Page 15 of Faithless

“A little, and I don’t like it. Maybe we shouldn’t do this.”

When she glances at the door, my heart leaps into my throat. I need this. I can’t be aggressive like I usually am during sex with her. Tonight needs to be different.

I have to win her.

I lift my hand and graze her soft cheek with it. “It’s just sex, Whitney. You’re drunk. Don’t make a bigger deal of this than it is.”

“Are you…” She glances at my hips. “Are you clean?”

Coldness rushes through my veins. Oh God, I never feel like more of a bastard than when she shyly asks me that question before we have sex. It’s more painful that there’s never any accusation in her voice. She genuinely wants to protect herself.

Because she thinks she can’t trust me to protect her.

My throat grows tight, and I nod quickly. “I got tested the day after you asked for a divorce, and I haven’t been with anyone since.”

Her eyes grow wary. “Because you were planning on manipulating me with sex?”

I smile warmly. “We’re just playing, sweetheart. That’s all this is.”

Her head darts to my face. “So we’re just…role-playing?”

A dark heat pulses through my veins. “Of course. This is our last fuck, right?” Over my dead body. “Let’s pretend like it’s our first time.”

Her smile is sweet, and it makes my chest twinge. “I like that. It will be closure.”

My jaw clenches, but I keep my smile planted with all of my willpower. “I’ll recreate it exactly as it was.”

She smiles shyly, and I could die at the sight of it. She looks like she did our first time. In the Claremont in San Francisco. I flew into SFO after meeting with a client in Nebraska. I booked a grand suite and had her driven in a limo just because I knew it would impress a small-town girl like her who had no clue what money actually looked like. She was dazzled by the ostentation of it all.

I treated her like a virgin that first night when I pushed into her, even though I knew she wasn’t. But I had to imagine she was.

I had to imagine she was only mine.

It’s always been this way. It’s always been sordid and twisted. No wonder I’m losing her now. I’ve never had a healthy perspective. I’ve been too greedy for her to be forgiving.

I grab her shoulders and guide her over to the bed, and images of that ostentatious Claremont suite flash through my mind.

Fuck, my heart will break if I can’t keep her.

When I press her down, I let my eyes gaze over that tight body. She probably stayed so perfectly in shape as revenge against me. She knows it makes me crazy.

Why couldn’t she have gotten softer and plumper like most women her age? I would have loved her body just as much, if not more. It would have felt marked by me. Plump from my babies and happiness.

Instead, she’s this cold but sweet goddess with the body of a much younger woman. An artificial, inaccessible woman. If only I could have won her heart.

“You’re so beautiful, Whitney,” I whisper as I take her nipple into my mouth.

She moans. “Do you really mean it?”

I smile as I suck on the soft skin. She never talks this way unless she’s drunk. She never asks for compliments or reassurance. “Of course I do.”

I place my other hand on her clit, and she whimpers. “I feel like you’re saying this just so I won’t divorce you.”

I grin as I rub softer and in a circular motion, just the way she likes it. “I am trying to stop you from divorcing me, but I’m also telling the truth.”

She grimaces, that sweet little look when she feels pleasure but tries to fight it. “How…” She thrusts her hips against my fingers. “How can you be serious when you fuck the women you fuck? So pretty… Ah!” She whimpers. “So pretty and young. You can’t mean these things you say to me.”

My throat grows tight, and mist rises to my eyes. Why have I done this? Why did I fuck these young women?

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