Page 103 of Between Commitment and Betrayal
Trying. But as I stared into her shining eyes filled with a brewing desire again, I lost myself to her. I realized she didn’t belong to me, I belonged to her.
I fucked her hard, wanting to own her but realizing I couldn’t.
She held my sanity, my control, my power, my heart in her hands.Sheowned me.
My body built toward release, every muscle in me tightening to have her all to myself, to keep her close to me forever, and then I pumped into her one last time before hitting my own high and coming as I swore fluently into her neck. “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.”
She did the same, her arms around my neck now, pulling me close as she whimpered over and over, coming on my cock.
“That’s it, baby. Get all you need. Milk my cock like the pretty good girl you are.”
She rode me for one, two more thrusts before slumping into me and kissing my neck.
I held her tight, didn’t let her slide down my body just yet. I smelled her hair, rubbed her back, stayed connected to her as long as I could.
I didn’t want to leave the garden, didn’t want to leave this night and go back to reality. Here, we could be under a spell, lost in the magic of one another, not worrying about outside factors.
Yet, she finally sighed and untangled her legs from around my hips. She rearranged her dress as her gaze held mine with a vulnerability I hadn’t seen most of the night. “We’re going round and round, Declan, and I don’t know if it’s right to do that without admitting that I keep thinking about the decision we have to make. We’re being reckless by taking what we want in a garden and not discussing our future.”
I tucked my cock back into my trousers and tried not to feel an immediate sense of concern at her words. “Or we can keep trying to take it day by day.”
“Right. But I don’t do that.” She sighed and tried to smooth the waves of her hair that should have always been given the permission to run wild. “I… I’ve been thinking about it all night. Your niece, she’s so beautiful, Declan.”
“And?” I lifted a brow.
She took a breath and whispered, “And what if we had a daughter like her? What if she had your eyes and my hair and wanted to dance with us just like Carolina? But also… what if we didn’t? What if we can’t make that beautiful soul because we didn’t start with what your sister and her husband started with? We need to love.” Her voice shook, and I saw how she tried to have the courage to share the feelings she thought I wanted to hear. “And I think I could—”
“I don’t love you, Drop.” I cut her off fast. I needed to say it out loud anyway. Maybe if I could convince her of it, I’d believe it myself. I didn’t want her love this way. I wouldn’t have it be like this. Not with the weight of a will bearing down on us.
She needed to love me and I needed to love her without conditions. To do it under a commitment we made to one another for a damn will would be to betray the one thing she deserved to get. She deserved a beautiful life with no stipulations, with only love, with everything she’d ever dreamed of.
“Okay,” she breathed out, and her posture deflated, like I’d taken all the wind from her sails and snuffed out the tiny bit of sun she had started to see on a rainy day. I knew it had to be this way though. “But do you think you ever could?” she whispered and,fuck, my heart broke.
Everly didn’t push or need to ask for anything from me. She barely let the world in to see her mask slip and witness her real emotions. She was strong, but in that moment, I saw the vulnerable, soft part she hid from the world. And that part would be broken and ruined if I did what I was about to do now.
“I can’t.” I shook my head, backing away from her. I couldn’t subject her to having a baby with me under these conditions. I couldn’t steal the one thing she’d planned for all her life by barreling through it in hopes we’d still become the healthy family she dreamed of.
“I’ll get your mother’s yoga studio, Everly. And I’ll make sure the media leaves you alone.”
She stumbled back, clutching her heart. “I don’t… I… don’t want that from you.”
“I’ll take care of it. Anastasia will agree…”
She’d told me herself the second time we went into Mrs. Johnson’s office and she told us Carl was requiring us to have a child—happily ever afters aren’t made this way. We couldn’t have this inheritance hanging over our head anymore. I had to take care of it for both of us. Then, we’d have a chance at the dream of a family that she deserved.
I hoped one day she would understand that I’d fallen so beyond in love with her that I was willing to do the one thing that would make her hate me.
Betray her.
34
EVERLY
One night in the garden,lost in the maze of flowers and foliage, under the moonlight, he’d fucked me like he used to.
Rough, in control, on instinct that was too powerful to tiptoe around. But then he’d stared at me with pain in his eyes as waves crashed on the shoreline and the symphony of violins serenaded the night air. It was a devastating soundtrack to play in the background of his words.
“I don’t love you, Drop.”
