Without a Hitch(45)

Bound, awareness of our situation hits me like a tidal wave, and a sense of sadness washes over me. I can’t touch him like this, and suddenly, I feel claustrophobic. “Release my arms.” His tip pushes into me, and my eyes close at the sensation, but my chest still feels heavy.

“Blaine! Undo me,” I order.

His worried gaze cuts to mine, and he immediately leans forward, wrapping his arms around my back to undo the panties holding my wrists hostage. His cock thrusts deep inside me as he does, and we both freeze. That ache of rightness riots in my chest, becoming nearly unbearable.

“Bloody fucking fuck, Pepper.” He comes to his senses before I do, and he continues to work my hands free. The second he drops my panties to the table, I lift my hands to his chest, just above his heart. I’ve never felt one beat so hard against my palm, but I hold it there, with him buried to the hilt inside me.

We speak no words as he begins to move. I wrap my legs around his waist to hold him to me, as close as I can get him. The sense that this is more than either of us can handle threatens to break the spell, and I think he feels it too as we both keep quiet. We fill the room with sounds of slick skin and moans of pleasure. Pleas and grunts. And as his thrusts pick up speed, we never glance away from each other. Our connection is so intense that even the world crumbling around us couldn’t break it.

His eyes are piercingly blue in the dimly lit room, and they flicker back and forth between mine like they’re searching for an answer to a question I didn’t hear.

Sweat coats his skin, and mine pebbles with awareness when he leans down to press his forehead to mine. He rotates his hips as he grinds into me with the precision of a maestro. Yet we still don’t utter a word.

We don’t need them. We hear everything we want to say in the touch of our skin, in the way we move to become one, and in the way our gazes lock as if we’re noticing the only thing we’re ever meant to see.

I come in an explosion of sounds that echo in our magical room.

Whispers of “beautiful,” “lovely,” and “mine” leave Blaine’s lips as he breaks our visual connection to watch our physical one. He comes silently, with a pain-filled expression that causes tears to prick the corners of my eyes.

When he finally lifts his gaze to mine, I see the same anguish in his pools of blue.

I don’t know how to explain what just happened. Or why my heart feels like it’s being shredded in a meat grinder. Or why, when he pulls away to deal with the condom, I feel the need to flee. But it doesn’t ease when he returns and silently helps me clean up. Or when he messes with a machine at my back that illuminates the wall opposite us.

He remains silent as he sits on the edge of the table and stares at two works of art displayed on the screen before me.

I turn a quizzical gaze toward him, but his remains focused on the portraits, so I study them also.

After a long while, he speaks. “My father is a romantic, you know?” That lump in my throat grows to the size of his forearm. “He loves love. And art, music, theater. He just truly loves the idea of love.”

I feel him staring at me, but I don’t turn my head. I’m too scared of what I’ll find.

He continues. “I took an art class in college. Have you seen these before?” He nods to the screen.

“N-No,” I whisper, barely containing a sob. I don’t understand the empty feeling or why I’m on the verge of tears.

“They’re digital copies of James Gillray’s etchings of Harmony Before Matrimony and Matrimonial-Harmonics.”

I glance from the wall to Blaine and back again before slipping from the table and walking closer to study them. “They look so happy,” I say after I take in all the details of the first etching.

“At first sight, yes. But when you really study the details, Pepper…”

“Cupid’s holding a gun,” I gasp.

“Among other things.”

I chance a peek over my shoulder, but Blaine stares at his shoes, so I move to the second etching.

Matrimonial-Harmonics causes the tears I’ve been holding back to fall free. It appears to be the same couple, but there’s no happiness to be found anywhere. It’s sad and tragic. And how Blaine views marriage.

“You think this is what marriage does to people?” I ask, turning to face him because the image before me hurts my heart in a way I’ve never felt before.

“No, I think forcing love to last forever does this to people.”

“That’s so sad,” I rasp.

“It’s not your magical fairy tale anyway.” He shakes his head. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I showed you these. I didn’t mean to ruin your night. Our time together.”

“They obviously haunt you for some reason.”

He stares at me thoughtfully. “Maybe.” He nods, then drops his gaze to his watch. “The party is probably just wrapping up, but this is the city that never sleeps. Can I take you out somewhere?”

He’s trying so hard to get that glimmer back in his eyes, but I know there will be no hiding my emotions now, which seems silly considering he can only ever be a fling. I don’t even know his last name, and as I focus my attention back at the screen, I realize that’s for the best. This man has the power to destroy my heart.

He already has.

My sisters and I didn’t have an easy upbringing. We didn’t have shining examples of love—but the idea of it? Of everlasting love? That’s what got me through all those hard times. I can’t give up the one wish I’ve ever had for myself for a man who, at his very core, doesn’t believe in the one thing that has gotten me through life.