“Harder,” she said, breathless.
“If you insist,” I growled.
I held her tight and rolled her again so I was on top. Her thighs locked around me and I hammered her into the mattress, holding nothing back. The slick rhythm of it, the heat—she was already close again, and the thought of it nearly undid me. I leaned down, biting her shoulder, then kissed the mark to distract from the sting. “You hate me, right?”
She squeezed her eyes shut, and for an instant I saw how hard she was trying to keep it together. Or maybe how little she was trying at all.
“I hate you,” she gasped, and the way her breath hitched made it a prayer, not a curse.
“Good girl,” I whispered, and let myself fall apart.
My vision went blurry, then black. For a long moment, I was just light and weightlessness, every sensory nerve fused into a singular wild pulse. When I came back, we were both trembling, me above her, her curled into me as I slowed, until there was no motion, only the residue of want and the sound of our breathing in sync.
I buried my face in her neck. She let me. Didn’t push away. Her arms folded behind my shoulders, tight as a vise, unwilling to let go. I felt her heartbeat through both of us.
“I hate you,” she repeated, spent and almost playful this time.
“I love you,” I said before I could stop myself.
It wasn’t a calculated confession; it wasn’t part of the game we played. It was just the truth…torn straight out of my raw, bleeding heart. Those words landed like a grenade between us, daring either of us to move.
She wasso still.
I’d made a mistake.
But…then her palm shifted, moving slow and gentle. She traced the line of my spine with her fingertips, and I knew she’d heard me. She wasn’t running; maybe she was writing it in looping script down my back, even if she didn’t say the words.
I wanted to force her to say it.
Wanted to lick her pussy and demand she tell me she love me if she wanted an orgasm.
But instead, I rolled to the side, pulling her with me…urging my heartbeat to slow the fuck down. We fit together too well, hips aligned, legs tangled, her breath ghosting warm against my chest.
I loved her.
Even when she hated me.
Even when she didn’t say it back.
Even when she might never admit she was mine.
I loved her anyway…and there was nothing left to say.
***
It was two hours later when I woke. The storm had calmed outside, and the sky was that baby-blue of Boston after a snow, the cloud cover thin and almost earnest. Ruby was gone. For a brief second it terrified me—had she left, was she safe, did she regret it already—but then I heard her downstairs, the soft thud of a cupboard, the hum of the microwave. I smiled.
I’d never been a man who thought he wanted domesticity, but this was different. This was proof of life.
I pulled on sweatpants and padded barefoot to the kitchen, rubbing a hand over my face. The scent hit me before I saw her—coffee, faint vanilla, something soft and familiar that made the walls feel less like someone else’s house and more like ours.
She was already there.
Hair twisted up in a loose bun, skin flushed and marked where my mouth had been, wrapped in one of my old shirts—oversized, worn thin, hanging halfway down her thighs. Her bare feet pressed flat to the cold tile. She didn’t seem to notice.
She was cradling a mug in both hands, shoulders relaxed, eyes distant.
And for a second—just one—I let myself pretend this was our life. That she made coffee like this every morning. That I’d wake up next to her every day. That Rosie would come sleepily down the stairs asking for pancakes and cartoons, and I’d kiss Ruby’s neck while she stood at the stove. That none of the blood or secrets or years between us had ever happened.
