14. Grayson
CHAPTER 14
Grayson
C lementine had just deposited a huge pile of dishes in the sink when I came up behind her.
My whole body craved taking her in my arms, kissing her throat, assuring her over and over that I would never leave her again.
But I couldn’t do that yet without her trying to scratch my eyes out, so instead I was tortured by her scent, the way she had her hair tied up in a loose bun so the long silky strands stuck to her neck with the heat.
“You can’t possibly be serious about this guy,” I growled at her. “He can’t give you what you need.”
“Oh, he absolutely can,” she retorted, flipping around so she was facing me.
Now she was only a few tantalizing inches away from me, and I tightened my hands on the counter so I wouldn’t lose control again.
Clementine was wearing a little flowered sundress, the thin material falling against her shapely legs and making me crave running my hands up to her thighs.
“He can’t give you a baby. I can.”
It seemed like I had accidentally hit a very sore spot because her face hardened even further, and she turned to go into her room.
“There’s one good thing about him. He’s not you , Grayson. He’s not fucking pretending to like me for some stupid career advancement.”
“I don’t—I’m so sorry, Clementine!” I said, my voice rising as she walked away from me.
But she didn’t look back.
I turned with a heavy heart to do the dishes. I had hoped she would have relented a little bit by now. But she was still determined to drive me away.
And I wasn’t going anywhere.
Surely she’s not going to actually. . .
The murmurs in Clementine’s room were growing, and my heart began to pound as I heard a low, throaty moan.
I’d recognize that tone anywhere.
My hands tightened and I had to sit up and press my clenched fists into my eyes to stop them from shaking.
She should be making those noises under me. I wanted to feel those noises against my mouth, my chest, on my dick.
My chest heaving, I burned with impotent fury.
The window in the living room was open, and I realized the window in her room must be open, too.
She was deliberately trying to drive me away, hoping I would leave.
Well, it wasn’t going to work.
This was absolute fucking torture, but I wasn’t going to leave until she gave me another chance.
Clementine was it for me.
She was the only woman I wanted. I only wished I’d realized this before.
My body was tighter and more tense than it had ever been before, shudders racking my body, and I ground my teeth together as her moans picked up.
That should be me in there making her moan like that.
I burned with a jealous anger.
Clementine was mine!
That should be me in there with her, me pleasuring her, laying her down and fucking her, hard and fast, then slow and leisurely.
And it would have been if I hadn’t been such a selfish asshole. She had never denied me when I reached for her.
“Oh yes! Right there,” Clementine groaned. “Just like that.”
Holy fucking hell, I had never wanted anything so badly in my life as I wanted to be the one making her say that. This jackass was the luckiest man in the world to be able to get that sound out of her.
My cock was hardening just remembering what she had looked like when I used to be the one who got to fuck her. How sweet her kisses were.
“Harder!” she squealed.
It was like a vice clamped around my heart, squeezing me tighter and tighter until I could barely breathe.
Harder
Faster
Right there baby
Oh, yes, holy fuck. . .
I thought I was going to fucking die on the sofa when she came, low, deep throaty moans, the sound of flesh on flesh connecting, the jealous fury of hearing him come too.
But wasn’t that how Clementine had felt when she had seen me fucking Vivi?
God, I had been such a colossal dickhead.
I had betrayed her in so many ways.
How could she ever forgive me?
My chest hurt, like I was going to have a goddamn heart attack, even though I was only 44.
Why had I never seen how important she was to me?
Why had I been in such denial?
It wasn’t lack of caring that meant I tried not to think about her. I had to keep those memories hidden because if I ever let myself think about her, I’d shatter.
And now I was shattering.
I had seen my behavior for what it truly was, and myself clearly, for the first time in my life.
I wasn’t working so hard in fraud because I had a personal passion for it, but because I wanted the success, the adulation, the wins.
And I had been willing to do anything to get this big win.
Even though I knew it was wrong.
That was why I had spent most of my marriage to Clementine so tightly wound, trying to drive down my guilt at what I was doing, that I thought fucking Vivi was a release from the mix of sweet pleasure and pain that being around my wife was.
I had to sit up on the couch, put my head between my legs, and clench my fists until the ache in my chest finally went away.
Clementine.
Stumbling to my feet, my heart still pounding through my chest, I headed into the kitchen to grab a glass of something . I had seen a bottle of wine. But I didn’t want to dull the pain I felt. I wanted to feel it searing through me, punishing me for what I had put Clementine through.
Just as I poured myself a glass of wine and put it to my lips, I felt Clementine brush by me and stand on tiptoe to reach a glass, her arm brushing by mine.
“ So thirsty,” she said.
I jerked around, seeing how she was in a silky bathrobe, her cheeks flushed, her hair tied up in a loose bun.
I can do it better.
I can make her scream.
“I want another chance,” I said.
She stared at me, tightening those plush pink lips.
“Get out of my way,” she replied coldly, trying to step around me, but I grabbed her arm.
“Clementine, please. I want to start fresh.”
“Are you fucking drunk, Grayson?” she demanded. “How much of my wine have you had?”
“None yet,” I said, my throat dry as sandpaper. “I fucking screwed up with you. I’ve done so many undercover missions and I’ve always been able to leave them at the end without a single look back. But not you. I had to try to compartmentalize what happened, lie to myself that it was just another job. It wasn’t. I really cared for you. I loved you the whole time, Clementine. I just didn’t know it.”
“Loved me without knowing it, very convenient,” she scoffed as my heart plummeted. “Very convenient way to cheat, I’d say. And that might work on someone else, your whole, ‘I’m growly but I do the dishes’ persona, but it won’t work on me.”
She dropped a couple of fresh slices of lemon into her glass and then turned away.
“I—still love you,” I said, feeling desperate, unable to figure out how to make my shame and regret clearer.
But she didn’t even acknowledge it.
“Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go in that room and have sex again with my boyfriend. And you’re free to leave. You can watch me from outside with a pair of binoculars if you want. But there’s no place in my life for you.”
And I had to sit back down on that goddamn couch and listen, cold and miserable, as she had sex with him again.