Can’t stand it touching me.
Not now, not when everything he told me—everything he did for me and to me—was a lie.
Desperate, damaged, determined, I shove my shirt up over my stomach. Fumble with the clasp. But I’m too panicked, too heartsick, and I can’t make it work. Can’t get it to release.
“Chloe, no. ” Ethan’s voice sounds panicked now, too, but I’m not paying attention. I’m not listening to him, will never listen to him again.
“Chloe, don’t. ”
Nearly hysterical now, I yank as hard as I can. So hard that I can feel the chain digging into my back, feel the blood start to run. And still I pull. Again and again—
The clasp finally breaks and the chain falls off into my hand. I stare at it for long seconds, at the diamonds glowing in the bright, kitchen lights. At the drops of blood glistening on the links.
Ethan’s right in front of me now, his face only inches from my own. I freak out. I can’t let him touch me, not now. Not if I have any chance of ever being okay again.
I hold my hand out, open my fingers, and let the chain fall to the floor between us.
And then I run.
Chapter Twenty-seven
I don’t even make it to the front door before he catches me. I lash out at him, clawing, scratching, desperate to get away. Muttering a curse, he turns me away from him, wraps his arms around me. Then pulls me in close, my back to his front.
“Let me go!” I scream through the tears. The words are garbled, a mess—like me—and Ethan ignores them.
“Just listen!”
“I’ve heard enough! You wanted me to walk, so goddammit, let me walk. ”
“Not yet. ” The belly chain is in his hand and he tries to push it back into mine. “Take this. ”
“I don’t want it. ” I refuse to open my clenched fingers. “I never want to see it—or you—again. ”
“Please, Chloe. I know I don’t deserve anything from you, but please. Take it. ” He pries my fingertips from my palm, presses the cold chain into my grasp before once again closing my fingers around it.
“I’m sorry, baby. ” He presses a kiss against my temple. “I’m so sorry I did this to you. ”
I don’t answer. I can’t. The fact that he’s suddenly being tender, sweet, only makes this whole thing a million times harder. Not to mention more confusing and more infuriating.
I can’t take it anymore, so I bring my arm up and hurl the chain away from me as hard as I can. It slams against the foyer wall before sliding to the floor.
“Goddammit. ” He growls the word into my ear, his arms tightening around me like a vise. For the first time it registers that he’s as messed up, as out of control, as I am. For the first time a sliver of fear works its way through the pain.
I know that Ethan would never physically harm me, but if you’d asked me twenty-four hours ago I would have said that he would never treat me like this, either. That he would never dump me so callously, never throw me away like I’m nothing.
And yet here we are. The pieces of what we used to have are lying in ruins at our feet and all that’s left is the pain and the fury and the heat. Always the goddamned heat. Already I can feel a response rising in me, my body so attuned to his that I’m growing wet even as my mind and my memories rage against the position he’s holding me in.
I’m not the only one. His breath is ragged against my ear, his cock hard against my lower back. He’s burning up, hot and shaky and so aroused that I can all but taste it in the air around us.
“Let me go!” I say again, jerking against his grip. If I don’t walk away now, I’m afraid I won’t find the strength to do it later. And I can’t stay, not after everything that’s been said and done.
“Don’t you think I would if I could?” He sounds as tormented as I am. “That’s what I’ve been trying to do. Now it’s too fucking late. ”
He pushes me against the door with a hand flat on my back, while his other hand yanks at the waistband of my yoga pants.
“What are you doing?” I demand as my pants and underwear hit the floor. I’m in agony, aroused and afraid and anguished all at the same time.
“What the fuck does it look like?” he growls, sounding nothing like the Ethan I know. The Ethan I love even now. He’s pressed against my lower back and I can feel him fumbling with his own pants. Unbuttoning them. Lowering the zipper.