“I told them to leave,” I spit the words out.

Wet wisps of blonde hair stuck to her pale cheeks as she looked up at me with a mixture of fury and confusion in her brown eyes. “W-what? What are you talking about?”

“I paid the movers and told them to leave the boxes in the garage,” I replied.

“Why?” she cried in disbelief. “Why are you even here? You haven’t paid me more than a passing glance for over a year, except when you’re pushing your way inside me. I’m just a hole for you to dump your hostilities.”

“What do you fucking expect? We lost our child!” I roared as she sobbed into her hands. “Did you expect this to be easy? We lost our child and you’re going to give up because I’m not grieving exactly the way you want me to?”

She shook her head as she rose from the floor, then she pointed her finger in my face. “No. You are not going to come here and try to make me feel bad for being the only person willing to do anything — anything at all to fix this marriage! I’m the one who wanted to go to counseling! You’re the one who turned me down, time and again!”

“You think I want to tell some stranger how much I fantasize about murdering another human being? Does that sound like a good fucking idea to you? Because it sounds like something only an idiot would do!”

She threw her hands up. “So now I’m an idiot?”

I stepped forward, my body taking up the entire doorway. “Don’t do that. Don’t twist my words the way you always do.”

“Get out of my way,” she said, trying to squeeze past me, but I remained solidly still. “Get out of my way! I have to tell the movers not to leave.”

I shook my head. “You can’t sell this house without divorcing me or taking me to court.”

Her jaw dropped at the mention of this hard fact. The truth was that I could take her to court to dispute her sale of the house. It wasn’t something I wanted to do, and it wasn’t a case I’d ever win, but I could do it if I wanted to tie her up in a legal battle. I would do it if it meant I could keep her from making a mistake she would surely regret later.

“Are you seriously going to fight me on this?” she replied. “This is my house! I grew up here! My mother died to give me this house!”

“A sacrifice I’ll always be grateful for, even if it was for nothing.”

Even as I said the words, I regretted them. It was wrong, even cruel, but clearly neither of us was thinking straight. And maybe that was the point that needed to be made.

Her eyes widened. “You unbelievable asshole. Get out of my way!”

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”

She pummeled her bony fists against my chest, pushing me into the hallway. I easily overpowered her, grabbing hold of her wrists to stop the assault.

I pressed her back against the bare wall. “You’re being impulsive, baby. You can’t sell this house. Your mom wanted you to have it.”

If she sold this house, that would be it. There would be nothing tying her to Oregon anymore; no legal reason for her to come back other than to divorce me. I couldn’t let her set that chain of events in motion.

Tears spilled over her cheeks, but she’d given up trying to twist her arms out of my grip. “They’re going to leave, Jack,” she whimpered, her limbs yielding to me as I crushed my body against hers. “Let me go. Please, just let me go,” her mouth begged, but her slack muscles pleaded with me to do exactly the opposite.

I pulled her arms above her head, pinning her wrists to the wall. “Never. I’ll never let you go. You’re mine,” I murmured, my mouth brushing against hers. “Now and forever. And don’t you ever fucking forget that.”

She drew in a large gasp of air as my lips landed on her mouth. Pushing my tongue inside, she responded by bucking her hips against my dick and kissing me greedily. She tasted salty and sweet, like fresh tears, vanilla lip balm, and too much white wine. She’d been day-drinking again.

I broke away from her, clenching my teeth furiously, and still unable to stop tears from welling up as I gazed into her bloodshot eyes. “What have we done to each other?”

She shook her head, but she didn’t speak. She didn’t have to. There were no words for how messed up this was. For how royally we’d fucked everything up.

My mouth fell over hers again and she moaned as my free hand grabbed her breast. She was so fucking warm and soft, but not as soft as she used to be.

Laurel was a shapeshifter, and I loved her body in every form. When we met during our senior year in college, she was still carrying around her freshman fifteen, and it made for some slap-tastic fuck-fests. Then, she lost a few pounds for the wedding. The voluptuous curves she gained after her pregnancy, right up until… That was my favorite form.

But I still loved her like this, wispy and fragile, her body bearing the evidence of how much she ached for our son.

I looked her in the eye as I slid my hand down the front of her gray leggings and inside her panties. Her mouth fell open in a silent gasp as I easily slid two fingers inside her soaking wet pussy. Pressing my thumb against her clit, my dick twitched as her eyes rolled back when I found her G-spot.

I leaned in, my lips touching her ear as I growled, “This is mine.” I waited until her legs began to quiver before I slid my hand out of her pants and grabbed her tit again. “And this…” I bit her earlobe, dragging my teeth over the tender flesh. “And every part of you belongs to me.”

I kissed her again, hard, then I pulled away. Taking a moment to savor the greedy plea in her eyes, I kissed my way down her body until I was down on one knee before her. She eagerly assisted me as I pulled off her leggings and panties, discarding them somewhere behind me. Planting a soft kiss on her mound, I smiled as goose bumps spread over her delicate skin.

As I knelt before her, my right hand slid behind her, grabbing her ass, then skimmed along the back of her leg. Clutching the back of her knee, I lifted her leg, draping it over my shoulder as I used my left hand to spread her flesh. Her pink petals were glistening and ready for me.

Keeping my right arm wrapped around her thigh to anchor her to me, I devoured every inch of her. Drinking in every last drop of her arousal as if she were a vintage bourbon. Until finally, her body curled over mine, her hard nipples straining against the fabric of her T-shirt, brushing my forehead as she begged me to stop.

But I didn’t.

Experience had taught me that Laurel liked me to take it just a bit further, until her body began to flail uncontrollably. It didn’t take long until the knee draped over my shoulder jerked inward, slamming into my ear. I chuckled as I continued to lick her clit, until I heard a loud thunk.

Leaning my head back, I couldn’t believe it when I saw Laurel covering her mouth in horror and staring at a hole in the wall.

As soon as I started to laugh, she began to laugh with me. I let her leg slide off my shoulder, and scooped her up in my arms to carry her to her old bedroom.

She yelped as I dropped her onto the floral bedspread, then she smiled as she spread her legs for me and my dick got painfully hard. “Remind me never to fuck you in a museum.”