CHAPTER FIVE
Caitlin
People live in each other's shelter.
–Irish proverb
He drives to the end of my unprepared body and it hurts, but only a little. It’s not enough, not near as much as I want it to hurt. I want to be bruised by the force of our coming together. I want my body to feel as ravaged as my heart. I want to come screaming for mercy, not begging for release.
I dig my nails into his ass, forcing him deeper, faster, harder. I arch my back, shoving my hips into him until I start to feel sore and tender, and still I fight him for more. I score his skin with my nails, dig my teeth into his lip, his neck, the thick muscle of his bicep. I mark him, crying out in relief as he marks me back. His teeth dig into the sensitive skin between my neck and shoulder, and his fingers pinch my nipple hard enough for the sting to go rushing out along every nerve ending.
“Yes,” I growl into his ear. “Harder. Fuck me like you mean it.”
“I always fuck you like I mean it,” he says, shifting the angle of his penetration until his cock rams even deeper inside me, the thick head of him slamming against the entrance to my womb, sending sharp waves of discomfort coursing through me with each battering thrust.
But I don’t want discomfort. I want to hurt. I need to hurt.
“More,” I beg, wrapping my legs around his waist and lifting my hips. “Fuck me, Gabe. Please, fuck me. Don’t hold back, don’t fucking hold back.”
He grips my hips in his hands, taking control of my body, jerking me up and down his cock as he slams home again and again, taking me so hard and fast my breasts shake and my spine twinges from the reverberations of each brutal thrust. My jaw begins to ache and my temples pulse as every muscle in my body strains closer, closer, until I’m tearing at him with my nails, gritting my teeth against the dark wave of pleasure-pain rolling in to pull me under.
My orgasm slams into me with the force of a tsunami hitting shore. It is savage and cruel and beautiful, all at the same time. The pleasure is smothering, blinding. It sucks me down to the sea floor of myself, down into the utter blackness where there is no light, and no place to hide, and it is so cold and lonely there. It is barren and bleak and empty, a post-apocalyptic landscape where nothing will ever grow again.
No matter how fiercely I cling to Gabe as he loses himself inside me, down here, down at my very core, I’ve already let him go. He’s already gone, already dead, and I am a shell of a person who will have to find some way to keep going without him.
“God, I can’t,” I whisper, tears streaming down my face for the thousandth time tonight. “I can’t do this without you.”
And then I am crying my eyes out again and Gabe is holding me close and whispering that he loves me and that he’s sorry and that I’m beautiful and strong and he’s going to make everything as easy for us both as he can. He doesn’t promise everything will be okay; he doesn’t say I’ll be fine. He just keeps repeating that he loves me, and believes in me, and that he will love me forever.
“Forever,” he whispers into my hair as he cradles me close. “Until men are fairy tales, and the world goes up in a ball of fire.”
Finally, his soft voice and his hands stroking my back—as gentle now as they were ruthless a few minutes ago—calm me. I curl into him, resting my cheek on his bare chest, holding him close. My hip muscles are sore and aching and the delicate tissue between my legs is so bruised I know I’ll need to sit carefully tomorrow, but I’m glad. I will treasure this evidence that Gabe is real and alive and still with me, at least for a little longer. I wish I could keep these little hurts for the rest of my life, wish I could have proof of the man I love imprinted permanently on my body.
“I want to get a tattoo,” I whisper against his skin, words slurred by the exhaustion pulling at the backs of my eyes. “Tomorrow. I want us to get one together.”
“What do you want to get?” he asks, fingers trailing lightly up and down my arm.
“Dandelion seeds.” I kiss his chest, and flick my tongue out along his sweat-damp skin, wanting the taste of Gabe in my mouth before I go to sleep. “Dandelion seeds blowing away in the wind.”
He hums, vibrating my cheek. “Off in their different directions, but from the same source. Always a part of each other.”
I smile even as pain tightens the skin between my eyebrows. He understands. Of course he does. He always understands, in a way no one ever has, and no one else ever will.
“We’ll go tomorrow,” he says. “I know a good shop in Charleston. We can get tattoos and then go make another deposit in your account. I’m leaving you my trust fund—I’ve already had the will drawn up—but it might take time for the lawyers to sort that out after. I want to know you’re taken care of until then.”
“I don’t want your trust fund,” I say, knowing I’d start crying again if I had any tears left.
“Well, you’re getting it, so suck it up, blondie,” he says, making me smile.
“I love you,” I whisper as I fall asleep.
“Forever,” he says.
It is the last word I hear before I’m sucked into a cold, hopeless sleep, where no dream dares to tread.