“I got drunk, and I stayed drunk, Rory. I was fucking wasted when I did what I did with her, but it meant nothing, and I hated myself when I finally came to my senses. Maybe you weren’t here, but in my soul, you were still mine and I was fucking yours. Even then. My insanity lasted for all of two days, and then the red began to clear and I got rid of her. I couldn’t even look at myself in the mirror for weeks afterward.”
I closed my eyes to block out the tormented look on his face, but I couldn’t shut it out. Could see that same lost and tortured look on his face after I had left him.
“I loved you then, and I love you now. And I’m so fucking sorry I had sex with Steph, that I hurt you by doing that.” He kissed my shoulder, then my neck, making me shiver and clench around his cock that was still rock hard as it sat deep inside my body, unmoving. “I would change it if I could, but I can’t, baby. I fucking can’t.”
I pressed my forehead to the center of his chest. “I always knew you wouldn’t stay celibate. You’re not a monk, Matt. I just… It’s hard to digest when the proof of who you were with while I wasn’t here is shoved down my throat like my father did today.”
“I’m sorry, babe.” Slowly he began to rock into me, keeping the pace steady but no less mind-numbingly delicious. I tried to fight the pleasure, tried to keep my body from melting more and more, but it was hopeless. He knew exactly how to make my body respond to him, how to draw out every little whimper and sigh.
“I love you, Rory. Only ever you. Don’t think of that bitch. Don’t ever think of her because, until Rave told me about her just now, I had completely forgotten about her. She means nothing. No one—fucking no one, girl—means anything to me but you.”
“But it hurts,” I cried, my nails biting punishingly into his shoulders. “It hurts so bad.”
“Fuck, I would take it away in a heartbeat if I could. Don’t let this ruin us, baby. Don?
?t let this come between us.” He stopped moving, his cock completely still inside of me, which drove me a little closer to the edge. “I won’t lose you over her, do you hear me?”
My head fell back against the tile, and I looked up at him with tears clinging to my lashes. “You won’t,” I whispered. “Because as much as I hate the thought of you with her, I can’t let you go. I love you more than I love myself, and I can’t give you up. Ever.”
Relief filled his enthralling eyes. That look, and feeling how hard he was inside of me, told me without words that he loved me, that I mattered the most to him. That was all I needed right then. What I would always need.
Chapter Seventeen
MATT
I WAS STILL TRYING TO catch my breath a long while later as Rory lay on top of me on our bed. She was still gasping, her body still trembling from the force of the last orgasm I had just given her only a few minutes before.
As my heart began to settle into its normal rhythm, I stroked my hands up and down her spine. “So you saw your dad today?” She nodded. “Did you run errands for Raven?” She shook her head. “You should have fucking woken me up, Rory.”
She lifted her head. “Why? You going with me would have only made that meeting more stressful for me.”
“Why?”
“Because he uses you against me!” she cried and rolled over onto her side on the mattress facing me. “It’s what he did today. He threatened your freedom, wanted me to break up with you or he was going to have Campbell charge you for the rape of Steph and her slutty friend Casandra.”
Regret at ever having touched Steph hit me in the gut again, but it didn’t stop me from being pissed that Rory had faced her dickhead father without me. Rory was mine, and that meant I protected her, not the other way around.
“Just to clear everything up regarding those two bitches, did you fuck Casandra too?”
I caught her chin and forced her to look at me. “No,” I told her honestly. “I didn’t touch her. But Tanner had some fun with that one. I think he actually invited a few of the brothers over and had an orgy with her in our living room. I was drunk off my ass at the time, so I can’t say a hundred percent for sure, though.”
Her face scrunched up in disgust, but I saw the relief she wanted to hide. “Your brother was gross.”
“He had his moments,” I agreed, feeling the loss of the man who’d had my back every day of my life, all over again. “But until I met you, I wasn’t any better, baby. I wasn’t a good guy, and all I cared about was having fun.” I didn’t want her to think I was some hero she should put on a pedestal. Until I met her, I hadn’t cared what I did or who I did it with. But when she walked into Hannigans’ on a dare, she turned my life upside down for the better.
She was silent for a long moment, but then she blew out a frustrated sigh. “The past is the past. I don’t want to talk about it, don’t want to think about you with anyone but me.”
“You’re the only one that counts.”
“Good.”
“Now, tell me what happened with your dad today.” Her lips pressed together, and I knew she had been hoping I had gotten too distracted to bring up her father again. “Campbell and Bates haven’t shown up to arrest me, and I sure as fuck am not letting you leave me. Which means you must have handled things with your father.”
She lifted her shoulder in a casual shrug. “We came to a mutual understanding that satisfied us both in the end. He won’t bother us again, I promise.”
“That simple?” I frowned, knowing there had to be more to it than what she was saying. Derrick Michaels was too full of himself to let it go so easily.
“That simple,” she said with a sly smile and sat up. “I’m starving. I haven’t eaten much today. Can we go and see if the chili Raven was making earlier is ready?”