Page 183 of The Casualty of Us
“No, Ophelia.” He sets it somewhere off the bed that I can’t track before bringing his hand back to grab my chin and look down at me seriously. “You are brilliant, baby, and I love you, but this will not end well.”
I frown harder. “What do you mean?”
“Every time you play this game you are telling him yes,” he delivers tightly, body curling further around mine as the words make my stomach drop. “He’s sick, O, truly sick in the head in a way that I don’t think you’ve ever seen up close outside of the kidnapping.”
“But—
“I’ve lived my life around some of the most depraved kinds of people.” His face falls with the confession, and I stop trying to argue with it. “And I know that brain of yours might understand the way his works.” He brushes his thumb against my jaw. “But have you considered that even with how sick he is, he might understand yours as well? Might be trying to just pull you further down the rabbit hole with him?”
“I—” I pause, looking at it from that angle for the first time and scowling at the way it unsettles me. Not liking the idea at all or the fact I hadn’t really considered it before now.
“It’s time to end it.”
“Not yet,” I argue, quickly contradicting myself with the truth. “That’s what I’m trying to do. I got his name, Hayes, hisname.” He scoffs, and I reach up to give his hair a tug while trying to make him understand. “I just want to be able to live my life normally, okay? As normally as possible with you and me already being who we are, and I can’t do that with him—”
“You also can’t do it if you’re dead or locked up in a basement somewhere,” he bites out, not giving an inch and making me resort to begging.
“Please.”
He groans as soon as the word leaves me, collapsing back into the bed and taking me with him. “No.”
“Just until summer—”
“Funny.”
He quickly moves us back into the same position as when we fell asleep earlier with him pressed all along my back and his arm under my head.
“Okay.” I glance back again, trying to catch his eyes and wiggling. “What about spring break? Think about what I can learn—”
He grabs my hip with his other hand. “Hold still, baby.”
The low words come with a brush of his cock against my ass, and my mouth pops open at the hardness there a second before he brings himself to my entrance. I gasp in surprise as he pushes in and the hand on my hip trails down to start playing lazily with my clit. A harsh exhale leaves him when my legs part automatically, and his chest collapses against my back as he slides in a little more. My pussy growing wet despite the lingering burn that’s still there and I immediately reach to grab for the hand that’s under my head. Winding my fingers through his as he presses a kiss to the top of my head before dropping his mouth to my ear.
“Spring break, Ophelia.” The words are a soft warning that come as a needy noise escapes me, leaving me gasping when he powers up and continues quietly. “I will give you until spring break to ask the sick fuck whatever the hell you want, and then this is over, agreed?”
“Yes,” I gasp, spreading my legs wider and pushing back against him. “Yes, yes—”
“You will not send one note without telling me,” he growls suddenly, pulling out a bit and giving me a run for my money while rattling off. “And you will let me handle whatever the fuck it is that picking them up entails.”
“That’s a little extr—”
His fingers grip my hip, and he slides home. Hard.
A breathless cry leaves me, and his mouth drops to bite at my shoulder, holding perfectly still inside of me as he lets go of the spot and brushes his lips across it. “Or else I will make what happened in the shower look like child’s play.” He trails his mouth up quickly over my neck, pulling back enough to thrust hard again. “Do you understand me?”
“Yes,” I gasp, squeezing his hand and rolling my hips, loving the way I can feel him moving inside of me. “Yes, I promise.”
And I really do mean it. Knowing that there’s no other choice to make at this point without causing some kind of catastrophic failure to myself.
It’s the best path too. The most practical. Allowing me to gather as much information as possible before the stakes become too high and passing it off to someone else.
Even if that’s selfish as fuck. I don’t care.
I never said I was good, only that I know the difference.
He slides back into me, hitting that spot deep inside while whispering, “That’s my girl.”
Showing me all the pros of lazily making love in the middle of the night before we pass out wrapped around each other again.A little smile on my lips as I drift off until morning this time. Not knowing then that I’ll even manage to keep it—that promise out of all of them—but the damage was already done, I guess.
