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My muscles tense as I watch her in rapture. She’s the sweetest fucking thing I have ever seen. But I don’t stop. I can’t. I ravish her, gripping her ass in my hands strongly enough to leave marks, and thrusting up into her until I explode with a roar. My head falls forward, resting against hers, as we both catch our breath and come down from the high.
I squeeze my eyes shut as sudden paranoia settles over me, feeling her against me like this, being so in tune with her. What the fuck have I done? The most incredible woman I have ever met, and I go and fuck her on the gym mats? She is right. She has a successful career, an amazing daughter, a life she’s proud of, and I fuck her on the floor.
I’m a fucking disgrace. I need to get far away from her. Far, far away. She deserves better.
This is how it is. I fuck and I leave. No expectation and nobody gets hurt.
Before I even pull out of her, I already know that this can’t be whatever we were thinking it could be. It just can’t. We are too different. I kill people for a fucking living, for Christ’s sake.
I gently lift her off and stand up, giving me space to put myself back together and pull my shorts back up. I rub my hands over my face, and as she rises, she begins to talk.
“Carter, I—” But I don’t let her finish.
“Bathrooms are over there,” I say with a nod to my left, feeling sick that I didn’t even use a fucking condom. I always wrap myself up, never go without it. I turn around, shaking my head at my stupidity, and grab my water bottle. I am so fucking dizzy, I think I will faint if I don’t hydrate.
I hear her quietly gathering her things, and then she walks away, pushing into the bathrooms before I lower my head in shame.
I grab my top from the floor where I dropped it earlier and put it on, glimpsing her coming out of the bathroom, heading straight toward me.
“Carter, that was—” Again, I don’t let her finish. I don’t want her to say anything that could change my mind.
“A mistake,” I state firmly, not looking at her. I know I will see hurt in her eyes, and that will fucking kill me. I should have stopped it all before it started.
“I don’t deserve someone like you, Cat. I can’t be with you. You deserve better than me… we can’t be together.”
“I’m sorry,” I say, but it’s barely out of my mouth before I’m walking away from her, not once looking at her face, and not giving her a chance to reply.
18
Catherine
I stand still, in shock. Is he really just going to walk away from me?
“Where the hell are you going?” I yell at him, and he pauses mid-stride. My chest heaves like I have just had another lesson.
He pauses in place, but doesn’t turn to look at me, still facing the door like he is ready to run.
“What? You can’t even look at me now?” He doesn’t move his body, showing almost no reaction, but his hands clench at his sides.
“So, I’m okay to fuck, but I don’t deserve the respect of a conversation afterward?” I spit at him.
“You were right!” he yells at me, finally turning to look at me with heat in his glare.
“I am no good for you. I am in the fucking mob. You have a daughter to protect, you have your career to manage. You can’t even be seen with a man like me!” He throws my own words back at me.
I watch him for beat as realization dawns on me. Was I that bad? My father says that no one will ever want to be with me, so as I stand here on the gym mats, I can hear his voice in my head.
“You’re no good, Catherine. No one will ever want you. Daniel is the only man for you. You are an old, single mother… who would ever want you?”
My words get stuck in my throat, unable to speak as he turns away from me and high-tails it out of the gym.
It has been years since I have been with a man, and despite my reservations, I wanted Carter more than anything tonight. What we just did was the hottest, most intense sexual experience I have ever had in my entire life, and I loved every minute of it. That is, until he walked away from me. I could feel him trying to remove himself from the situation, but no one can fake what we just did. Sure, it was lust, carnal need, but I felt that there was an undercurrent of so much more.
We have been dancing around each other for weeks and tonight we combusted. I thought it was amazing.
But to him, it was a “mistake.”
My heart beats out of my chest, and I try to control my breathing.
