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I tightened around him, and he growled as he came, sending my body into a new realm of pleasure, feeling him empty himself inside of me. He didn’t let go of me immediately. Didn’t loosen his grip even a little. Though it hurt, I was happy. I would’ve been happy with him inside me, with him forming bruises on my skin and yanking at my hair for hours.
What had I been thinking, trying to stay away from him? Trying to fit myself into the box I’d created? The prison I’d created? He’d torn down everything that I’d crafted so expertly, like it was a house of cards. In one night, he’d done that. I’d exposed myself to him in ways that were so permanent, I may as well have tattooed his name on my skin. For now, I’d have to go with the bruises he gave me. And whatever else.
By the time he let me go, pulled out of me, I was making plans. To tear up my fucking life. For him. Mostly for me. I wasn’t having delusions about us being permanent, about us even being long-term. But I knew, he’d forced me to see, that it was impossible trying to live a lie. That it would cost me too much. It had already cost me too much.
Whenever Pete turned up again, I’d break it off. In a gentle, respectful way. The way he’d been lately, I doubted he’d even care.
No, of course, he’d care. Not because he loved me … though maybe he did. But because he was a man used to getting what he wanted. Deciding when he was done with it. Men didn’t like being broken up with. Even if they didn’t want you in the first place. A woman rejecting a man was one of the most dangerous things she could do. Being with a man was like taming a wild animal. They were loyal, loving. Right up until they tore your throat out.
“There’s a bathroom, if you’d like to clean up,” Cristian said, helping me up and pulling my dress down gently.
The gesture surprised me, it was soft, tender—a stark juxtaposition from everything else he’d done to me. Then he turned me, eyes soft and penetrating. He ran his thumb over my bottom lip, slowly.
I only stared back, my body still recovering, my mind trying to place where this man fit. Was this just another game? Was he merely trying to put me off balance with this tenderness? It didn’t feel like it. But I was beginning to think I couldn’t trust my feelings around him. Couldn’t trust anything.
And despite whatever this connection was, I knew I couldn’t trust him.
Eventually, he stepped back, putting space between us. I was both grateful and disappointed.
Working on autopilot, I moved to the door in the corner, needing the sanctuary and relative privacy of the bathroom.
Cristian watched me the entire way. I didn’t need to look back to know that.
Once inside, I flattened myself against the door, breathing heavily, mind racing. I didn’t regret what I’d just done. Not in the slightest. But it made my life infinitely more complicated.
More exciting.
It was like I’d been unplugged for the past five years, and Cristian was a new power source, electrifying everything, showing me how dead I’d been.
Moving slowly, I used the facilities, my limbs heavy and sore.
My eyes seemed to glow back at me in the mirror, my face flushed, cheeks a soft pink. I finger combed my messy hair, not taking too many pains to replicate what it had been like before I walked in here. Nothing could look or feel the same now.
Though I was tempted to do some snooping in the luxurious bathroom that would be more at home in a mansion than an office downtown, I restrained myself. Partly because I knew that if Cristian had anything to hide, he would hide it. Nothing important to be learned about him would be gleaned from a bathroom cabinet. Also, it was a far too predictable thing to do. Mostly, I was anxious to breathe the same air as him again. To have his eyes on me again. This hunger was unhealthy, toxic even. But then again, I’d come to accept that I was a toxic person. Even though I’d been lying about it to everyone for the past five years, I’d never lied to myself.
Well, except for telling myself that I’d ever be able to live as someone who wasn’t me. Denying my most carnal of desires.
Cristian was standing at a bar in the corner of the room when I emerged. The office smelled of sex.
He’d shed his suit jacket and had pushed up the sleeves of his shirt to reveal his sinewy forearms, deeply tanned and immaculate. Only someone who had seen him naked would know about the expansive and detailed tattoo on his back, one that was at odds with everything else he put out into the world.
