Everything I Left Unsaid(84)

He felt angry and awful. Which, he figured, was how he should feel. Guilty and miserable.

“Roll over,” he told her.

“What?”

She was too slow, he was too wild, and he lifted her hips and rolled her himself, pulling her up onto her knees. He climbed onto the bed behind her and then held his cock, notching himself against her, slipping through her hot, wet * to get inside.

With a hiss, she pulled forward away from him and he stopped, lifting his hands away from her. But his cock was just inside of her. Waiting.

Carefully, she pushed back against him and then stopped.

Christ, he didn’t want to hurt her. He began to pull out but she reached around and grabbed his thigh, holding him still. “Don’t…” she whispered. “Don’t leave.”

“Jesus Christ, Annie, if it hurts, say it. If you don’t want this, say it.” Their secrets were making a mess of them; all their sharp, jagged edges were out, waiting to hurt each other.

“It…doesn’t hurt.”

“You want this?” he asked, because he wasn’t sure. She was wet and she was hot, but he wasn’t about to take something she didn’t want to give.

“Yes.”

“Say it, Annie. Just f*cking say what you want.”

“I want you inside me.”

Her words lit him up but he didn’t push into her.

“Take me,” he said, and then watched as bit by bit she eased back on him.

Slowly he pushed forward until she had every inch of him.

“You ready?” he breathed, and she nodded. Her arms braced against the bed were shaking. His legs were. The bed was trembling under all their restraint.

Slowly he eased back and then forward. And she eased forward and then back and they found a terrible rhythm. Deep and then deeper each time, turning them inside out. He tried not to touch her, but his hands slid over her hips, holding onto her waist. The pressure built in him. A beautiful pressure. Pleasure and pain. Light and dark. Guilt and ecstasy. Grief and happiness.

He was close. Too close and unable to stop. He reached around her, slipping over her bare skin toward her clit, and she grabbed his hand in a grip that was surprisingly strong. Fierce. The rough and raw edges of her calluses and blisters brushed over his. She laced their fingers together.

And somehow that was more intimate than anything else.

Last time, he thought, letting himself absorb the intimacy. Like drinking all the water he could before heading out into the desert.

Last time. Last time.

“Come on,” he growled and shook off her hand, unable to take it. “Fuck. Come, baby.”

And she did. She exploded under him, crying out and falling down on the mattress. She pulled him down with her and he blanketed her. Covered her. And filled her.

Perfect.

The orgasm rocked him.

Crushed him.

And he lay there, heaving against her. Feeling her shake and tremble beneath him.

God, she was so small. He could feel the knobs of her spine against his stomach. The fragile bones of her rib cage against his arms. He could carry her in his pocket.

He wanted to carry her in his pocket.

He’d learned the hard way to keep his wants and desires on a short list. Wanting too much, either one thing or a million, only meant he wouldn’t get it. He was clumsy with fragile things—always trying to hold onto them so hard they broke.

The thought was enough to make him pull out, holding onto the edge of the condom.

He went into the bathroom, dumped the condom, and peed.

Twenty-nine years old, and some of those years had been wild, and he’d never experienced anything like Annie. Not once.

The physical reality of the connection they had on the phone blew his mind. Destroyed it. And he didn’t know how he was going to let her walk away from him.

How did anyone walk away from what they’d just shared? They couldn’t. He couldn’t.

One more day, at least, he thought. Fuck the secrets. He just wanted to test this thing between them as far as it would go. Find the red line and hold it there until they both fell apart.

When he stepped back out into the bedroom she had curled up on the bed, her knees to her chest, and when she heard him she pulled the blanket up over her body like she didn’t want him to see her.

“Annie?” he asked, worried suddenly that he really had hurt her. He’d been rough. And angry. Raw. Maybe— “I’m married.”

He blinked. “What?”

“I’m married, Dylan. That’s what I haven’t told you.”





ANNIE


My words echoed. In my head. In the room. Probably all over this damn mountain.

Get up, Annie. Get up. Get dressed and get gone.

What had happened between us on the bed had been the most amazing experience of my life. It was like we’d used our anger to make it all somehow better and worse at the same time. Beautiful and awful. That’s what we were.

And guilt was shredding me to pieces.

With shaking arms I pushed myself up off the bed. I could see him out of the corner of my eye, standing there in the doorway to the bathroom. His hand on the door frame like he couldn’t stand up on his own.

“I’m sorry,” I said, tears clogging my throat. “I’m so sorry…” A sob slipped out and I shook my head, gathering the duvet around me as best I could before slipping off the bed and heading for the door.