Too Late

As soon as the door is shut, I pull Sloan to me, squeezing her. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I did that. I’m sorry I put a gun to your head and said those things.”

She lifts up on her toes and kisses me. “You saved my life, Luke. Don’t apologize, I knew what you were doing.”

“Get the fuck off her,” Asa grumbles.

We both glance over at him. He’s handcuffed to the mantle, his jeans covering in the blood that’s coming from his legs. But he still doesn’t seem to care that he’s been shot four times. He’s staring at Sloan, rage in his eyes.

All I can think about is Sloan and how relieved I am that this fucker is definitely going to prison now.

She’ll feel safer, at least.

But she still won’t feel vindicated.

***

ASA

Stupid cock-fuck. His hands are on her, his lips in her hair. My stomach feels like someone went after it from the inside with a fucking machete. Every time he touches her, I can taste vomit.

“Get your hands off her,” I whisper.

Sloan’s eyes meet mine and she slides in front of Luke, presses her back to his chest. She pulls his arms around her waist. “I don’t want his hands off me,” she whispers. “He makes me feel things, Asa. Things you never could.”

She lifts her shirt and slips one of his hands inside it.

What the fuck is she doing?

My breathing is getting real fucking hard to control right now. I’ve never hated something this much. If it took me going to church just so I could believe in a hell Luke would rot in, I’d never miss a fucking service.

Luke’s eyes are locked with mine as he lowers his mouth to her neck. I can see his hand moving inside her shirt, straight up to her breast. He squeezes her breast and I fucking gag.

“Sloan,” I say, my voice desperate. “Baby, stop. Stop letting him touch you like that, you don’t like it.”

I’m yanking my wrists so hard, attempting to break this fucking mantle, they start to bleed from the cuffs cutting into my skin.

She leans her head back until it’s resting on Luke’s shoulder, but she’s still staring down at me. “Remember the first time we had sex, Asa? The night you took my virginity?”

I shake my head, wanting her to shut up. That was special. Luke doesn’t need to hear about that from her, it’s mine. That night is mine to share. Good girls don’t talk like she’s talking right now.

His other hand presses flat against her stomach and begins slowly sliding down. She moans right in front of me.

Fucking sick fuck.

“I told you I wasn’t ready,” she says to me. “But when I woke up, you were on top of me.”

I shake my head. “Stop, Sloan. Don’t talk like this to me, baby. You don’t mean it.”

“Every time I think about that night, I throw up bile,” she whispers. “It fucking burns my throat every time I think about how you took something so special from me and treated it like it was yours to do with as you pleased.”

My eyes watch Luke’s hand as it disappears inside Sloan’s panties.

I feel stuff on my face. Wet shit. Tears. I’m gonna fucking kill him so slowly until he begs me to take his life.

“The day I found out you lied about Stephen’s care?” she says, moaning in between sentences. “I was so scared of you, I let you have sex with me that night. And I cried the entire time because it was the last place I wanted to be. You were the last person in the world I wanted touching me.”

She begins to stiffen beneath Luke’s hand.

Her arm goes up behind her and she snakes it around his neck. “I hate you, Asa. I hate you so fucking much.”

She spins around and leans against the couch, pulling Luke to her. She lets him kiss her while his hand is still inside of her.

I can’t fucking watch.

I turn my head.

“Open your eyes, Asa,” Luke says.

“Fuck you.”

I hear him march across the floor and then I feel him grab my hair. He bashes my head into the mantle behind me and holds it there until I look up at him.

“You’ll fucking watch or I’ll staple your goddamn eyes open,” he says.

He walks back over to Sloan and pulls her panties down to her ankles. She kicks them off.

I would turn away, but I still don’t believe she’ll do it. There’s no fucking way she would do this to me. She doesn’t have it in her.

Luke lifts her shirt until her breast is exposed, then he covers it with his mouth.

Oh, God

She won’t do it.

She won’t let him inside her.

She would never do that to me.

Sloan grabs his hair with both hands and says, “Fuck me, Luke. Fuck what’s yours now.”