Page 47 of Endless Depths

I always use too much tape. He used to tease me about it. Finally, he rips the cardboard edges apart with brute force, tearing a gash down one corner. The cufflinks we wore on our wedding day tumble out, jingling as they skitter across the floor and disappear under the bed.

“For fuck’s sake,” he mutters, and peers inside at our relationship archives.

I don’t need to look. I remember every love letter, photograph, and memento.

Morgan’s thick lashes shadow his gaze as he picks up the framed photo from our wedding day. Seb married us with an officiant certificate he got off the internet. We invited a handful of loved ones and friends to a small ceremony onBriar’sbow. Morgan and I wore matching seafoam tuxes hand-embroidered with buttercups and forget-me-nots, backlit by the golden hour of a late summer sunset, Puget Sound unfurling before us, promising fair seas and safe voyage.

He tosses the frame back in, and pulls out another from thatday. This one’s my favorite. I cajoled Morgan into wearing brand-new yellow bibs over navy striped sweaters with the forget-me-not boutonnieres from our tuxes pinned to our straps.

To quote Lawrence, we looked gay as hell.

In the picture, Morgan grips the straps of my bib, tugging me toward him and into a candid kiss against the rail. My lips are curved into a smile. I don’t even remember smiling. It just happened automatically. He places the frame photo side down on the box beside it.

“I didn’t want to hurt you. It hurt to look at anything that reminded me of you.”

He shakes his head, drags his palm over his stubble and looks up at the ceiling before leveling hardened eyes on me. “You’ve done a lot of fucked up shit. Kicking me out without warning, not giving a shit where I ended up, knowing what you know, knowing how I wound up in Dan’s house. You did exactly what my uncle did to me. No. What you did was worse. You’re my husband. Youchoseme. My parents and my uncle never wanted me, but you did. You chose me and then you abandoned me.”

His devastation wrecks me. I want to go to him, but I’m frozen.

A sob escapes him. He rakes his hands through his hair. “Without you, I’m rudderless. The only thing keeping me going was the hope that maybe one day you’d let me come home, but you’d already packed my boxes.” His voice raises. “You packed awayus!”

I jump. A lightning bolt of pain arcs down my spine. He’s never shouted at me. Not like this. Not unless we’re on the Bering Sea.

He inhales slowly, reining in his anger. “Even social services let me take a few photos, the stuffed fox I still slept with at ten years old because it was my only constant, the only way I could sleep in all the unfamiliar places my parents stayed at. I assume it’s in one of those boxes there?”

I nod. It’s tucked inside the box labeledFragile/Priceless.

“You became that fox. You were my home. You kept me safe while I slept, then you kicked me out, and changed the fucking locks.”

He steps forward, crowding me until our chests touch.

“What are you doing?”

He cocks his head to the side. “Not sure yet.” His eyes turn predatory, hungry for revenge as he herds me toward the bed.

My pulse gallops ahead, recognizing on some primordial level that I’ve become prey. I’m terrified, but not of him. He won’t hurt me. I’m afraid that I’ve hurt him in ways that will never heal. I’m afraid that he’ll leave. I’m even more afraid that he’ll stay, and I’ll slice his wounds deeper, infect him with my selfish regret, and make him as miserable as I am. I’m afraid I already have.

“Maybe I’ll edge you until you’re begging me to take you, and leave you like that. Unsatisfied and desperate. Powerless. Exactly the way you left me when you abandoned me.”

I inhale sharply, cock taking notice. I can’t help it.

He smiles, sinister and lascivious. “Or maybe I’ll fuck you the way only I can, fill you up and plug my cum inside you so you can savor it because it’s the last time you’ll ever have me, because you’re too stubborn to come back to me.” He lowers his lips to my ear. “Is that what you want, Sunshine?”

“No.”

“I thought so.”

His lips graze my cheek, stubble scraping as he descends to my neck, and scuffs his teeth over my jugular. My breath stalls in my chest.

He nips my collarbone. “Maybe I’ll sink my teeth into your ass, and break the skin, do the same to your inner thighs, so the next man you give your hole to knows who you belong to.”

The idea tantalizes me. I’m already wearing his ring for eternity.

“If I’m just going to be talking to myself, I might as well go,” he says.

“No. Mark me everywhere.”

His eyes darken. “You sure, sweetheart?” The term of endearment is more menacing than reassuring.