more force.
The sting spread, like a crackle of electricity across her skin, and the burn of it focused her back in her body. No regrets. No past mistakes. Just Wes. Just her.
“Yes.” The cry came from somewhere deep inside her, a place she’d sealed over long ago.
She could feel the way her blood raced to the surface to meet his hand, knew that he was marking her, turning her skin pink.
“Again,” she begged.
This time, the smack landed on the other cheek, and she bit her lip as something dark and hot throbbed to life within her.
“Tell me you’re with me. Tell me you want this.”
Her voice was almost a sob. “I need this. I need you.”
Wes’s large hand landed between her shoulder blades, pushing her upper body into the mattress before tangling in her hair and pinning her there. The sting brought a smile to her face. She turned her head to draw in a shuddering breath. The comforter pressed into her cheek as he held her in place and drove deep inside her. She reveled in the way he dug his fingers into her hip as he sped the cadence of his thrusts.
Vivienne pushed back against him, chasing the rush that was building so quickly, afraid to lose the promise of benediction that was coursing through her.
The sound of them, the slap of flesh against flesh filled her ears, set her blood on fire. She was drowning in sybaritic delight as Wes took her to the brink of pain-edged pleasure.
And then his cock hit her G-spot and his palm came down on her ass, and Viv was consumed as her body erupted in a sensation so intense, she wasn’t entirely sure she hadn’t blacked out.
For a split second, everything was perfect. But perfect never lasted.
As the pleasure receded, it left a gaping emptiness behind, and in the resulting void, there was nothing holding her together anymore. It hurt. It hurt so goddamn bad, like her heart had burst.
She tried to get it back. To concentrate on Wes’s rhythmic thrusts. To stay grounded in the physical.
There was nothing titillating about the anguish burrowing in her chest. It wasn’t muddled with pleasure, like before.
This was a dark chasm that threatened to swallow her whole from the inside.
“I need you.”
It wasn’t what she’d meant to say. It had been far too romantic for the moment.
But in the middle of the most darkly desperate fuck of her life, those were the words that had spilled out of her.
Brutal in their honesty, leaving her flayed to her emotional core.
The physical marks he’d left would disappear, she knew that, but the emotional marks were forever. Not even the six years between then and now had faded them. She’d just buried them deep enough to fool herself for a little while.
And now everything she’d pushed down, refused to feel, came rushing out to fill the empty space in her.
The tears caught her by surprise, dripping onto the comforter before she’d realized she was crying. It was impossible to breathe through the violent sobs that racked her body.
She cried for the lost pieces of her heart.
The piece she’d surgically carved out so her mother’s death and her father’s disinterest had no hold on her.
The piece she’d salted and burned so that her time with Wes would stop haunting her.
The piece that had been ripped from her when the promise of life inside her was extinguished without her permission.
What was left of her heart ached.
Behind her, Wes went dead still.
“Viv?”
His voice sounded distorted and far away, as if she were submerged in her tears, as if they were trying to drown her and steal what was left of her tenuous physical connection to Wes.
“Jesus, Vivienne.” He pulled out of her, leaving her empty on every possible level.
Viv shook her head, lamenting the loss of his body. Trying to reassure him through her sobs, but she couldn’t stop.
Suddenly, Wes was beside her, his arms tight around her, pulling her close. “What’s wrong, baby? Did I hurt you?”
She hated him for comforting her even as she buried her face against his chest and let him rock her.
“I’m sorry. I’m so goddamn sorry. Please don’t cry. Tell me what you need.”
She didn’t want solace. That wasn’t why she’d gone after him, pushed him to the brink. Why couldn’t he understand that?
He wasn’t the one who should be apologizing. She had to tell him that. He had to know.
“I’ve done such awful things.” The words burst from her, desperate and soaked in self-recrimination. “Things you should hate me for.”
He didn’t push her away though. He just kept soothing her, whispering her name against her hair, and it hurt so badly because she didn’t deserve any of it.
“Why don’t you hate me?” The question was physically painful, like it had been ripped from her throat.
In answer, he pulled her closer still, and she couldn’t fight him anymore. Because in that instant, his arms, the strength of him, were the only things holding her together.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
WES WOKE UP alone in Viv’s bed. He wasn’t sure if it had been minutes or hours since the most intense sexual experience of his life, and its emotional fallout.
All he knew was that when Viv had finally cried herself out, she’d fallen asleep in his arms as he stroked her hair. And it had changed something monumental between them.
He shoved himself up on his elbows, wondering where she was. The faint sound of the shower flipping on in the en suite answered his question.
Wes rolled out
