The Other Man

It did not go unappreciated.

He tensed and heaved on top of me, getting close.

The lights in the room were bright, and so my view was unimpeded as I saw him start to lose it, the coldness going, the wildness overtaking his beautiful, broken eyes.

His jaw went slack, gaze boring into mine, taking me with him, dragging me under, straight into the heart of this madness we shared.

If it was up to me, and it wasn’t, I’d have slept after that.

I knew we needed to talk, but it was the middle of the night, and my body had just been exhausted.  Twice.

He wrenched himself out of me, off me, climbing from the bed.

I was already on the edge of sleep when I felt his hands grip my ankles and start to pull.

“Oh no you don’t, honey,” his gravelly voice was a rough croon.  “You don’t get to sleep.  Not tonight.”

He dragged my hips to the edge of the bed, spreading my legs wide.

I listened to the sounds of him putting on another condom.

I still hadn’t opened my eyes, but I wasn’t in the mood to sleep anymore.

“Look at me,” his voice rumbled.

I opened my eyes just in time to watch him push between my thighs.  I scrambled up onto my elbows to see as each thick inch of him disappeared inside of me.

“You’re insatiable,” I told him, voice low and needy.

“Had you forgotten?” he shot back.  “And besides that, it’s been months . . . for me.”  His tone was so dark and accusing that my eyes shot to his face, raking over it, trying to decipher if he’d meant what I thought he had.

But I couldn’t tell from his expression, and he wasn’t elaborating.

He was otherwise occupied.  And so was I.  There was no room in my overtaxed brain to spend on wondering what was in his just then.

He planted his fists on either side of my hips, rocking in and out of me at a jackhammer pace.

I tried to go to sleep again after that round, but he, again, was not having that.

“Get up,” he said, hands on my shoulders, pulling me to sit.  “There’s no time to sleep.  We still need to talk.”

I propped myself up on my hands, looking down at myself.

He was still wearing his jeans.  He’d cleaned up, again, and even zipped them up this time.

But I was still nude, completely, sitting on the edge of my bed, legs splayed wide apart.

It was so undignified, the way I was spread open for him, just letting him stare at every part of the body I’d just let him have three times, that it spurred me into action.

“If you want me to stay awake,” I informed him, standing and moving to shrug on my favorite silk robe, “I’m going to need coffee.”

He left the room without a word to make said coffee, I presumed.

I took the opportunity to clean myself up and finger comb my disheveled hair.

Also, I gave myself a good berating in the mirror.

What’s wrong with you? I asked myself.  Why do you just keep going back for more?

But it was swiftly clear the berating did no good, as, after I’d straightened myself up to a minimal degree, I went out to join him in the kitchen.

Going back for more.

He handed me a cup of coffee right as I got to the kitchen, moving past me, into the dining room, and taking a seat.

That was unusual.

He never just sat down.

It was so strange that I found myself standing over him, right in his personal space.

He just sipped his own cup of coffee and stared at me.

I sipped mine and stared back.  I had not one clue what to say to him, where to start.

The truth was, I didn’t want to start, because I knew how it would end.

Don’t come back here.  We’re finished.

How was I ever going to manage to make those words come out of my mouth?  I had not a clue.

But I knew that they needed to.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

“I don’t know what to say to you,” I finally told him, after we’d both drained our cups.

We’d been silent the whole time, watching each other between long drags of coffee.

Neither of us wanted to have this talk, it seemed.

He took the mug from my hand, set it on the table, then picked me clean off the ground by the hips, setting me astride him.

We were breathing our coffee breath into each other’s mouths.  “I thought you said we needed to talk,” I said softly.  “This won’t solve anything.”

He didn’t answer, just stared at me while he worked between our bodies, getting us both ready.

“Heath,” I chided when I realized he was hell bent on fucking me again.

He stilled, cold eyes intense, then spurred into action, reaching for my hands, setting them, palm down, over the muscled flesh of his pecs.

“Go ahead,” he rasped.  “Touch me.  Do it.”

I did, hands moving over his chest, softly tracing at his scarred flesh, and as I watched the way it made him cringe, I knew why he wanted me to.

It was painful to him, and he wanted to hurt.

But, regardless of everything that had happened, all the ways I was hurting myself, I didn’t want that.

I took my hands away, gripping his where they held my hips.

He made a pained noise and kissed me.

So much for talking.

He took me right there in his lap, opening my robe and impaling me.

“Condom,” I cried out.  Just because we’d had that one night of a slip up, months ago, didn’t mean I meant to be so careless again.