Page 182 of Bitter Poetry

I lose myself and them and the one perfect night.

But as is inevitable, morning arrives.

Christian showers first.

Then Dante.

Christian returns to the bedroom and puts his back to me as he starts sorting his clothes. Dante emerges from the bathroom with one towel around his waist and another he’s using to scrub his hair.

God, they are so crazy hot.

I’m still in bed, but I can’t help but want one more moment of closeness, and I slide out and pad over to them.

Christian glances over his shoulder at me, his clothes momentarily forgotten. Dante likewise comes to a stop, letting me draw closer. He drops the towel he was using to dry his hair. It’s sticking up all over the place, and it makes me smile. I rise onto my tiptoes to run my fingers through it. Today, I wish I were a little taller.

He smirks and drops the towel from around his waist.

My eyes lower to his hard cock.

I swallow.

Can a cock be beautiful?

“Like what you see, baby? Go ahead and take what you need.”

His fingers enclose my throat, and he applies light downward pressure.

And I freeze… My knees give out, and my thoughts turn alarmingly blank.

“Carmela, talk to me?”

I’m on the floor. I don’t remember either of them moving, but Dante is kneeling in front of me, holding my hands, and Christian is behind me, not touching, but close enough for me to feel his body heat. “I—” Words won’t come out.

“Fucking cockroach,” Christian mutters. “I’m going to peel his?—”

“Not now, Chris,” Dante snaps.

I’m scaring them—I’m scaring myself.

The sense of failure, of hopelessness, and of damage is an ugly specter rising from the dark edges of my mind.

“I don’t know why I froze.”I’m leaving today.This, all of this with them, was so perfect until I had to go and ruin it.

“I think you do,” Dante says, his voice gentle. There is no anger in this tone, but his body trembles with rage, and I know that he knows, or at least suspects, what it was about.

Only he doesn’t know all of it.

He doesn’t know the worst of it.

The dirty, bitter, guilt-riddled secret I have carried inside.

“You’re not angry with me.”

“No,” Dante says. “Not you. Never you.”

Why did I expect him to be angry with me?

They disarm me, completely, with this gentleness. I can’t bear it.