I arched my back, rubbing my aching br**sts into his hard, sweaty chest. I couldn’t get enough of him, couldn’t feel enough.

He groaned into my mouth and moved faster, thrusting harder, deeper, until I felt each heavy drive, an invasive, numbing pleasure filling my lower body, then bleeding in great gushing hemorrhages into the rest of me.

He pulled back, still moving in and out.  Eyes raw, nostrils flared, he rasped, “How could you fall in love with him?  How could you do that?”

He always knew when to strike, and I was at my weakest here.

I shook my head and closed my eyes, feeling lost, feeling found, my body, heart, and mind at war.

But even war was forgotten as, gasping, mewling, trembling, and holding on for dear life, I fell over the edge.  Broad pulses of sensation moved in beating waves from my cunt, from deep in my womb, and reverberated unrelentingly through my entire, defeated body.

Tristan fared no better as shouting, grunting, gasping on top of me, shaking head to toe he came, emptying himself inside of me in long heavy spurts that were perceptible as my clenching sex milked him dry.

I didn’t speak after.  He didn’t either, not at first.

He lay still on top of me, though raised enough not to cut off my breath.  The only sign of life in the room for endless minutes was the harsh drum of our heartbeats racing against each other as they met through the pressed flesh of our chests, and the pulsing of our sexes still joined together.

Finally, he pulled back to look at me.  Something wild flared in his eyes.  The pain, as it always does, was turning into something akin to rage.

“Last year you told me you were in love with him.  Those words came out of your mouth, directed at me.  You cared about him enough to destroy me with that.  You were planning to marry him, you said.  You felt confident enough about that marriage to tell me, of all people, that it was a foregone conclusion.  What do you imagine that did to me, to hear you say that?  What would the reverse do to you?  Tell me.”

I just shook my head.  I remembered so clearly where I’d been when I’d heard a rumor, just over a year ago, that he and Mona were engaged.  It had messed me up.

Being apart was one thing, but the idea that some other woman could be his wife?  That was out of f**king line.

And I’d planted the same poisonous idea in Tristan’s head about Andrew and me.  I was fully culpable here.  I’d given him that idea, knowing that it was utter nonsense, knowing quite well that it would mess him up like it had me.

I felt guilty enough about it to offer some small recompense.

“First of all, let’s be clear.  You have no claim on our years apart.  You don’t own any of them.”

His golden eyes were filled with a supplication so raw that I couldn’t take it at close range.  One small rant had reduced him from the rage back to the pain.

I pushed him away, wrenching him off me, out of me, scrambled back, then stood, and backed up until my shoulder blades hit a wall.

“No claim,” I repeated.  I was naked, but I didn’t even try to cover myself from his eyes.  My body wasn’t the most exposed part of me just then.  I wanted to cover my heart.

“No claim,” I repeated again, voice quavering.  “But of course I didn’t love him.  I wanted to love him, but love is not about want.”

His eyes had gone pure liquid.

I shuddered, then started to shiver, and not from the cold.

“He was good for me, but love is not about good.”

My hand jabbed at him, then at me, then back again, the motion wild, chaotic.  “This is what love gets you, okay?  I cared about Andrew, do care about him, but I walked away clean.”

Lips trembling, voice trembling, I continued, “Love doesn’t let you walk away clean.  Love is messy.  I don’t have to tell you, of all people; Love takes a f**king piece of you before it’s done.”

If it is ever even possible to be done.

I couldn’t say that part aloud.  Fear still held too strong a hold on me, and I respected that fear enough to give it the time it needed.

He rose and moved to me.  His shorts rode low on his hips, the waistband in front still pulled under his scrotum.  He hadn’t bothered to raise them enough to cover his heavy, spent cock.  I didn’t think he even noticed.

It was distracting, but not as distracting as the unrelenting glint in his eyes.  His mood had altered with the flip of a switch.

My rant had appeased him, to put it lightly.

I wasn’t sure that had been its desired result.  I’d wanted to solve a problem, not create a new one.

He cupped my face in his hands, his eyes tender enough to break me.

“Come here,” he urged softly, taking his hands away from my face, and opening his arms wide.

With a shuddering sigh, I fell into them.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

TRISTAN

I wrapped my arms around her and clutched her to my chest, letting her words wash over me, allowing them to soothe me.  She hadn’t been happy to say them, but they still worked as balm to my wounded heart.

We stayed like that for a long time, but it couldn’t last forever, especially since we were skin on skin.

Eventually, we started shifting and soothing rubs turned into lingering touches.

Her hand moved to my stiff erection.  Her teeth bit at her lush lower lip while her palm pumped at me, her grip firm as she ran it up and down my length.  I loved the feel of her hand on me, the way her delicate fingers curved so perfectly around my throbbing length.