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His shout dimly hit my ears, though his mouth hovered close to mine. The roar in my head blocked out almost everything except his unsteady breaths against my cheek as he pounded out his orgasm in my pliant, quivering body.
He dropped down on top of me, an oddly pleasant weight. I was still twitching with aftershocks, our sweat-slick skin stuck together.
Underneath him, I felt fully possessed for the first time in my life. I hadn’t been fucked. I’d been owned.
At first, I liked having him on top of me. Not that he seemed to be moving anytime soon. Then my heart rate picked up, and my breaths began coming too fast. My lungs cramped from the lack of air. I tried to turn my head away to find a clean source of oxygen, but the heat in the room was stifling. He was crushing me. His pelvis rested like granite on top of mine, and inside, I felt too full. Painfully so.
Dots swarmed in front of my eyes, and I shoved at his shoulder, desperate. “Please,” I gasped, and I didn’t even know what I was begging for.
To give me room. To let me breathe. To make this panic go away.
He rolled off me almost immediately. “Carly?”
I sat up and buried my face in my hands, well aware that my shoulders were shaking. That I was shaking, inside and out.
“Tesoro, what is it? Are you okay?” He took care of the condom, then slid his hand around the back of my neck. Instead of his touch steadying me, it made my skin prickle. “Carly, look at me.”
I couldn’t. He would see how messed up I was. How I so wasn’t okay, though I kept telling myself I was.
He wrapped his arms around me, and I burrowed into his embrace because I didn’t know what else to do. How could I have been so fine, so absolutely perfect, five minutes ago and so wrecked right now?
“It’s not like Mia,” I mumbled against his throat. “It’s not. It’s not.”
He stroked my hair and laid his cheek on top of my head. The steady thud of his heartbeat and the gentleness of his touch set me back to rights. Or at least closer than I’d been.
I eased back and he cupped my face. “Better now?”
I nodded, feeling foolish. I wasn’t even sure what had happened—what kept happening—so I couldn’t tell him. It was some kind of panic attack, but I’d never had them before.
Only one person I knew had suffered through something similar, and there was no way I could ever confide in my sister. She’d lose her mind if she found out about the events of that night. Some sick, twisted part of me had gotten off on it, while the rest of me was still trying to figure out how to make sense of what had occurred.
There was a lot I was trying to make sense of. His involvement with them, for one. It wasn’t on the table for discussion, and even I knew when pressing wouldn’t get me anywhere. If I pushed him on what he was doing with them, he’d shut down. Then he would shut me down, and all of this would end.
It was selfish, maybe, stupid, definitely, but I wasn’t ready for that to happen. Not when he lit me up like Christmas inside and kissed me like I was the answer to all of his questions.
“What happened to Mia?” he asked, so softly that I almost didn’t hear him.
Horrified that he’d heard my rambling before, I shook my head. “No. Nothing. I was just upset—”
“She was hurt. Somehow. I knew that before a few minutes ago. I’ve picked up things…” He blew out a breath. “I can’t ask her, and I won’t ask Fox. But I promise you, it’s not just curiosity making me ask. I care.”
I squeezed my eyes shut, thankful that at least they were dry. “It’s not my story to tell.”
“That’s not true. You love her, and if you were there, you have a side of it as well.”
He made it seem so reasonable to share what had happened. I’d been carrying the burden of Mia’s secret for all these years, because I didn’t want to do anything to hurt her or to cause her embarrassment. She had no reason to be ashamed, but she’d suffered so much that I didn’t want to make her load heavier in any way. Even considering speaking about those months so long ago felt like a betrayal.
So I tipped my head on his shoulder and hoped he’d let it go.
“You don’t have to tell me. I won’t press you. I’m just saying I’m here. For her…and you.”
I looked up at him again, unable to stop from asking. “You’re not freaking out about last week. Is it because you’re a guy? Because what you do with your cock doesn’t mean anything?”
He didn’t chuckle or act as if I was an imbecile for asking. I knew that couldn’t be true. He’d been bothered by what happened too. I’d seen him huddled over his Bible last week, for God’s sake. But he’d recovered, and he wasn’t shaking and trembling after sex like I was. And not for good reasons.
“It means something. What happened affected me too, so much.” Carefully, he undid my tangled and snarled ponytail. “I just freak out in a different way.”
“The Bible.”
