Page 20 of Say You Love Me

I drop to the floor without hesitation, only the finest blanket of air between us, eager to do whatever he demands. For a moment our eyes lock. My breath hitches. My heart pounds. His eyes slip to my lips and I think he might kiss me. I wonder if he will feel the way I’m trembling inside. I wonder if he will taste my desperation.

But instead of lifting his mouth to mine, he closes his eyes and gets to his feet. His cock is in front of me, hard and strong and thick as he pumps it. He groans between clenched teeth then lets out a hiss of air. He comes, the warm liquid hitting my face, forcing me to flinch as it runs down my skin, across my lips.

He doesn’t say a word, merely pumps himself slowly before pinching off the end and pulling his pants back up. He walks away as I wipe his cum from my face.

I suppose he wanted me to feel used. Part of me does. Part of me wants to fall to the floor and sob. Part of me wants to scream.

But part of me is horny as fuck.

What have we done to each other?

Who have we become?

He doesn’t come back down the stairs. I hear the creak of the shower faucet, the rush of the water as it runs through the pipes. And then nothing. He must have gone to bed.

The cricket is still playing on the television and I stare at it blankly. I’ve never understood the game, never tried. To me it’s boring, not something I would ever choose to watch, but right now, staring at the screen, watching the ball roll across the grass and the player’s feeble attempt to reach it before it hits that ring of rope, is soothing. It stops me from thinking too hard about what just happened. It stops me from laying my head against the armchair of the couch and dissolving into tears at the chasm that exists between us, the strained conversations.

How could two people fall so far apart while craving each other so intensely?

Or, at least, I think he craves me. The way he looks at me sometimes says he does, but at other times his look says he despises me. I wish I had someone to confide in. I have never longed for a friend as much as I do now. In the past, I never needed one. Hudson was my friend, my everything.

I just need someone to care. I need someone to wrap me in their arms and tell me that everything is okay. That it was an accident, something that could have happened to anyone. I need someone to hold me and tell me that it wasn’t my fault.

But I don’t know anyone willing to lie.

chapter ten

THEN

~

FINITY

“Did you miss me?”

Hands snake around my waist and soft kisses are pressed to my neck but I scoot away, flicking Hudson with the tea towel.

“I’ve got no time for your shenanigans.”

Hudson leans against the kitchen bench. He crosses his arms and smirks at me. “Shenanigans?”

“Yes, shenanigans.”

“I don’t even know what shenanigans are, let alone if you have time for mine.”

I scowl and put the final touches on the platter I’ve prepared. Hudson reaches for a grape but I slap his hand away.

“I’ve just got everything perfect. Don’t ruin it!”

Instead of getting annoyed, Hudson merely laughs. “Well, if this is how stressed you’re getting about having dinner with our parents, I’m pleased we skipped the whole wedding thing.”

I sigh deeply. “Are you, though? You’re not worried you missed out?”

It’s been worrying me ever since we made the decision to get married at the courthouse. It was my idea. As soon as Hudson started talking about groomsmen and wedding parties and who would walk me down the aisle, who we would hire as a photographer and what sort of flowers I wanted, the excitement at the thought of marrying him sank to the bottom of my gut as dread.

I could picture my mother, sitting amongst all his family and friends, uncomfortable and filled with memories of the family who wasn’t here. I had an aunt somewhere. Nieces and nephews too, maybe, but my mother stopped talking to her family as soon as she started dating my father so I’ve never met them. And she never talks about them. She never talks about the past. Ever. Apart from when she’s drunk.

I didn’t want to walk down the aisle without my father.

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