He does that motion again, but he tightens his grip on me to the point where I dazedly wonder if maybe I really will be wearing his marks forever. “You. Were. My. Ward.” Each word a devastating stroke.
“Liar,” I repeat. “Not after I turned eighteen.”
Devan pauses for a long moment and then he releases my hips. One hand lands next to my head and the other snakes around to stroke my clit. The new position has his chest against my back, his lips at my ear. “You’re so full of shit,” he growls, even as he works my body closer to orgasm, even as he keeps fucking me. “You were still a traumatized teenager at nineteen. I would have had to be a monster to touch you.”
“You wanted to.”
“Fuck yes, I wanted to.” He bites the back of my neck, hard enough to make me gasp. “But even I have lines, Hazel.”
I want to… I don’t even know. Throw myself against the massive wall that is his control. He might be here with me right now, but he’s never going to step out of line with his plans. There’s no room for a future between us; Devan has all but said as much multiple times since the beginning of this. Fucking him was never meant to be the start of something.
It’s an ending.
I just didn’t expect it to hurt so much.
His wicked fingers keep stroking me even as he slows down, once again working me just the way I need to get off. I try to fight it. Of course I try to fight it. Each orgasm moves us closer and closer to the final one. To goodbye.
My body doesn’t care. I come hard, sobbing into the sheets. Devan doesn’t stop. He doesn’t even slow down. He keeps fucking me, dragging my body into another wave of orgasm, stronger this time. My brain shorts out. That’s the only excuse I have for the words that slip free. “I love you.”
Devan’s stroke hitches, and for one horrible moment, I think he’s going to stop. To pull out of me, sit me down, and explain that this just sex and no, silly girl, he doesn’t really care for me beyond the history we have. It’s history for a reason.
But then he starts moving again. He presses a kiss to the spot at the back of my neck where he bit me and then moves back, urging my hips high again. I mourn the loss of him, even as I go molten at the delicious angle.
Oh fuck, I’m going to come again.
I feel the words bubbling up a second time, just as unforgivable as the last. Instead, I press my face to the mattress as I come so hard I scream into the mattress. Devan follows me over this edge this time, grinding deep and cursing as he comes inside me.
He rolls us onto our sides and wraps his arms around me, his cock still lodged deep in my pussy. I blink too rapidly, determined not to let the burning in my eyes become something more. Not again.
I wait for Devan to say something, to comment on the unforgivable words I let slip, but he seems content to merely hold me close and trail kisses over my shoulder and neck. I don’t know if that’s better than addressing it or worse. I’m too tired to figure it out.
Besides, it feels good be held by him. Almost as if he cares just as much as I do, as if his foolish heart has betrayed him the same way mine has. I know it’s a lie. Devan would never lose control enough to catch feelings for a woman he’s glad to finally be rid of. An albatross at his neck he’s finally putting down.
He’d have to be a fool to pick me back up again at this point.
I close my eyes and focus on getting myself under control. An impossible task. I’m one giant exposed nerve for this man. He might call me a liar, but I’m far too honest for both our sakes.
This time, when sleep takes me, I welcome it.
Chapter 17
I wake up to the light filtering through the hotel room window. I wish I had magic powers to banish the sun from existence, to reverse its path and keep the moon residing in the sky for another hundred hours. It wouldn’t be enough. I can recognize that now, even if I couldn’t a few days ago. I crave this man on a level I thought I understood. Silly, silly woman.
I knew nothing.
Devan looks so fucking peaceful when he sleeps. He’s stretched out on his back, one arm flung over his eyes. It’s the first time he’s stopped touching me since we got into bed, and that absence is what woke me. I reach out a hand, but stop before I make contact with his chest. What will it accomplish? I’m just going to prolong the moment of goodbye. Worse, he’s already proven that he’s very intuitive when it comes to my needs.
I want something he can’t give me, and that will hurt him and make him uncomfortable, which will just make this situation that much more unbearable. He’ll try to let me down gently. I know myself well enough to know that I’ll respond by striking out, and that will ruin all the good memories we just created.
No, there’s only one thing to do.
I slip out of bed and dress quickly, pulling on a pair of jeans and a top that I had packed for the morning after. Scraps of my lingerie are tossed around the room, but I don’t want to gather them all up; every moment I linger is one where Devan might wake and demand to know what I’m doing.
Instead, I detour into the bathroom, shove all my stuff into my bag and head for the bedroom door. I pause there and look back. Devan
