Page 137 of Handsome Devil

When he was finally inside me all the way and started moving, I thought he would tear me apart I was stretched so wide. He dipped two fingers into my pussy, and I felt both uncomfortably full and elated. I erected my spine, my body wanting to run away from the pain and the pleasure. My back was flat against his pecs, and I wrapped an arm around his neck. We kissed and fucked, slow and sensual, his cock in my arse and his fingers in my cunt, playing, stroking, rewarding.

I was close. So close I could cry. Trembling on unsteady knees. Tate’s hand moved from my waist to my tit, playing with my sensitive nipple.

“Please,” I moaned. “Let me come.”

“Come,” he ordered ruggedly.

We both did. I felt a rush of heat zipping through me, like thunder, my entire body spasming, and his thick, warm liquid gathering inside me. I went down like a wrecking ball, falling face-first into a pillow, convulsing. When he pulled out of me, my bum was full of his cum. It dripped down the curve of my arse onto my inner thighs. Tate kissed my cheek from behind, planting a firm hand on the base of my back to keep me from standing up.

“Sleep like this, Apricity.” He collapsed next to me. “I want you to wake up tomorrow remembering you are full of my cum.”

We fell asleep tangled in each other, in a messy bed reeking of sex, breaking all his rules.

And all of mine.

“She’s in a coma. There’s nothing more we can do,” the doctor said. “Your mother is now in a state we call unresponsive wakefulness syndrome. UWS for short. The life support keeps her going, but she won’t regain consciousness.”

I clutched my purse to my chest as though it could shield me from further bad news.

“It was the lack of oxygen to the brain as we battled her numerous infections.” He took off his reading glasses, cleaning them with the hem of his shirt. “We had to put out a lot of fires all at the same time.”

“But she’s not brain-dead?” My voice was steady, dignified.

“No. She can breathe independently but is otherwise not responding to outside stimulation. Aside from breathing on her own, she’s in complete brain atrophy.”

“Okay.” I licked my lips. “What do we do?”

“Well, your mother is not a registered organ donor in the U.S., and even if she was, most of her internal organs are in decline. Once we remove the feeding tube, salts, and electrolytes, she will pass away within days.”

“Starving her to death? That sounds rather cruel.”

Dr. Fields met my gaze head-on. “She won’t feel a thing, Gia. Hunger, thirst, those are things she can no longer experience. Palliative pain management will be administered. She’ll be as comfortable as one can be considering the circumstances.”

“You will let her diminish slowly,” I countered. I wasn’t sure why I was arguing with him. I hadn’t the greenest clue about this procedure.

“She can’tfeel. Not pain. Not hunger. Not thirst. None of it.”

I nodded. “Okay.” I inhaled. “Okay.”

“Would you like to take her off the feeding tube?”

“Yes.” I didn’t stutter. I knew my mother. She wouldn’t want to exist like this. “Yes, I would.”

“Do you want to be present when we remove her?”

“Yes.” No hesitation there either.

“Would you like to call your husband or a loved one when we take off her tubes?”

I thought about it briefly. Cal was in London. Dylan was in med school. Tate was busy running an empire and fighting the crime lords. He didn’t have time for this. Besides, he’d be irritable and selfish, knowing her death meant the dissolution of our marriage.

“No.” I smiled politely. “I don’t need anyone with me. I’ll do it alone.”

“This woman is the baddest bitch I’ve ever known,” Dylan announced ten days later, bursting into Mum’s room with coffees and cider donuts.

I sat at my mother’s side, stroking her hair. It had been over a week since they removed the G-tube and IV hydration, and she was still very much alive and even urinated yesterday. Dr. Fields was puzzled but assured me she wasn’t suffering.

“Ten days without a feeding tube. I mean…wow.” Cal plucked the coffees from their holder, squinting at the names on them and handing me my oat milk cinnamon latte. “It’s gotta be some kind of record, right?”