“Oh god.” The sound of rushing water nearly drowned out Alessandra’s moan. “Oh god… oh fuck. Dom! ”
She let out a strangled cry when I slammed into her, the sound of my name reducing my restraint to tatters. Her wet hair was wrapped around my fist, and her hands splayed against the tile as I fucked her mercilessly against the wall. Broken sobs poured out with each brutal thrust.
Sometimes she liked it sweet and slow; other times she liked it fast and rough. There was a certain headiness to knowing which she wanted, and my inkling that she craved the second type was echoed in the way her pussy gripped my cock.
Heat raced down my spine and drummed in my pulse. I wanted to tell her how good she was, how I wanted to bury myself inside her until I was tattooed across every inch of her heart and body and how she would always be mine.
But I didn’t.
I bit the words that threatened to spill out of me into the slope of her shoulder. One hand tightened its grip and tugged her head back; the other curved its way up her waist and over a soft breast.
Her nipple strained against my palm as she bucked back against my thrusts.
“Spread your legs wider for me, sweetheart.” My teeth scored her skin, turning my soft words into a hard command. “I want to see my cock stretching that pretty little cunt.”
A full-body shudder wracked Alessandra’s slim frame. She didn’t hesitate to obey, and I almost wished she hadn’t because the sight of her taking me was enough to drive me to my knees.
“Perfect,” I groaned, so turned on it was a miracle I didn’t blow right then and there.
We fit so damn perfectly. Her body molded to mine like it was made for me. Sliding into her was the closest I’d ever come to heaven, and fuck, I never wanted to leave.
In and out, faster and deeper. The steady drum of water pounded my back as I drove deeper, our wet skin slapping against each other in a dirty, erotic symphony no number of showers could cleanse.
Alessandra let out another whimper. She was close. I could feel the telltale stiffening of her muscles, and I spun her around right before she came.
Rivulets of water dripped down her face and onto her chest as she tossed her head back, her mouth parted to make way for a keening, breathless cry that rocked us both to the core.
I couldn’t hold back anymore. The spasms from her orgasm were still rippling around me when I pulled out and painted her with my cum. The shower washed it off sooner than I would’ve liked, and then we held each other in the comedown, our heartbeats syncing, our ragged breaths drowning beneath the steady rush of water. I wanted to encase this moment in amber, but as always, it ended too soon.
Alessandra disentangled herself from my arms and stepped around me.
Cold rushed over my body as I turned off the shower and watched her towel off, my chest already hollowing at her impending departure.
I can’t promise anything more than sex.
So that was what we did for the past three weeks. She called me when she wanted to see me, and I showed up. She went on dates I never asked about, and I extended invitations she never accepted.
It wasn’t much of a relationship, but if that was all she was willing to give, then that was what I’d take.
I wrapped a towel around my waist and followed her into the bedroom.
We’d met at the penthouse today instead of her apartment or a hotel, which was unusual. She usually avoided our old home like the plague.
Did she walk through the front door and remember our champagne-fueled celebration after we closed on the house? When she picked up her dress from the bed, did she see the hundreds of nights we’d spent in each other’s arms? Did this place remind her of us so much that simply breathing its air felt like a fucking stab in the heart?
Because that was what it felt like for me. The house was a torturous limbo of memories. It killed me to stay, and it killed me to leave.
“You don’t have to leave yet,” I said. “It’s Friday night. We can order food, watch a movie. There’s a new Nate Reynolds film out.” Nate Reynolds’s action blockbusters were our guilty pleasure.
Alessandra hesitated, her eyes skimming over our bed and the engagement photo on the nightstand. We’d taken it in front of the library at Thayer where we first met. We were half kissing, half laughing, and we looked so young and clueless about what our future would hold that I almost envied my past self for his brash confidence. Camila tried hiding the picture after Alessandra moved out, and I’d almost fired her on the spot.
No one touched that photo.
Alessandra’s throat worked with a swallow. Indecision rippled across her face, and a dangerous seed of hope sprouted in my stomach. She wasn’t brushing my suggestion off the way she usually did.
“I can’t.” She jerked her gaze away from our engagement photo and finished zipping up her dress. “I have…I have a date later.”
Her admission blindsided me with a vicious blow. It shouldn’t have. I knew she was dating other people; Dante and Kai had confirmed as much based on their significant others’ gossip. But knowing something and hearing it were two different things.
“Oh.” I forced a smile past the crushed husk of hope. “Next time then.”
“Yeah,” she said softly. “Next time.”
The door closed with a gentle click, and she was gone. If it weren’t for the faint scent of lilies, I would’ve doubted she’d ever been there at all.
I got dressed and turned on the TV, but I couldn’t make it past the first five minutes of the Nate Reynolds movie. It reminded me too much of Alessandra. I tried to work, but I couldn’t focus. Even a deliberately brutal session in the private gym couldn’t clear my head.
Who was she on a date with? Where did he take her? Had they kissed yet? Did she sigh when he touched her, or did she count the minutes before she could go home?
My imagination tormented me with images of Alessandra and her faceless date until I couldn’t take it anymore. I grabbed my phone and dialed the only person I knew with zero personal connection to her.
He picked up on the first ring.
“Meet me at The Garage in an hour,” I said. “I need a drink.”
The Garage was a shitty dive bar in the East Village, famous for its strong drinks and bartenders who didn’t give a shit whether the customer was crying, vomiting, or passed out as long as they paid.
It was the perfect place for drowning one’s sorrows, which was why an assembly line of miserable-looking men crowded the bar on a Friday night.
“Jesus Christ.” Roman’s lip curled as he surveyed the room. “I feel like I just walked into a Heartbroken Saps Anonymous meeting.”
I knocked back my third shot of the night without answering. “That bad?” He took the seat next to mine, his black sweater and pants blending seamlessly into the bar’s seamy darkness.
We’d talked a few times, but this was our first in-person meeting since our knockdown, drag-out fight before Christmas. I still trusted Roman as far as I could throw him, but our bubbling antagonism had simmered down into wary caution over the past month. He also hadn’t been tied to any more suspicious deaths, so there was that.
“Alessandra’s on a date.” The words tasted sour at the back of my tongue.
“Hasn’t she been dating this whole time?” He motioned the bartender.
“Bourbon. Neat.”
“She’s never told me she was going on a date right after we had sex.”
“Ah.” Roman grimaced as the pierced and tattooed server slammed the glass down. Dark liquid splashed over the sides onto the sticky counter. He took a sip and grimaced harder. The alcohol here tasted like nuclear waste; it was part of its questionable charm, or so those in the know said.
We drank in silence for a while. Neither of us were the share-our-feelings and comfort-others type, which made him the perfect drinking partner. I didn’t want to rehash my problems with Alessandra; I just wanted to feel less alone.
If someone had told me three months ago I’d be feeling sorry for myself over shitty whiskey in the East Village while my long-lost brother silently judged me, I would’ve asked what drugs they were on.
How the mighty have fallen. Thank fuck neither Dante nor Kai were here to witness my misery. They would never let me hear the end of it.
Neither would Roman, but I didn’t have to see him every week.
“If you ever see me this torn up over a woman, shoot me,” he said after my fifth shot. “It’s pathetic.”
Definitely not the comfort-others type.
“You mean like the time you cried when Melody Kettler dumped you to date that exchange student from Sweden?” I wasn’t above firing shots from old weapons.
Roman’s jaw clenched. “I didn’t cry, and she didn’t dump me. We took a break.”
“Whatever helps you sleep at night.”
“Out of everything that’s happened, my break with Melody Kettler is the least likely to keep me awake.” He finished his drink. “Trust me.”
My lighter clicked in time with my heartbeats. I’d taken it out when I sat down, but I hated seeing something so beautiful in a place so ugly.
Out of everything that’s happened. It’d been fifteen years. I couldn’t imagine the things Roman had seen and done. “How bad was juvie?”
“It could’ve been worse.” He didn’t look at me. “How much ass did you have to kiss on your way up the ladder?”
The tension split, and a rancorous laugh rustled my throat.
Maybe it was the shots. Maybe it was the give-no-shits air permeating the bar. Whatever it was, I answered truthfully about how I’d built Davenport Capital—the networking, the knocking on doors and, yes, the ass-kissing before I secured my first investors. He shared tidbits of his life over the years—the various jobs, the scrapes with the law, and the martial arts training, which he’d put to good use during our fight, the fucker.
We weren’t who we used to be, and our relationship would never return to the way it was. But it felt good to talk to someone who knew me before everything changed, and I became someone I didn’t recognize.
