Page 99 of The Silent Hour

The first thrust was hard enough to drive the air from her lungs and send a shock of cold, bright sensation through my own body. She was wet, impossibly wet, slick around me in a way that made my jaw clench.

But loose.

Too loose.

Something about that registered before I could stop it. Her body didn't grip me the way Julia's did. Didn't tighten around me like it had been built for exactly that. This was different. Open. Used. The realization landed somewhere ugly and I pushed through it anyway because that was the point, wasn't it? To find out there was nothing here worth wanting.

Lila let out a sound that bordered on pornographic. A moan that ripped through the trailer's silence like something torn from her chest. My hand shot over her mouth before the second one could follow.

"Shut the fuck up," I growled against her ear.

Her body clenched around me involuntarily, the threat, the roughness, something turning her on. I fucked into her again deeper. My free hand slid around her hip, fingers finding the swollen ridge of her clit.

My thumb pressed down, and her moan vibrated against my palm, muffled but still too loud for a place where sound could carry through aluminum walls and across an empty construction site to whatever ears might be listening. Eric was out there somewhere. The thought flickered and died because I'd already made the choice that made Eric's proximity irrelevant.

I circled her clit harder than she probably wanted, and her body began to change around me. The looseness tightened incrementally. Then more. Her thighs trembled against mine and I felt the shift happen—felt her body finally grip me the way it hadn't moments before. My hand stayed over her mouth. Her breath came hot and damp against my palm, each exhale accompanied by a sound she was trying and failing to swallow.

I drove into her harder. Hard enough that the trailer wall shuddered. My hips slammed into the backs of her thighs and the sound of skin against skin filled the cramped space like a second heartbeat.

My hand stayed clamped over her mouth. I stopped thinking. That was the only way to kill this and never do it again. She was moaning intelligible shit, how good I felt, how close she was.

I fucked into her with everything I had. Each thrust punishing. Her moans vibrated hot and wet against my palm and I pressed harder, felt her jaw under my fingers, felt her breath coming in short bursts against my hand.

Her thighs went rigid, and her spine arched, something flooded from her pussy. The sharp intake of breath against my fingers came a half-second before the rest of her and a sound tore through my palm like it had claws.

"Ethan."

My entire body locked. Not Mr. Marcelli with the careful professional distance she'd been performing for years across every conference table and break room and job site. My name. My actual fucking name, in her actual fucking voice, landing somewhere I had not thought to armor because I hadn't believed I'd let it get this far.

I couldn’t come hearing it. I closed my eyes and fucked faster. My jaw clenched until my back teeth ached. I stayed buried inside her, still hard, her body still shuddering through the aftershocks, each one pulling her tighter around me—finally. I felt the heat of her skin against my stomach where my shirt had ridden up.

I finally thrust one last time and came.

It arrived like a door closing in another building, distant and dull. A heavy pulse that registered somewhere below the noise of my own breathing. There was no goddamn relief, only the body crossing a finish line the mind had already abandoned.

I pulled out of her without ceremony. The condom stayed where it was. I couldn’t ditch it here. I couldn’t look at it either. I didn’t want to see it. Didn't want evidence.

Lila leaned forward against the wall, both palms flat, her breathing ragged. Her jeans were still half down over her ass. The sweater had ridden up past her ribs. Her hair had fallen across her face, dark strands sticking to the sweat along her jaw.

I turned away from the narrow trailer doorway, my heart still hammering against my ribs. In the dim light, my fingers fumbled for the buckle of my belt, cinching it in one smooth motion after I tucked in my shirt without even daring to look. A hush settled around me for a heartbeat, then reality crashed back in, merciless and whole. Not in shards. All at once.

The life I’d abandoned hours ago, convinced I lacked the strength to reclaim it, only to prove myself wrong in the most unforgivable way. I glanced down at my left hand. The black band was still there, unchanged, heavy with betrayal. I hadn’t stopped being Julia’s husband these past few minutes. The ring hadn’t slipped. Hadn’t even turned on my finger. It lay there as I’d kissed Lila. As I’d slid inside her. As I heard my name fall from someone else’s lips.

I hadn’t forgotten any of it, and that truth would haunt me all night. Behind me, the trailer floor creaked.

“Ethan.” Her voice was low.

My jaw snapped shut. “Don’t.” I kept my gaze fixed ahead, on the latch of the door.

Then, almost too casual. “I wasn’t going to say anything.”

“Good.” My fingers itched to grip the doorknob; my back felt taut as a drawn bow. The lie was already splintering. My phone buzzed, and I snatched it up without thinking.

ERIC

Where the fuck are you?

My thumbs hovered, numb, then tapped.