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I wait for her to say ‘stop’, but she doesn’t. She clutches the tiles, fingers slipping off of the wall, but my grip on her hipskeeps her in place. Honestly, she could let go and just hang there, and not a goddamn thing in this would could stop me.

Except for one little word that she never utters.

I knew I wouldn’t last. It’s been too long, and I needed this too much. Luckily for me, the orgasm I gave Loni in the bedroom has her primed like a rocket. In minutes, she’s panting, moaning, squealing as I give her a second one.

I follow right behind her. Changing my hold from her hips to her shoulders, slamming her down on my cock so that there’s no escape from me as I come, I squeeze her to me until the aftershocks stop shuddering down my spine.

The second I release my iron-tight grip on Loni, a change comes over her. She stiffens, then straightens, and turns so that she’s facing the shower spray. Without even looking up at me, she gathers some of the water in her cupped palm, then splashes it at her pussy.

And the same sensation that came over me when she said she was going to take a shower has kicked aside my post-nut clarity.

Again. She’s washing me off of heragain.

I let her finish, and when she turns off the shower, I wait until she’s left the stall before I do.

Then I point behind me at it, doing my best not to let the rejection color my words anymore than it already will.

“Let me make this perfectly clear: anytime you wash me off of you like this, like you’re regretting being intimate with your husband, I’ll mark you again. There won’t ever be a time that your body doesn’t know that it’smine. You understand me? I’ll fuck you until you’re begging me to let you come, and when you do, you’ll plead for more until I’m dripping out of you.”

She swallows roughly. “Even if I say no?”

I lift an eyebrow at her. “If I have you under me again, do you really think you will?”

Her expression is scandalized a split second before she turns around, giving me her back. A soft sob escapes her, but when I grab her arm, whirling her around to face me, all I see is hatred and defiance returned to her pretty, pretty face.

Damn it.

“You got what you wanted. Now let me go.”

See, that’s where she’s wrong. I didn’t get what I wanted at all. If I did? She would be falling into my arms right now instead of looking like she’d slash me with a razor if I gave her the chance.

I messed up. Not even because I fucked her, though I’d bet she’d say I’m wrong if I told her that. Loni… she was more than willing to fuck me. She could’ve told me to stop, but she didn’t, and I know damn well that’s because she both knew it would happen eventually, and she waswaitingfor it.

I wasn’t wrong about that. If I got her under me with the intent to fuck, we’re going to fuck. She would always accept me in the throes. I know her body too well. I can manipulate it to have her mewling beneath me, until the word ‘no’ never crosses her lips. Look at just now. The only words I heard during our fast and frantic fucking were my name and ‘please’.

She knows it, too, andthatis why she’s furious with me.

And while I don’t point out any of that to her, I do say, “Don’t try to fool either of us, Loni. We were meant to be together. So there were others. I bet you thought of me when they were fucking you.”

“Adrian—”

My voice becomes darker. Deeper. “I think that every love that came after me was a disappointment because you… your body… it’s always craved mine.”

Her eyes flash angrily. “You’re being a dick.”

“And you didn’t disagree.”

“Fuck you, Adrian.” She grabs a towel, covering herself up with it. “I’m going to bed. And if you try to touch me again? You won’t see me in your room again until next Tuesday.”

I guess I should be relieved that she’s not using my momentary insanity to escape to her private room. Instead, she gathers up her pajamas and, without a look back, marches down the hall toward the room we had both just left.

I let her go, cursing myself as she leaves.

She didn’t want to sleep with me. Or, rather, she had no intentions of letting me inside of her so soon. But once I was touching her, she started touching me, and then she tried to act like she couldn’t wash me off of her fast enough… and the same Adrian I was as a kid, the cocky prick who thought I could do a piss-poor job of hiding just how much Loni Dougherty meant to me with a cool smirk and a cruel comment couldn’t handle the rejection coming from the only person in this world I actually cared about.

But I’m fucked up. I always have been. I show love in the worst ways, and while I tried to fix myself over the years, become the man Loni deserves… what just happened in the shower tells me that I have a long fucking way to go.

God, I need a cigarette.