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I always thought my first time with Ricardo would be wild. How could it not be? I’ve wanted him for so long, and the chemistry is palpable whenever we’re in the same room together. The kind of off-the-charts chemistry you can’t fake.
“Drink.”
I look up at the word, surprised to see Ricardo standing in front of me with a cup of something steaming clenched in his hand. He holds it out to me and waits, waits so long for me to take it. The heat immediately seeps through my palms and heads up my arms, doing absolutely nothing to thaw what’s in my chest.
“What is this?” I ask with a sniff.
“Some people call it Earl Gray.”
It’s work to roll my eyes and act normal. “And why do you have it?”
“Because it’s a remnant left behind when Carter moved. And it’s safe to drink. I know you’ve got to be a little thirsty,” Ricardo says. “The heat will help.”
If this is his version of aftercare, then I’ll have to take what I can get. The tea smells delightful enough to have me swallowing down another sob.
“What’s the matter, Isabella? This isn’t what you thought it would be?” He draws something from the nightstand, and the snick of a lighter sparks a flame, igniting the end of the cigarette.
I latch onto it, something tangible. “I didn’t know you smoked.”
Ricardo draws in a deep breath and holds it in his lungs before exhaling the smoke away from my face. “There are a lot of things you don’t know about me,” he murmurs.
I angle my head at him, capturing his gaze as I took a sip of the tea. Not hot enough to obliterate my tongue but a perfectly nuked temperature.
“What?” he says when he gets tired of my studies.
“I know you well enough to know how your cock tastes. Or how you feel inside of me. I guess you being a smoker is a small thing, isn’t it?”
He winces and does his best to hide the gesture. “You know I did what I had to do in order to spare you a worse fate. I tried my best.”
“Your best?” I blink, shocked.
“I might have died, Isabella. And I don’t say it to hold over your head. Tonight did not go as planned, and I’m sorry if you’re embarrassed or ashamed. You have no reason to be either.” He doesn’t move. “I’m sorry if it wasn’t good for you, but I did the best with what we had to work with, which was fucking nothing.”
“He filmed us.” I swallow hard when my throat feels like it's closing.
“He might have done a lot worse. At least he didn’t touch you.”
My breast throbs, a phantom sting from where Drago had groped me. “You say it like you didn’t enjoy what you had to do.” Every word becomes sharper than I intend them to be, and I can’t bring myself to care.
Ricardo can’t either. “You really want to talk about this now? Drink your tea and go to bed. Or take a fucking shower, whatever you want. Morning is going to come really fucking quick.”
He hadn’t been quick.
He’d taken his time with me and made sure we both got off.
Apparently, I do need to talk about it, as my pulse pounding in my ears gets louder, and every small page inside of me, real or imagined, is suddenly too loud to ignore. I need to hear him speak like every word is a loadstone. “I didn’t realize making me come the way you did was an act or worse. Something you did because you wanted to spare me from a worse fate. You know what? You don’t have to do me any favors. I would have handled myself.”
“Obviously I do have to do you favors because you seem to actively want to get yourself in trouble. Maybe you would have rather had the guy with the camera fuck you? Bend you over the back of the couch like an animal in heat and plow inside? Yes, I did what I had to do, Isabella. Fuck me.”
He draws in another long drag before he stifles the cigarette’s glow in an ashtray on top of his dresser. Then he reaches for me, and the ice around my heart starts to crack. But not in the way I want.
I don’t have the strength to move back when his hands fall on my shoulders. He starts to squeeze, the touch tapering off into a massage.
“What do you want me to say?” The words are dragged out of him. “You want me to say I enjoyed emptying my cock inside of you? Knowing you’re moving around right now filled with me? Because I did. Okay? I do. But it should never have happened.”
His last statement lands like a punch to my gut, even though it really isn’t a surprise.
“I told myself I would never touch you, and we’d already gone too far over the line before tonight. It’s something that will not happen again. I hope you understand why.”
