Page 32 of Broken

“I won’t survive it if you leave me too,” I admit, placing all my cards on the table. “It was hard enough to lose him. But to see you walk away? It would be better if you did it now. When I’m prepared. When it’s my decision. I don’t want to live if in a month, or a year, or five, you realize you’d rather be with him.”

Julia’s smile is so soft. It tips up at the corners, and her skin flushes and blooms like a flower in the spring. It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. It only makes me weep harder. She grips my hair at the base of my head and forces me to look at her.

“It’s not a choice I’d ever make, but if I had to, I’d choose you, Justin. Always and Forever. I’m sorry that you’ve been hurting, and I’ve been too wrapped up in my own pain to help you shoulder yours, but I promise that doesn’t mean I’d rather be with him.”

“Promise?” I ask, snorting when I try to breathe through my now stuffy nose and mouth at the same time. Julia throws her head back and laughs, before bringing her forehead down to rest against mine.

I’m crying harder than I’ve cried in decades, but somehow, I finally feel okay. Without even trying, Julia has lifted the weight I’ve been carrying since Remi shut the door on us.

“I promise,” she says softly against my lips. “I didn’t ask you out here to break up with you, Justin. I asked you out here to apologize. To tell you I know I’ve been horrible to live with, and you’ve handled this entire situation with grace when I crumbled and crawled into a hole. I’m sorry I left you to shoulder the burden of us both alone. But I’m trying. Your light has reached me in the dark, and I’m getting better.

“We can survive this, so long as we do it together.”

If I hold her any tighter, I’ll probably break her ribs. But she’s holding me just as tight, so at least we’ll be broken together.

After all, that’s the point of it all, isn’t it? You don’t have to be whole, so long as you have someone to hold the pieces.

“I love you so much,” I tell her, my voice low and gravely from the barrage of emotions tightening up my throat.

“I love you too, Justin. Always and Forever.”

I bury my nose against her throat, and she makes a sound I haven’t heard in ages. A breathy, barely noticeable moan that shoots straight to my dick.

“Make love to me?” she asks, rubbing her cheek against my face.

“It would be my pleasure,” I assure her, before I take her lips with mine.

FIFTEEN

JUSTIN

There are about a hundred different ways Julia says my name.

There’s plain old Justin. When her lips are turned up in a smile, and my name gets brought up in conversation. There’s the way she says it when she breaks it down into multiple syllables, her exasperation with me evident. There’s when she uses my full name, and everyone in the vicinity takes a small step back because they know I’ve done something wrong and my wife is one of the only people unafraid of telling me what it was.

Loudly.

Then there’s when she sounds like this, and my name is like a breath in the air. A sigh and a caress. When it falls from her tongue with a broken gasp, and her limbs shudder from the sensations ripping through her.

That’s how I like it the best. When she can’t form words, yet my name still slips from her lips.

“Justin,” she sighs, her hips rocking on my lap. Her skin is flushed a lovely pink, sweat coating her flesh. Her hair is a mess of curls and tangles, gathered in a knot at the top of her neck. Little strands fall loose and wild, sticking to her face and throat and breasts.

How could I not have surrendered my soul into her safekeeping, when she says my name like that?

She holds a hand to the back of my head, her nails scraping deliciously over my scalp and skin. The other hand is behind her, on my thigh, supporting her as she rides my cock. She presses me to her when I take her breast into my mouth. Her nipples are fat and hard. The flesh of her breast is red and heated from the scrape of my stubble and teeth and tongue.

“You’re such a good girl,” I say against her flushed skin, and Julia whimpers and bucks, her hips snapping with extra force at the adulation.

I’m perched on the edge of the couch, my feet planted on the ground, giving Julia a steady frame from which to ride me. The fire is roaring in the hearth, even though there’s nothing to keep us from melting this close to the flames. Even though I love making Julia sweat.

Our bodies slide against one another from the heavy coating of our perspiration, and Julia seems to glow in the firelight.

The lewdness of her moans is intoxicating when I run the flat of my tongue around her nipple. When I imprint my teeth into the softness of her curves and suck the swell of her breast between my lips.

I almost laugh at the thought that I haven’t surrendered myself to this woman. She owns me, body and soul, and I’ll spend the rest of my life apologizing for making her ever feel otherwise.

I could worship at her tits for hours. I plan on it, as a matter of fact. Every time I suck her nipple between my teeth and flick it with my tongue, she cries out in pleasure, her back arching to bring her closer to me.

---