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What if he always did? Like this.
What would be left of him?
He blotted that out. He gave himself over to his body.
To this radical feeling of being entirely in the moment. Of being entirely in himself.
He clung to her hips and held her fast as he thrust, hard and wild.
She clung to his shoulders, and cried out his name.
And he found himself falling. Tumbling over the edge into the abyss. His pleasure was all-consuming. But then suddenly, it was just Polly. A bright and brilliant sunrise that overtook his soul.
Her name was a prayer on his lips, and he shouted it into that sacred space of his office. Which was now no longer given to work. But given to her.
There were no longer any barriers left within him. And when he pulled away from her, to look into her eyes, the intensity of the pain that he felt was so absolutely overwhelming that he couldn’t breathe.
“Polly,” he said, his voice rough.
“Oh, Luca,” she said, touching his face.
He pulled away from her. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.”
“But I lost control.”
“Luca, you live every day of your life with such control I find that I enjoy being the thing that makes you lose it.”
But he didn’t. Yes, it felt good in the moment, but he found himself less and less able to claw back some of his agency. He found himself given entirely to the feelings that she created in him, and he couldn’t simply come back to himself.
And if he couldn’t do that, then he could maintain control. And if he couldn’t maintain control...
He didn’t even know who he was.
He pushed the dark thought away, and looked at her. At her wide eyes.
“I love you,” she said.
It was like a knife blade wedged beneath his skin.
“No,” he said. “I don’t want you to love me.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s impossible... It was impossible for me to give you what you want. It is impossible for me to care for you in the way that you need to be cared for.”
The words were like flame, migrating up his throat, making him feel useless. Worthless.
He hated himself in that moment. More than anything.
He hated himself.
But it was true. It wasn’t fair, if he could never love her in the way that she needed to be loved in order to feel it.
If he could never care in the way that it would matter to her. He had strong-armed her into marriage. And she felt things for him that...no one else had ever claimed to feel.
She felt things for him that he hadn’t imagined anyone could.