Page 30 of Savage Love

“We need to check out soon,” he says, sliding away from me and pushing the blankets back. “And we both need a shower, I think.”

There’s a forced lightness in his tone, but it doesn’t make me feel better. I close my eyes against the threatening tears, the feeling of rejection sending all of my arousal vanishing in an instant as I pull my hand away, a cold, sinking feeling replacing the throbbing heat I’d felt only a moment ago.

Our wedding night is over. He’s made that very clear. And while he might be prepared to go to bed with me enough to make sure I don’t feel neglected, it’s also clear that sex the morning after our wedding, when we fucked twice last night, is something he considers to be a luxury beyond that.

“I’ll get in the shower after you,” I manage, trying my best not to sound as if I’m about to burst into tears.

“Are you sure?” Levin glances at me, and I nod. I can’t bear the thought of being in the shower with him right now, seeing him naked and wet and gorgeous, wanting to touch him and knowing he’ll push me away, remembering all those nights in motels in Rio when we did so many things in those showers that he’ll stop me from doing now.

“Alright. I’ll make it quick.” He gets up, and I can’t stop myself from stealing a glance at him as he does. He’s handsome as ever, his bare, muscled ass flexing as he stands up, the tattoos on his back trailing down a bit past his lower back. My palms itch to slide over his skin, to trace those patterns with his fingertips. I want to kiss every inch of him, drag him back to bed, and keep him here until it’s dark again. We should be leaving on a honeymoon, getting ready to spend days in bed, only leaving to eat and explore a little, and we’re not doing any of that.

I lie there as I listen to the door to the bathroom close behind him, the water turning on shortly after that, and I try not to imagine him naked in the shower. I have the privacy to finish what I started now, but all the desire has fled. I don’t want to lie here touching myself until I come. I want Levin’s hands and mouth on me, and if my own fingers are going to make me come, I want it to be while his cock is inside of me at the same time.

I want my husband, and it feels monumentally unfair that I can’t have that.

You made this bed, too,I remind myself, brushing away the tears that start to slide down my cheeks.You kept convincing him to sleep with you in Rio, and you ignored the risk, even though he told you it wasn’t going to become anything more.I can’t pretend that Levin wasn’t honest with me from the start. He always has been. I just didn’t listen.

Now I’m married to a man who will be my husband in the most technical sense only. And as much as I want to bitterly tell myself that I won’t go to bed with him if he’s only doing it to satisfy me when necessary, I know that’s not true. As ashamed as it makes me feel, I’ll take whatever of him I can get.

The shower is as quick as he promised it would be, but it still feels like an eternity to me before the door opens again, and he steps out, a towel wrapped around his waist. I feel a flash of what almost feels like anger at him for coming out like that—couldn’t he have gotten dressed in the bathroom, and not teased me?It feels strange, because I don’t think I’ve ever really been angry at Levin before. I’m not quite sure if I am now, but it feels like the closest I’ve come to it.

He opens the closet door and pulls out a thick terrycloth robe, handing it to me. “If you want,” he says as he drapes it over the bed next to me, walking over to the leather duffel by the dresser that’s very similar to the one I saw him use in Mexico when we stayed at Diego’s mansion after the party. That duffel, of course, is at the bottom of the ocean now with the rest of the plane’s wreckage, but I’d never know it from the look of the new one if I hadn’t been on the plane myself.A man of habit.

I reach for the robe, trying to avert my eyes as Levin picks up the duffel and sets it on the end of the bed. There’s really no point in playing coy—he’s been inside me in almost every way that’s possible by now. We know each other intimately, and I shouldn’t need a robe to go to the shower. But I can still feel the sensation of his hands on my skin last night like a brand, the stickiness of his cum between my thighs, the marks on my breasts where he nipped and sucked at my flesh. I feel like I don’t want him to see the evidence that he touched me last night, when he pushed me away this morning.

So I awkwardly half-slide out of the bed, tugging on the robe as I try to keep the sheets around me as much as possible. It doesn’t really matter—I can see in my periphery that he seems to be avoiding looking at me as much as I’m trying not to ogle him—and I tie the robe with a jerk of my hands, forcing back a fresh wave of disappointed tears that threaten to well up as I walk across the room to the shower.

With the door to the bathroom firmly closed behind me, I lean against it and close my eyes, trying to get my emotions under control. It doesn’t help that the room smells like him, the masculine scents of piney shower gel and citrusy shampoo filling the humid air. He must have brought his own things with him instead of using what the hotel provided. It feels like I’m surrounded by him, all the scents that I’ve come to associate with having his body close to me, bare skin against mine and hair beneath my hands, and his face pressed against me filling my nostrils. I’m enveloped with it, and the ache in my chest spreads through me, until all I feel is a hopeless sense of hurt.

I shouldn’t have done this.It’s the first time I’ve ever thought that, and I try to fight it back. I don’t want to regret any of it, not the beach or Rio or our marriage. I want to believe that in the years to come, something will change. That time and intimacy and our family that’s beginning now will make a difference.

You’re a fool. If he hasn’t moved on in twelve years, he won’t in another twelve. It doesn’t matter what you do.

The thought weighs me down. My steps feel leaden as I walk to the shower, turning it on and letting steam fill the glass enclosure. When I step in, I pour a healthy amount of the orange blossom and honey shampoo into my hand, lathering it and letting it run under the water out between my fingers until that scent starts to fill the air, and not what’s left from Levin.

And then I lean against the tiles, the heavy spray of the water drowning out the sounds, and I let myself cry.

It’s the morning after my wedding, and I’m sobbing in the shower.

It’s been a long time since I’ve felt so alone.

—

Since we’re not going on a honeymoon, and we don’t have a place of our own yet, we’re headed back to Niall and Isabella’s house. “I offered for us to stay in a hotel,” Levin tells me as he drives us back. “But Niall thought it was bad hospitality, and Isabella wants you close. So that’s that, I suppose.”

I know what he’s not saying—that Isabella wantsmeclose, and that if it were possible to have me stay without Levin, she’d jump at the opportunity. But regardless of how anyone feels about it, Levin is my husband now, and asking him to stay elsewhere would be the height of rudeness.

Isabella was raised the same way I was—rudeness to guests is an impossibility. At worst, you can be cold to those you don’t like, while still offering them hospitality. I have a feeling she’ll be frosty with Levin until we can find a place of our own—and before, I might have taken issue with it. Now I’m not feeling all that happy with him myself.

No matter how many times I remind myself that I knew what I was getting into, that this is as much my fault as it is his, I can’t stop the hurt that seems to have settled into my chest and taken up residence there for now.He could try, I keep thinking, and then I remember, over and over again, that thisishim trying. That he’s done all he can to make me happy within the bounds of what he can manage. It’s not his fault that it’s not enough, any more than it’s mine.

Levin parks in the driveway, turning off the car. “We’re back home,” he says neutrally, looking at the grey-painted house in front of us. “For now.”

I twist my fingers together in my lap, feeling anxiety rise up and turn into a lump in my throat. “When are we going to look for our own place?”

He looks over at me, and I see a hint of sympathy in his blue eyes. It’s not unfamiliar. I can’t sit here and pretend that I don’t know that Levin cares about me. It’s not his fault that’s not enough for me. That I wantmore. “Whenever you want,” he tells me. “We can start looking tomorrow, or we can wait a bit until you’re ready, if you’re more comfortable here.”

“You’d do that for me?” I blurt out, before I can stop myself. I know he doesn’t particularly like staying here. How could he, when my sister is so clearly disapproving of him? Isabella might not turn him away, but she hasn’t—and won’t—go to any great lengths to make him feel welcomed.

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