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LUCAS
Her response slammed into me in the darkness. The dissonance between what she'd said, compared to what I'd said, vibrated between us, the echo of my words taking on a pulse of its own.
I'd told her I loved her.
That stupid mother fucker Quinn had planted the seed in my head, causing the admission to spill out of me, except that wasn't exactly true. All Quinn had done was pour water on top of fertile soil. The seed of my affection for Olive had been growing since the first time we'd run into each other, and that plant was ready to burst from the soil.
It was only a matter of when.
She must have sensed the tension in the silence because she leaned in, wrapping her arms around my neck, her lips meshing against mine in the darkness. I opened my mouth, receptive of her kiss but well aware of her true motive. It wasn't a kiss of someone responding to the mention of love with love—it was the kind of hard passion that followed an intent of distraction.
Distract me with her body so that she could avoid saying she loved me back.
I leaned into it because what else was I supposed to do? My feelings were real, genuine, and a piece of that clung to the intimacy I felt when I was inside her. I hoped that if I made her feel good enough, she might wake up and realize how much I actually meant to her.
Lifting her into the air, I cupped her ass, our mouths still locked as I carried her out of the closet and into our bedroom. I had opened up all this space to her—not just in my house, but also in my heart.
Maybe that was why I'd just fucked her in the closet, more forceful and aggressive then I'd ever been before.
Maybe I just needed to know the truth. Was I just a fuck to her? Someone to manipulate? Or did I mean something?
There was a part of me that had to accept that I might never know the truth.
Deep down, I think I'd always known that this wasn't permanent for her. It was a gut feeling, a stirring in my chest that came about when I silently questioned the way she said things. But I'd written off those suspicions as mere postulates, an expressions of my own insecurity, of my distrust in women.
After a lifetime of being taken advantage of by women, of being wanted for my money, sometimes, it was difficult to tell truth from fiction. Was I searching for red flags, seeing things that weren't there? Or was I removing my rose-colored glasses and acknowledging the truth before me?
I no longer needed to wonder.
Laying her down on the bed, her blonde hair billowing behind her, she looked up at me, a soft smile on her face. I slowly pulled off her ripped panties, and she spread her legs for me, revealing herself in full.
She was still wearing the see-through bra, but both of her breasts had now spilled out of it. I shimmied out of my clothes, wanting nothing more than to feel my body against hers, with nothing between us to stop us from feeling that kind of intimacy.
I forced a smile, hoping she wouldn't see the sadness I was trying to cover up. But all I could hear were Quinn's words:And...I told her that she was safe with you. That no one would suspect her if she was dating you.
That's all this had ever been for Olive. That's all I'd ever been. A fortunate opportunity to hide her own crime. And that fucking sucked. I'd fallen for it, just like I'd fallen for every woman who had taken advantage of me before her.
All because I'd thought she was different. Because obviously, if we had a past, if she had loved me when we were younger and before I had money, what difference would it make now? She would be able to see beyond a paycheck.
And while it might not have been money that had motivated Olive to stay with me, it had surely been power, security, safety.
That somehow made it feel all the more worse.
Crawling over her on the bed, my body hovering just inches from hers, I stared into her eyes, searching for something, anything. Some semblance that this was real for her. She smiled up at me, her hand caressing my face.
I didn't see an ounce of deception in her eyes. Maybe it was because she was a great actress. Or maybe it was because that's what love did. It made you see only the good to a fault.
"Lucas," she whispered, her eyelashes fluttering. "Make love to me."
I wanted to be angry at her for saying that. She couldn't tell me that she loved me, but she could ask me to make love to her. Yet, no anger came because all I felt was an overwhelming desire to be close to her one last time.
I could lie to myself, continue being with her, but it would never be equal, not while these secrets hung in the air between us.
This would have to come to an end. There was no other way around it. And for Claire's sake—for co-parenting our daughter together—Olive and I would need to learn how to exist side by side with an understanding of where we both stand. Otherwise, resentment would fester, and our relationship would ultimately have a negative effect on Claire.
So, I decided then and there that this would be the end. That this would be the last time I would shower Olive with the love that had grown inside me.
Cradling her face in mine, our lips inches away from each other and our eyes locked in an intense stand off, I entered her, my cock filling up as deep as I could fit. She moaned against me, her back arching as the pleasure rippled across her face.
