20. Claire
20
CLAIRE
I stretch and mold around him.
The most exquisite kind of pain.
But he’s gentle, just like he said he’d be. He’s careful with me. I didn’t know it was possible for someone to be soft while also being rough.
I didn’t know I could feel so safe, so respected, so beautiful , while being used. I want to chase those feelings. I want to capture them. Beautiful. Respected. Safe. I want to please him just so I can keep them. So I can feel these things for as long as possible.
I’ve never been with a man like this. He’s commanding and forceful and filthy but still so very gentle.
I don’t have time to piece together the puzzle that is Jonah Hendrix.
I barely have the brain capacity to feel anything other than extreme, debilitating euphoria as he slides in and out of me. Each time, he sinks a little deeper, stretching me a little farther. It feels...
“Fuck, you’re squeezing me so tight, Claire.”
Jonah groans, then puts his hands on my pelvis and uses his thumbs to spread my pussy lips wider. I can feel the extra stretch, his thumbs and his cock reshaping me both outside and in. He spits on my pussy and rubs it into me, onto his cock. He slides his spit over my throbbing clit, and I cry out. A high-pitched, wailing sound. I sound absolutely inhuman. I’ll never recover from this. I’d be embarrassed if I could think straight .
“Look at you. You just keep taking me. God, you’re fucking greedy for me. You just keep sucking me deeper.”
I can’t handle it. I can’t handle him. I’m going to explode.
“You’re driving me mad,” I rasp out, and he laughs.
“You have no fucking idea.”
Suddenly, he’s hovering over me, my breasts pressed to his sweaty, tattooed chest, and he’s kissing me. His tongue darts in and out of my mouth in time with his cock thrusting into my pussy. It’s too much. There’s no room left, yet I want more. I want more, but he pulls away every time I try to take control.
I sink my hands into his blond hair and pull at the root.
“Stop making me chase you,” I pant against his mouth.
“But I like you like this.”
He tries to pull away again, but I take his lower lip between my teeth and bite. He groans and starts to pump faster.
“Fuck, I really like you like this.”
He crooks his hips to the side and hits a different spot inside me. It makes me cry out and clutch at him.
“Baby, did I just find your sweet spot?”
I move my hips with his, hitting that spot again and again.
“I fucking did, didn’t I? You’re the one in trouble now, Davis.” He fucks me harder, and I groan, low and desperate. My chest vibrates with it, and he growls. “You’re in so much fucking trouble. You’ll never fucking forget me.”
His words flutter in and out of my head briefly. I register them, clock the strangeness of his tone, but then it disappears. It’s gone the moment he presses my thighs together and shoves them against my chest.
“Oh my fuck, Jonah.”
“That’s right. Say it again.”
He fucks me harder, bottoming out deeper than I thought possible. Until his hips slam into my ass and the backs of my thighs. The sound of skin slapping onto skin, of his hard cock moving in and out of my soaking wet pussy...
“Fuck, it’s so, it’s so...”
“Say my fucking name, Claire.”
“Jonah. Jonah. Jonah.”
I chant it like he wants. Like an incantation. More. More. More .
His palm splays on my collarbone, and my excitement increases. I wait for him to move it to my neck, but he doesn’t. He just applies pressure to my collarbone, pinning me into the mattress. Maintaining control.
I wrap my hand around his wrist and try to coax him to my throat, but he doesn’t budge.
“Please,” I beg.
“Please what?”
I squeeze my eyes shut, willing the request to fall from my lips, but I can’t bring myself to say it. Even after all he’s done, all we’ve done, I can’t say it. His answering laugh is dark. He knows, and he doesn’t remove his hand from my collarbone.
He moves my legs apart and presses my knees to my shoulders, lifting my ass from the bed until I’m arched and folded. I mentally thank myself for yoga because who the fuck bends like this.
Then he spits again and rubs his thumb on my clit.
“Oh God.” I groan.
“You close, Trouble?”
His voice is strained and breathless. He’s holding back. He’s ready. I nod.
“Good.”
He pulls out of me, pulls off the condom, then pumps into me twice more. It drives me fucking crazy, skin on skin, heat on heat. My pussy clenches around him, so close. So close.
Then he pulls out of me completely, lets go of my legs, and pumps his dick until he’s coming all over my pelvis and stomach. I watch breathlessly as his mouth drops open on a long groan, his eyes never leaving my body. Fascinated by his cum covering my skin.
When he’s finished, I wait impatiently. I wait for him to return between my legs and bring me to orgasm in some way. With his fingers or tongue. But then he stands beside the bed, looming over me, and hits me with a glare.
My brows furrow and a chill skates down my spine. I close my legs, sit up, and cover my chest, ignoring the way his cum smears against my skin.
“What?” I say quietly.
He says nothing, so I repeat myself more forcefully. I snap at him and quickly start throwing on armor. Fortified steel for whatever he’s going to say. I can tell from the look in his eyes that it won’t be good.
“What?”
A sinister grin stretches over his face, and my heartbeat sounds like warning bells in my head.
“How does it compare?”
My heart stops. My stomach drops. I open my mouth and force out only one word. The only one I can actually form, and even then, it’s a ghostly, shaky whisper.
“What?”
The hatred that flashes over his face, the pain that I see in his eyes, guts me. And then in a blink, it disappears.
“I have to admit, when I said you fucked your way into Innovation, I didn’t even consider the CEO. Great work, Davis. Bang up job. My dad usually likes them a little younger, but...”
I shake my head. I want to protest, to defend myself, but I can’t breathe. It’s made worse when he tilts his head to the side and scans my body. I’m again a lab rat. A cadaver to a med student. A case study.
He sneers.
“I guess I’m not surprised. That was probably some of the best pussy I’ve ever had. I came so hard I saw fucking stars. Maybe I should fuck more homewrecking whores.”
I flinch. “I’m not... I didn’t...”
“What do you call women who fuck married men, Davis? Because I usually call them homewreckers.”
“I’m not.” I shake my head again. I lean forward. I want to plead with him. “He’s not married. I didn’t?—”
Jonah cuts me off with a laugh. Loud and sharp, slicing me from neck to navel.
“He was married, Davis. Married right up until my mother killed herself.”
I feel the color leech from my face. His voice dulls because of the pounding in my head, the blood whooshing in my ears.
“No...”
“Yes. Married. Mother was living upstate for her health, but depression is only manageable with constant treatment. Why treat your depression when your husband is fucking a junior creative developer at his company?”
I feel like I’ve been slapped. I don’t even realize I’m crying until the tears reach my lips.
“That’s not fair...I didn’t...It wasn’t my fault.”
He can’t put that on me. He can’t blame his mother’s death on me. I can’t carry that guilt on my shoulders. I know without a single shadow of a doubt that it’s not my fault, but everything is blurry. Everything. My vision. My memories. My logical thinking. I’m a raw nerve.
“No, it wasn’t.” He shrugs. “You didn’t force the sleeping pills and red wine down her throat. You didn’t make her give the housekeeper the week off.” He reaches down and pinches my chin between his thumb and forefinger. “But you sure fucking didn’t help.”
I jerk myself out of his grip. He tries to smile, but he can’t. It’s a frown. Sad and pained and disgusted, but it seems directed inward. Disgusted not with me, but himself.
I can’t help but feel like a murder-suicide was just committed.
He sliced me in half, then fell on the same sword.
He takes two steps backward, his own chest heaving as his eyes turn glassy.
“Checkmate, Trouble. Pack your shit and get out of my life.”
He turns and walks out. I don’t go after him. He’s still completely naked, but I can’t bring myself to care at all. I stare at the place he vacated for a long time. Minutes or hours. I don’t move until my heartbeat returns to normal and my tears stop falling. Until my mind goes utterly silent.
Numbly, I walk to the bathroom and step into the shower. I turn the knobs to scalding. I sit in the corner on the tiled floor and watch as the steam fills the glass enclosure. I close my eyes, rest my head on the natural stone wall, and breathe it in. I imagine dissolving into it. Condensing myself into a water droplet on the glass, then slipping back down into the drain. Down, down, down. Away from here. Away from this.
What have I done?
I try like hell to employ the healthy coping mechanisms I learned during my stay at the treatment center. To wrangle the extreme anxiety clawing its way up my throat into something more manageable. But.. .
How could I have been so stupid?
There were signs. There we so many signs. Did I really not see them? Did I ignore them?
Rationally, I know Jonah’s mom’s death isn’t my fault. But anxiety isn’t rational. My insecurities aren’t, either.
“Fuck.” My voice is swallowed up by the stream of water from the shower. I lift my head and drop it back on the stone wall, then raise my voice. “Fuck.”
What am I going to do? What the fuck am I going to do?
The whole scene with Jonah muscles its way back into the forefront of my mind. Every touch. Every feeling. Every praise and every insult. It makes my stomach cramp, and I pull my knees to my chest.
Then I think of Conrad’s email. Of the veiled threats he made through the company server. Anyone else would see it as a professional message from the CEO to a subordinate. But I spent almost a year with that man, so I know better.
It's just another stupid fucking decision to tack on to my long list of regrets.
I stand and step under the showerhead, letting the hot water cascade down my body. I let the tears building in my eyes fall and stream down my cheeks. They mix with the water, blending together, cleansing me. I am the steam. I am the condensation on the glass. I am the droplets swirling down the drain.
I breathe. I breathe. I breathe. One inhale and exhale at a time.
When my head is clear, I turn off the water and step out of the shower. I dry off my body, put on pajamas, and pack my suitcase.
I have a plan, and it doesn’t involve bending to the commands of any man.