“Do you want this?” I tilted her chin up, forcing her eyes to meet mine. “Tell me if you don’t, Red. This is your last chance.”
Jules’s throat bobbed with a swallow. “I want this.”
I released her chin and tugged her head back with one hand while freeing my cock with the other. “Tap my thigh if you want me to stop.”
That was the only warning I gave her before I shoved myself down her throat. She gagged at the brutal invasion, her eyes welling with tears, but her hands remained planted in her lap.
I gripped her hair with both hands and fucked her mouth, deeper and deeper until the obscene sound of my balls slapping against her chin mixed with her choked gurgling.
My jaw clenched as I stared down at her. The sight of her kneeling before me, tears and mascara running down her cheeks while she choked on my cock, sent an irrational wave of fury through me.
I closed my eyes and tipped my head back. That turned out to be a mistake, because the minute I did, unwanted memories banged through my brain.
Vermont. The clinic. Hyacinth. The picnic. Ohio.
Every puzzle piece that shaped our relationship into what it was now, tainted.
It wasn’t about the size of Jules’s lies. I didn’t give two fucks about a stupid painting and some gadgets. It was about trust.
All I’d ever wanted was honesty, and all I’d ever gotten was deception.
Tension knifed through my gut.
I opened my eyes and yanked my cock out of Jules’s mouth. Sweat coated my skin, and my heart drummed a painful rhythm in my chest.
She was a mess—hair tousled, mouth swollen, cheeks streaked with tears. She stared up at me, those huge hazel eyes saying words I didn’t want to hear.
“Get on all fours.”
I couldn’t bring myself to look at her, but even when I fucked her from behind, images of her seared through my brain.
The glint of her hair in the sunlight. The fire that sparked in her eyes when she insulted me. The softness of her palm against mine and the way her mouth tilted up just a fraction higher on the right when she smiled.
Pressure suffocated my chest.
Jules was close to coming. I could hear it in the way she breathed and feel it in the way she squeezed around me.
It was funny how sometimes, I was attuned to her every movement, and other times, I didn’t know her at all.
I leaned down until my mouth hovered next to her ear. “Remember when I said I forgive you?” I reached around to pinch her clit. “I lied.”
Jules’s orgasm hit her at the same time my words did. She gasped out a half sob, half moan while I came right after her.
The empty release did nothing to ease the pressure behind my ribcage.
I disentangled myself from her and stood. She slumped forward on the ground, her dress bunched around her waist, her shoulders shaking with soft cries.
“How does it feel to be lied to, Jules?” The raw, angry words sounded like they came from someone else. Someone crueler than I ever thought I could be. “Doesn’t feel good, does it?”
The ice in my veins had melted. I was drowning from the inside out, and part of me wanted to give in, sink beneath the surface, and never come back up.
Michael. Alex. Jules.
Three of the people I trusted most all stabbed me in the back. Michael and Alex’s betrayals hurt, but Jules...she knew how fucked up I was from what happened with the others.
Intellectually, I understood her reasoning for not telling me earlier. Emotionally, I couldn’t stop the hurt from poisoning every memory of us.
Careful, Red. Keep saying things like that, and I might never let you go.
You’re one of the few people I trust...even when we couldn’t stand each other, I could always count on you to be honest with me.
Heat blazed across my cheeks.
I was a fucking idiot.
Jules pushed herself off the ground and faced me. Giant blotches of red bloomed across her face and neck. She’d stopped crying, but her breaths sounded abnormally loud and shallow in the silence.
“It seems only fitting for us to end things with a goodbye fuck.” A cruel smile slashed across my mouth. The unyielding pressure had crawled up my throat, and it took twice as much effort to get my words out. “At least you got an orgasm out of it, so don’t say I never gave you anything. I’ll miss that tight pussy of yours though. No one takes my cock better than you do. It’s your best quality.”
Vicious hurt slashed across her face and speared me in the chest like a hot poker.
The only person I hated more than her in that moment was myself.
“What I did was wrong, and I’m sorry.” Her small voice contained the barest hint of her usual fire. “But you’re being cruel.”
“Am I?” I mocked. “Well, I’m fucking sorry. As you can see, being a nice guy hasn’t served me all that well in the past.” My eyes burned.
Looking at her hurt. Hearing her hurt. Everything hurt.
“You could’ve fucking told me, Jules. Did you really think so little of me that you thought I’d judge you for things you were manipulated into doing? That I wouldn’t have been on your side and took that fucker down with you? I understand why you didn’t tell me the truth at Hyacinth, but after Ohio…” My jaw clenched. “That’s what fucking hurts the most. That I considered you worthy of trust but you didn’t think the same of me.”