No, no, no. My entire body stiffens, and my hands ball into fists. He wouldn’t dare show up at my house. Why would he? He has 2,994,463 women in the state of Missouri to manipulate, use, and fuck.
But as I crane my neck and squint at the street, there he is, Trace Womanizer Savoy, rolling out of his Maserati and heading this way.
In a burst of rage, I explode from Jason’s car and charge toward him. “This is private property, you selfish, narcissistic prick! Get back in your car and go unfuck your fucked-up self!”
“You…” His voice crackles the air as his eyes spear the man behind me. “Leave.”
“I don’t want any trouble.” Jason approaches my side, hands up in a calming gesture. “She wants you to go and—”
“I won’t tell you again.” Trace erases the distance between us, his gait thundering with authority, shoulders squared, and arms relaxed at his sides.
“Why are you doing this?” My hands clench and shake with the need to inflict unholy violence. “Haven’t you hurt me enough?”
He slams to a stop a few feet away, his abs contracting inward, as if I punched him. Then he straightens his spine and hardens his eyes. “We need to talk.”
“I don’t care what you think we need to do. I want you out of my fucking sight!” I turn and storm toward the back door. “Come on, Jason.”
“Look, Danni,” Jason says through an exhale, “I don’t want to get in between whatever this is.”
My teeth crash together as I swing around and gape at him.
Standing on the side of the house, he’s locked in some sort of stare-down with Trace. If this is a battle of egos, Jason’s losing spectacularly. As Trace steps forward, Jason stumbles back, shoulders drooping and gaze diverting to the side.
Christ, I really know how to pick ‘em. But I’m not ready to give up. “Jason, I don’t have any business with that man. Are you coming?”
“I…um…”
He’s not coming, because he already came. In my mouth.
The blow job in the car was stupid, stupid, stupid. He got his release, and now he has zero incentive to stick around. Clearly, I’m not worth getting in between whatever this is.
My neck tenses to the point of pain as I march over and whisper harshly in his ear. “I gave you the best head you’ve ever had. You just lost your chance to find out what else I can do.”
“You what?” Trace’s low, deadly growl pounds a warning in my ears.
I have two seconds to lean back before his fist disperses the air and slams into Jason’s face.
“What the—” Jason falls against the bumper of his car, holding his jaw. “Goddammit!”
I gasp, teetering in my heels. The way Trace struck, so swiftly, with such terrifying composure, it’s like he didn’t move at all. It was just a snap of his arm, out and back, without a grunt or hitch in his breath.
“Why did you do that?” I glare at him with awe and horror.
“He’s still here.” Trace shifts his icy eyes to me. “You sucked his dick?”
“Did Marlo suck your dick?”
“No.”
“You poor thing. Is that why you’re here? Hoping I’ll fall on my knees and let you fuck my face because I’m too naive to clue in on how fucking sick you are?”
Jason’s car door slams shut, and the engine turns over. I don’t blame him for getting the hell out of Crazytown, but the tears well up anyway, searing my sinuses with rejection and humiliation.
As he throws it in reverse, I check my wristlet to make sure I didn’t leave anything in his car. Then he drives away without so much as a glance in my direction.
“Well done, Trace.” I dig out my house key with trembling fingers. “I commend you on your ability to chase another man from my home. That wasn’t predictable at all.” Turning away, I head toward the back door with my middle finger in the air. “Consider this my two-weeks notice.”
I don’t hear footsteps behind me as I unlock the deadbolt, and for a stupid moment, I think he’s still standing where I left him.
Until my scalp tingles. I hurriedly shove the door open. Too late.
A hand covers my mouth, an arm hooks around my waist, and my feet lose purchase with the ground. The wristlet falls to the floor as I kick and swing my elbows, pulse spiking, chest heaving, my screams frantic and muffled.
He hauls me deeper into the dance studio, kicks the door shut, and releases me.
“Why did you—?” He swipes a hand over his mouth, eyes forged with steel. “Why did you put your mouth on him?”
I stagger forward, righting my balance in the heels as fury powers through me.
Arms out and teeth bared, I shove at his chest and keep shoving. “Get out of my house!”
He slips around me and paces to the other side of the dance room.
“Answer the question.” His tone is so still and icy it lifts the hairs on my nape.
“Fuck you!” I yank off a stiletto and chuck at him.
He catches it easily and flings it aside. Then he shrugs out of his suit jacket, tosses it, too, and prowls toward me.
I back up, because holy fuck, he’s angry. The flush in his face, the crazed look in that glare, the hard line of his lips—he’s unraveling, losing his precious control, and I’m backed into a fucking corner.
My breaths quicken, and my muscles go rigid. I don’t think he’ll physically hurt me, but I didn’t think he’d fuck another woman, either. My judgment is total shit.
Pressing my back against a mirror, I remove the other stiletto and hold it like a weapon. “Don’t come any closer.”
His gait doesn’t slow, and in two strides, he’s on me, his hand like a vise around my wrist and his chest hard against mine. “Tell me why you were with that motherfucker.”
Tears are already coursing down my face. I can’t break his hold, can’t escape the strength of his body bearing down on me. All I have is my voice and the devastation attached to it.
“I haven’t had sex in three years.” The bitter words scrape from my throat, seething with self-loathing. “I was finally ready, and you…you…”
He didn’t cheat on me, because we weren’t together. But it feels so much like betrayal my shoulders curl in and my chest collapses beneath a thousand doubts. I should’ve told him how I felt about him, that he made me want to try harder, be stronger, smile more. I should’ve told him I loved him.
My face contorts with unbearable pain, and the shoe falls from my shaking hand. “You stuck your dick in her, and I picked up a guy at a bar. Because that’s what broken people do.”
His nostrils go wide. “If all you want is sex…”
He pulls the knot loose on his tie and yanks it off. Then his hand goes to his belt, tearing at the buckle.
“No!” I shove at his chest, digging my shoulder blades against the mirror behind me. “No, no, no, you’re not—”
He grips my throat and squeezes. “Don’t say that word again, unless you mean it.”
I clutch the shackle of his hand and stare up at him with watery eyes. He’s not cutting my airway. Not really hurting me, either. But I can’t move, and my lips won’t form the word I’m mentally chanting. NoNoNoNoNo…
His belt slides free, and the sound of it dropping against the floor shoots a ripple of warmth through my core. My skin heats. My nipples harden, and my pulse goes wild.
He’s going to fuck me, and I can’t let him. Only an hour ago, he was inside another woman. He doesn’t want me, doesn’t respect me, doesn’t give a shit about me. This is just a power trip to feed his childish, self-serving ego.
I raise my chin and force my gaze to the raging depths of his. When his mouth parts, I drive a knee into his groin. He grunts, and the hand on my throat loosens just enough for me to twist away. But I only make it two steps.
He slams against my back, and we stumble, our hands flying out to brace our collision against the wall. But we’re still moving, his weight pushing down on me, deliberately sending us to the floor.
I land face down with his body on top of me and his arm around my waist, buffering the fall. I try to pull my knees beneath me to scramble away, but he holds tight to my hips, his free hand clutched around the back of my thigh. Then he yanks up the hem of my mini dress.
Cool air brushes against my bare bottom right before his palm slams down, igniting my skin with fire.
“Fucking…God, fuck!” My arms and legs give out beneath the shocking pain, and my wail echoes through the room. “Why—?”
He spanks me again and again, and the sound of his hand slapping flesh punctuates the ungodly burn. The arm beneath my hips suspends me over his lap, giving him leverage to pommel my ass relentlessly.
I struggle and scream, but after a few seconds, it starts to feel forced, like I’m making myself fight it, deny it, hate it. Only I don’t hate it. With every strike, the pain dissolves into languorous curls of heat. It seeps through my pleasure centers, soothing, stroking, and coaxing my inner muscles into a spasm of need.
In a swift shift of his weight, he rolls on top me, his chest smothering my back and his hand beneath my hips, between my legs, sinking into my soaked pussy.
A gasp fills my lungs, the stretch of his fingers excruciatingly perfect. I don’t want this. I don’t. I can’t…
“Goddamn, you’re soaked.” He grips the ring on my labium and tugs it. “Such a kinky, filthy girl.”
“Not for you.” I kick and writhe, my voice gritty, clawing from the deepest, darkest places inside me. “Never.”
Except my body betrays me, drenching his plunging fingers, clamping down on the invasion, and quivering for release.
I buck my hips and arch my spine, knocking him off long enough to escape on hands and knees. Before I make it to my feet, fingers capture my ankle and flip me over. With a powerful yank, he drags me across the floor on my back and wrenches my thighs apart.
Without panties, I’m wide open and exposed for his greedy gaze. I struggle to get free, but he’s stronger, bigger, his hands impossible to dislodge as he spreads my legs wider.
His gaze meets mine, and I know the instant something shifts inside him. His anger’s still present, but it’s eclipsed by raw, unhinged hunger.
“Don’t,” I whisper, trembling.
Lightning flashes behind his eyes. Then he hoists my lower body off the floor and buries his face between my legs.
My hands plunge into his hair, pushing, pulling, and ripping at the strands. Desire wars with disgust. Anguish begets pleasure, and I’m lost beneath the diabolical swirl of his tongue, torn between wanting him and hating him, aching for relief and despising myself for it.
I need him. I want to hurt him. I yank his mouth against my pussy. Then I shove him away, crying, spitting, “I fucking hate you.”
He licks a path up my slit, breathes deeply against my mound, and looks directly in my eyes. “I love you.”
Bullshit. He’s sick and twisted, and so am I.
As he returns to my center, lapping at my clit and sucking on my piercing, I want nothing more than to come on his tongue. I’m crazed in my need for it, and sweet God, it’s gathering, rising, curling my toes, and bowing my back.
I should tell him to stop, but I can’t. I want— “Oh God, oh fuck, I’m coming.”
The orgasm crashes through me, shaking my limbs and shredding my voice as I moan and pant, my eyes fixed on his, frozen in shock. His mouth continues to grind against me, forcing me to ride his tongue harder, faster, extending the unendurable pleasure.
But as the bliss begins to taper and aftershocks twitch through my nerves, regret sinks in. He just fucked Marlo Vogt, and I let him lick me to climax. He’s no good for me, his intent manipulative, his desire poisonous.
“Get off me.” A sob rips from my throat, and I dig my heels against the floor, attempting to slide away.
He stays with me, crawling between my legs and covering my mouth with his. As his tongue sweeps the tang of my arousal across my lips, I can’t stop thinking about his betrayal and my need to hurt him as badly as he hurt me.
I break the kiss, pushing against him as I sneer. “Can you taste his come? When I sucked him off in the car, I swallowed every drop.”
His agonized roar rattles the walls, and his fist slams against floor beside my head. Arched over me, he holds himself up, his arms shaking with the force of his rage.
Then breath by breath, he reels it in.
Stillness settles through his muscles, and his eyes soften into molten blue glass.
My heart stops and restarts, galloping into a frenzied tempo. He’s so damn gorgeous. So potently masculine and intimidating I sink my teeth into my lip to stifle my plea to be fucked.
Don’t give in. Don’t give in.
I swing my fists and kick out a leg, hitting air. But my traitorous body wants, wants, wants. My pussy throbs and heats as he wedges his hips between my thighs and swats away my punching strikes.
“Say it, Danni.” His hooded gaze dips, taking in the length of my body, the spread of my legs, the heave of my chest, and the pulse in my throat. It’s a slow-burning perusal, full of sin and venom and promise. “Tell me no, if you don’t want this.”
The room fades away, and my brain malfunctions. Everything narrows to the rugged angles of his face and the intensity sharpening his cheekbones. For a man who can’t be controlled, he’s completely possessed by the grip of his desire.
I’m right there with him, consumed by the same suffocating fire. There’s only one way to quench this need, and it isn’t the word no.
I try to say it anyway, attempt to make my lips form the sane response, but that’s not what tumbles out. “I need you.”
“You have no idea how long I wanted to hear that.” He reaches for his fly, his other hand tangling in my hair and angling my head back to hold my gaze. “I love you so damn much.”
The sound of his zipper echoes in my ears, and I whimper.
Why can’t I fight this? I can’t stop my hands from reaching between us, fumbling over his in my urgency to pull him out.
He fits his cock at my entrance and looks me in the eyes. A swallow sticks in the back of my throat, and I grip his shoulders, trembling, panting. Please.
He thrusts, and we groan together, trembling as one in our relief. Burying himself as deeply as possible, he stretches me, fills me up, and makes me burn.
Then he fucks me, grunting like a feral caveman and hissing past clenched teeth. He’s a hurricane of fury and aggression, slamming his cock rapidly, violently, and punishing my mouth with deep bruising kisses.
God help me, I forgot what this feels like, the exquisite sensation of being taken, dominated, and fucked into mindless oblivion. It’s been three years. Three of the longest years of my life, and what a way to break the fast.
In that stunned moment, my mind blocks out how I got here, too absorbed by the cock stroking inside me, the tongue in my mouth, and the hands sweeping over my body. We’re longing and lust, sweat and muscle, skin on skin, two beasts in a mating dance, panting, clawing at clothes, and stabbing nails into flesh.
I rip open his shirt, pinging buttons across the floor. With a labored grunt, he tears it off his arms and flings it. There’s an undershirt beneath, baring bulges of biceps and pumped veins over muscle. I want to see more of him, but he attacks my dress, pounds his hips, and tears my strapless bodice down the center.
Breathing heavily and gnashing his teeth, he ravages my breast. His lips are firm and forceful, sucking my skin and leaving his mark. Then he starts to bite. Hard.
Panic rises, shattering my hungry trance. I shove his mouth from my nipple and thrash beneath him.
His eyes flash to mine, and he growls a low, combative noise.
“So damn feisty.” His thrusts quicken, hammering with urgency. “God, yes… Yes…” He doesn’t look away, his moans gravelly and hoarse. “You feel unbelievable. Fucking heaven.”
It shouldn’t feel this good. I should be repulsed and fighting him off. He fucking spanked me! How did I let this happen?
I grip his ass to stop his movements, but the muscles flex harder against my palms with each drive of his hips.
He’s a frenzy of testosterone, pounding into me like a lust-fueled piston. His eyes never leave mine, watching me, worshiping me with that ice-blue stare as his long fingers slide between us and clamp onto my clit.
My spine arches off the floor, and my legs shake against a flood of intoxicating pleasure.
“That’s it.” He circles and rubs my bundle of nerves, spiraling me toward the crest. “You’re going to come now.”
His other hand wraps around my throat, and that does it. The heart-pounding pressure against my airway ignites fireworks across my vision and shoves me into a climax so explosive I feel like I’m shattering into a million pieces.
“There’s my girl.” His thrusts lose rhythm, jerking and deepening. “Sexiest thing I’ve ever seen.”
My head falls back as I catch my breath, panting and moaning beneath the erratic stab of his hips. His hand slides from my throat to my face and pulls my mouth to his. Then he kisses me.
This kiss is different, lacking the usual hostility. It’s affectionate and tender, full of soul-stirring languish. I melt against his lips, feeding, sipping, falling into the gentle slide, the roaming strokes, and the ecstasy of love.
I love him, but I don’t forgive him. And as he comes, I see it all in his eyes—his pain and pleasure, remorse and devotion, heartache and passion. He said he loves me, too, but he ruined it.
“Danni.” He chokes, groaning deeply, gutturally, his entire body shaking as he grinds against me and pants through his release.
As he comes down, his forehead drops to mine, and he holds me, nuzzles my neck, his hands caressing my face.
The urge to curl in on myself shakes my shoulders. What have I done? What am I going to do now? I can’t be with him. I can’t love him.
When he lifts his head, his expression’s dazed, shocked, like he can’t believe he’s here, that he did this, with me.
He looks spooked.
My chest clenches as he pulls out and tucks himself away. I never saw his cock. He didn’t even take off his slacks, and now he’s avoiding my eyes.
“Trace?” I pull the ruined dress around my nudity, reaching for something, anything to say. “I don’t know what to do. I can’t…” Can’t be alone right now. “We should talk.”
With his back to me, he collects his clothes from the floor. Then he stands there, facing away. No chin raised in victory. No whispered apologies. Just a distant man, sullied with the come of two women. And, in the dissonance of my breaking heart, his silence.
His hand clenches at his side and releases. A jagged breath, and he strides out the door.
My insides cave in, beaten and bruised. As much as I want to call out to him and beg him to stay, I won’t. I’m not his girl.
The door shuts behind him, and the hollow sound of desertion ricochets through me. I roll toward the mirrored wall, tucking my knees to my chest. Pressure builds in my head, and the stupid tears spring up with a vengeance.
I’ve never felt so used, so…thrown away. But I’m just as much to blame. I could’ve said no.
I wanted sex tonight, and now that I’ve broken that crippling dry spell, I feel worse. Because intimacy is what I desperately crave—intimacy with a man who loves me.
For a poignant moment, Trace gave me a glimpse of that. Then he took it away.
I don’t even want to think about our lack of protection. I have an IUD, but what about disease? Did he use a condom with Marlo?
Nausea roils in my stomach. He fucked her…an hour before he had sex with me. Maybe he’s on his way back to her now. To hold her in his bed. To love her the way I ache to be loved.
Cole would’ve never done this to me. He was nothing if not faithful and one-hundred-percent devoted.
Waves of pain smash into my chest, and I slam a fist against the floor, pounding it as I cry ugly, self-loathing sobs. “I miss you, Cole. I miss you so much.”
Before he died, he ripped out my heart and held it between us, dripping with the blood of dreams. Old anger surges to the surface, cracking my ribs and burning up my skin. He shouldn’t have left me. He put his job first and destroyed everything we had.
I need a drink. A lot of drinks. It’s the only way to numb the pain and forget.
Blinking through blurred vision, I find my reflection in the busted hole in the mirror. My splintered, pitiful, broken face stares back, judging me.
Are you giving up, you pathetic bitch?
I’m comfortable here, lying on the floor in a pool of regret. I’ve grown addicted to sadness. It’s familiar, reliable, effortless.
I know that’s resignation talking. Giving up is a whole lot easier than fighting through the scar tissue. There are so many things holding me down, suffocating my will to breathe.
I need a purpose. A reason to contribute in this unfair world.
I have that, don’t I? I have passion—dancing, family, neighbors, the homeless shelter. That’s where I’m needed.
Love isn’t a choice. Nor is life. We connect, or we don’t connect. We live, and we die. There is no forever. The real fight is in making the best of it, making a difference, and appreciating the small glimmers of happiness.
I stretch out an arm and trace the cracks in the mirror. The last time I stared at my broken reflection was the night I moved my life with Cole into the basement. I just hauled it all down there, left it where it fell, and locked the door. It had been such a big step then.
Tonight, I need to finish it.
Forcing myself to stand, I shed the tattered scraps of the dress and remove my phone from the wristlet on the floor. Then I set my playlist to Dancing On My Own by Calum Scott.
Trembling, I pull on a camisole and boyshorts. Choking, I collect the key and my engagement ring. Weeping, I stand at the basement door as Calum Scott serenades the ruins of my heart.
With a deep breath, I unlock the door, turn on the lights, and descend into the fumes of damp concrete and Cole Hartman.
When he moved in, he took over the unfinished basement, filling it with tools, motorcycle parts, weight-lifting equipment, and other manly stuff. The scent of engine oil lingers in the air. Punk rock posters cover the walls. His old futon sits beside multiple workbenches.
Then there are the things I moved down two years ago. His clothes, cologne, watches, CDs, wedding decor, boxes of photos and keepsakes I collected during our ten months together. But the sight of the white dress crumpled on the floor is what releases the floodgates.
My eyes drown in tears as I move my feet toward the gown. My fingers travel over the dusty tulle and beaded bodice. It would’ve been a beautiful wedding. Our marriage would’ve been as epic as our love.
My ribcage quakes with the force of my heartache as I gather the dress and hug it to my chest.
I don’t know when I finally uncurl my fingers and set the gown aside. I move in a fog of turmoil, opening the empty boxes Bree gave me, digging through piles of Cole’s shirts, sniffing each one, and crying harder.
Then I start packing.