Chapter 17 #2
“ That’s why I’m so fucking pissed off at you, Shae. You didn’t just not tell me. I can almost forgive you for that. But you carved me out as if I never existed in the first place. And that fucking hurts. ”
Unshed tears have my nose burning, and a headache blooms in my left temple.
“Storm,” I start. “I don’t— I didn’t know what?—”
“When did you know?”
His soft question lands between us like a flash-bang, but when I look at him, his face doesn’t hold the rage I expect.
Instead, there’s something like horror. Regret.
Grief.
“The last time we spoke,” I say, my voice rough. “I was coming to tell you.”
His eyes slide closed, and there’s a moment when I am completely uncertain what he’ll do next.
“This is so fucked up, Shae. I know I fucked up, but…I thought I knew you. I’ve never known you to be vindictive.”
The words have all the anger in my body, all the rage from every day over the last eight years, rushing to a final tipping point.
“ You thought you knew me ?” I stand, taking slow steps toward him. When there’s mere inches between our bodies, I speak.
“Let me tell you what I thought. I thought you loved me. I thought you wanted me, saw a future with me. I thought we were a sure thing. And you know why I thought all those things? It’s because you made me believe them.”
My hands shake so hard I have to clench and release them to try to get them under control.
“You pursued me. You told me to break down all my walls for you. And what happened when I did? I got crushed. Cast aside like I was nothing. My whole world collapsed in a matter of minutes. And who was the person who hurt me most of all? It was you , Storm Sandoval.”
My eyes and nose burn, and I’m beyond irritated that I’m so angry, so hurt , that tears rush down my face. Still, his expression is a hard mask.
“You could have left me alone. You could have left me to live my life how I’d planned it. You didn’t have to lie about loving me, Storm. You didn’t have to make me believe a fairy tale.”
“Shae,” he rasps.
“No! I won’t listen to this. I won’t let you tell me any more pretty lies, and I won’t let you anywhere near my children so you can hurt them.
I withheld the information. I’m sorry that hurt you, but I was operating under an assumption I now know was incorrect.
But all the same, Storm, you’re a liar, and you hurt people, and I won’t let you do it to them. ”
“ Shae— ”
“I don’t want to hear it!” I push his chest, but he doesn’t move an inch.
“Our love wasn’t a fucking lie,” he grinds out, and the words make me irate.
“Why! Why, you bastard! Why make me love you just to crush me like that? Was it a sick game to you?”
I hit him in the chest this time, and he lets me.
“Just say it! Just say that you never loved me, that you loved hurting me. Own the shit, you coward!”
“No, I won’t say that,” he grinds out, and I lose it. Completely flip my lid.
“I hate you !” A hit to his right pec.
“I wish I never fucking met you!” A slap to his left arm.
“I hate you, I hate you, I hate you !” I wail on him, hitting him wherever I can and sobbing uncontrollably at this point. The room spins, my brain spins, and I’m completely out of control.
He grunts, and next thing I know, I’m in the air as he carries me across the room. My back lands on the sofa, and then, he’s on top of me, pinning me in place.
Snot and tears mix on my face, but I couldn’t care less.
Eight years of complete agony and heartbreak spill out of me like toxic sludge, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.
“I loved you so much. Why did you break me?” I whisper, tears still coming forward. “Did you hate me as much as I loved you?”
With that, he reaches his limit.
Because his lips are on mine.
I claw at him, fighting my body’s instinct to fall into him, to let him take me, to let him use me until I’m nothing more than emotion and heart.
“Storm—” I gasp as soon as he gives me a moment to breathe.
“Shut up, Shae,” he grinds out, pressing into me. “Shut the fuck up about my not loving you.”
I want to scream, to screech like a banshee.
“Fuck you—” His lips are back on mine, cutting off my words, and his hard length presses against my core.
“Everything has been for you, Shae. Eight fucking years of sacrifice, but this—” His lips are on mine again, devouring my mouth and sucking my soul along with my breath.
His words are a storm of confusion, spinning me out somewhere in the universe.
“You think I never loved you, Shae? That I set out to hurt you?” he whispers into my mouth, and I moan when his hand goes to my thigh, ratcheting it higher on his waist.
“There’s so much you don’t know, so many things I’ve done to protect you. To make the world safe for you.”
“Bullshit,” I snap, and he kisses me again. Heat engulfs my body.
“Have you forgotten the blood I’ve spilled to protect you? I think you know there’s no length I wouldn’t go for you, Sweetness.”
I sob, confused. Confusing, confusing, Storm Sandoval is so damn confusing.
“Don’t call me that,” I say on broken breaths, the tears starting to slow as I try to gain control of my mind and decipher his words.
“I love you, Shae. I’ve always loved you with the entirety of my soul; with an expansiveness that mirrors the galaxy. I would do anything for you.”
He attacks my mouth again, grinding our pelvises together in that delicious way that only he knows how to achieve. With the swirl of pain in my heart, my body still responds. My body still wants him, even if I know I shouldn’t…for so many reasons.
“I’d do anything for you, Shae, but I’d never betray you as you’ve betrayed me.” His words are hard, accusing, meant to cut deep like a knife.
“You’re such a fucking liar,” I hiss, and the chuckle he gives me in return is so dark, I feel it in my toes.
“If I’m a liar, it seems we’re a match, baby.”
But I can’t think of anything to say in response, because his fingers drift down to my soaked panties and press hard, circling my nub.
“Oh, Storm. Please…” I don’t know what I’m pleading for. My sanity? My heart?
But I know what I’m not begging him for. I’m not begging for him to stop.
“There are consequences for your actions, Shae. And you will pay. You’ll make this right .” On his last word, the scrap of lace protecting my pussy is torn into two, and his fingers find their way into my heat.
He hisses.
“Still so fucking tight, Sweetness,” he grinds out, and my eyes cross as I rock into his palm.
“S-Storm,” I slur, lost in this emotional and physical onslaught.
“Do you want me, Shae? Or is your body as much a liar as your mouth?”
I shake my head.
“No? Your pussy isn’t begging for my dick to pound into you right now?” he asks, his grin completely sardonic.
I want to call his bluff. I want to hide. I want to….
I allow my swollen, painful eyes to meet his, and I realize…maybe I am a liar. Because yes, Storm still has the power to absolutely destroy me.
And right now, I just might let him.
I just might let myself fall into the madness, even though I know, in the most logical part of my brain, to stay far away from him.
I shake, my body betraying me, yet my brain goes offline when I pull the condom out of my bra and hold it up like a damn weapon between two fingers.
“Fuck me, Storm. But wrap it up. I don’t know where that thing’s been.”
My heart races, and for a split second, I wonder if I’m making a huge mistake. I hate myself for it, but my body still craves him, despite everything—despite how much I want to push him away. I’m not begging for this, but the words are out before I can stop them.
His eyes flash, his cocky grin not at all reassuring, but with a slowness that feels almost criminal, he pulls his fingers from my body.
“I suppose I could say the same about you,” he replies, his dark tone meant to maim.
But then, he sucks his fingers clean.
Snatching the condom from my grasp, he tears it open with his teeth and pulls his sweatpants down, barely clearing his hips. With swift movements, he dons the rubber, and then?—
“Oh, shit!” I shout, forgetting just how big he is—how full he feels inside me.
My body burns, stretches around him, pulling me deeper into this madness.
“Still the best cunt I’ve ever been inside,” he grinds out, teasing, but not in a good way.
I shouldn’t love his words. I hate that I love his words.
I should hate that the refrain he sang all those years ago—we fuck, and we make love—isn’t true in this space.
This fucking is fueled by hate.
“You gonna talk or are you gonna fuck me?” I demand, straining my body to deliver the words with an unaffected tone. But instead of getting to work, he slows all the way down.
Which drives me closer to my peak than anything else.
“This is fucked, Shae,” he vows, keeping steady movements and looking directly into my eyes. “You’ve stolen half of my children’s childhood from me.”
He delivers a punishing plunge with that statement that has me hissing as he bottoms out, but then he returns to that slow, grinding rhythm that hits all my spots.
“You ever gonna take responsibility for your actions, Storm? You seem to want to blame me for all of it, and yet, you’re the one who never answered the fucking phone.”
His eyes flash, and I feel like poking at him even harder.
“You wanted to punish me. Is that it?” he asks.
I open my mouth, trying to come up with a retort, but he takes all control away when he slams into me hard over and over, making me pay for my perceived sins with his body.
“Eight years. You owe me eight goddamn years,” he mutters, and I suck in a shuddering breath as he shifts to hit just the right spot.
“I don’t owe you a goddamn thing,” I throw back.
“You sure about that?” Again with the cocky smile.
“Fuck you,” I spit out, my voice trembling.
His grin cocks to the side, and he slows his strokes.
“Nah, baby. That’s your job.” Then, he shifts in just the right way, at just the right speed, to put me on the train to my peak.
How is it possible to hate someone so much and want them so much at the same time? I hate this. I hate him. I hate how he makes me feel.
I hate how much I want him—how much I’ve dreamt of this.
“Storm,” I pant. “I’m gonna come.”
“I know,” he replies. “Milk my dick, Shae.”
And even though my brain hates him—hates his control over me—my body doesn’t, so I come as he commands.
I come so hard, so violently, that stars bloom behind the darkness of my closed eyelids. I moan, the sound coming from deep within my chest as I climax harder than I have in a long time.
Probably in as long as it’s been since we last did this.
“That’s it,” he croons, bringing his hand to my clit and rubbing in firm circles to prolong my peak. “That’s a good girl, coming so prettily for me.”
I want to punch him, but my senses are overrun.
“ God , I hate you,” I drawl, feeling drunk.
He chuckles, the sound vibrating in my chest, and he picks up speed. He doesn’t just chase his release. He keeps his eyes open, fixed on mine, and lets me see everything in his gaze.
It’s beautiful to witness. The way his whole body tenses, how his face morphs the moment he tips over into max pleasure as his cum floods the condom.
The condom a sick, stupid, idiotic part of me wishes he weren’t wearing.
He groans as his strokes slow to a stop, then, when he delivers his last slide, he holds himself within me, saying nothing.
What is there to say? The only words I can think of are, “This is a really fucking bad idea.”
“I can promise you one thing, Shae.” He pauses, opens his eyes slowly to stare off above my head before looking down at me. “Every wrong will be righted.”
The look he gives me is so possessed, terror edges out every single emotion in my body.
“Get off me.” I press on his chest with all my might, and he still takes his time sliding his spent dick from my body.
Once I’m free of him, regret and an overwhelming sense of What-the-actual-fuck-did-I-just-do? sends alarm bells clanging between my ears.
“That… That won’t happen again,” I state, scrambling to rearrange my limbs to sit with my heels to the floor.
Storm laughs again, just a small release of sound. He grants me the mercy of a small amount of privacy when he goes to the bathroom, presumably to remove the used condom.
In the time he’s gone, I stand, remove the shreds of underwear hanging uselessly around my waist, and toss them into the garbage.
Just when I’m about to bolt from the suite and run to mine, skirting the broken glass, he exits the bathroom. My hand clutches the door lever leading to freedom.
“Shae.” He says my name with an emotion I’m unable to name. It’s not quite tenderness, but it’s not outright hostility either. I half-turn to face him.
But then the words he says make me want to hurl all over the expensive Parisian flooring.
“This is the last night I sleep away from my kids.”
My mouth drops open, spinning through his statement and trying to make sense of the words.
“What do you… What does that mean?” I reply, terror causing my throat to close up.
Don’t hyperventilate.
Storm smiles like he’s just won the lottery, strolling toward me, completely uncaring about the glass on the ground, until we’re face to face again.
“It means whatever you think it means, Sweetness,” he replies, his voice barely a whisper.
He places his hand over mine and depresses the handle. With the door open, I take a step outside, but stop short when I notice there’s another guard waiting for me near the open elevator.
“Storm, let’s be rea?—”
“I’ll see you in the morning at breakfast, Shae.” And with that, he closes the door in my face.