Chapter 38 Sullivan
SULLIVAN
“I don’t know.”
“Please, Tate,” I beg. “Just one more night.”
“What will you tell Molly?”
Her voice tears my soul from my body. She’s holding it together, but the tremor is there, beneath the surface.
She blinks at me, tears pooling along her lower lashes. I hate myself for being the reason they’re there. I should have kept away from her. I could have prevented all of this from happening. I could have spared her the inevitable outcome that was always going to come if she got involved with me.
“I’ll tell her you went on an adventure.”
She sucks in a sharp breath.
“Tate,” I murmur, reaching for her hands.
She yanks them away.
“No. Don’t say my name like that. Don’t you dare make out you’re doing this for me.”
“I’m sorry,” I rasp, meaning it down to the very core of who I am. I lean closer, reaching for her again, taking her hands and running my thumbs over the back of them. “I really am.”
“This can’t be real. Tell me you don’t feel this between us.” She searches my eyes, but I can’t answer her.
Of course I fucking feel it. I feel it so much my heart wants to burst out of my chest when I think about what I have with her.
“Tell me you don’t feel this,” she repeats with more determination, climbing into my lap and straddling me.
She crushes her lips to mine desperately.
“If you were sorry, you wouldn’t be doing this.”
I deepen our kiss until I’m groaning into her mouth and gripping her hips like my life depends on it. I don’t want it to be this way anymore than she does.
But I don’t want to keep lying to her.
And I can’t tell her the truth.
She pulls away and rests her forehead against mine. “I know you feel this.” She places her hand over my thundering heart.
“It doesn’t matter what I feel. This is the way it’s got to be.” I run the backs of my fingers down her cheek. “I am so sorry, Baby,” I whisper, my voice hoarse.
She pushes away, hands flattened against my chest.
“Don’t call me that!”
She shoves at my chest over and over as I wrap my arms around her and pin her to me. My head pounds at the thought she’ll walk out the door like this. Hating me.
“Get off!” she snaps, wriggling in my hold and shoving at me harder.
But there’s no real strength behind her attack. She isn’t trying to hurt me.
She’s trying not to fall apart in front of me.
I did this to her.
“Tate,” I plead. “I’ll let you go. Just breathe.”
She freezes, meeting my eyes with a glare hot enough to brand me.
Her shoulders rise and fall with rage-fueled pants, and I welcome them.
I welcome anything that takes away from the sadness in her eyes.
I’d rather she lets her hurt out like this.
Seeing her cry is too much. Absorbing her anger is easier, even if the thought of her walking out and hating me is more than I can handle.
“Just breathe,” I repeat.
We stare at one another, and I try to commit the exact pattern in her irises to memory, tracing over each swirl of blue in them that fan out from her pupils like notes suspended on the lines of a musical staff.
A song I don’t deserve to ever hear, let alone play.
“I don’t love you.” Her words fly from her lips as she spits them out. She’s lying. But the venom in her tone still cuts deeply. “I don’t love you, Sullivan Beaufort.”
I scan her face, swallowing down a burning in my throat as I do what I have to for both of our sakes.
I pretend I believe her.
“Good. I don’t deserve your love.”
“You don’t,” she agrees, holding my eyes. “But Molly does. And I do love her. You don’t get to tell me I can’t. You can tell me we’re over. You can stop me from seeing her again. But you can’t stop me from loving your daughter. No one can.”
My heart seizes.
Molly.
Tate shoves at my chest one final time and my arms fall from around her, letting her go without hesitation. My eyes sting and I work my throat to hold back the prickling sensation behind them that’s threatening to erupt.
She loves Molly.
I didn’t cry at my mother and brother’s funeral. And I’m not going to cry now.
This is what has to happen, even though letting her go just became a billion times harder.
I wait for her to climb from my lap. To walk out of my home. Out of my life.
“I’m sorry,” I utter.
Tate searches my eyes, and the fire burning in them flares as she leans closer.
Then her lips are on mine again.
She rips at my shirt and tugs at my belt with determination.
“What are you doing?” I say into her fierce kiss.
“Shut up.”
She yanks my shirt out of my pants, a high-pitched tear piercing the air as the fabric rips.
Her kiss grows more frantic, her teeth sliding over my lower lip.
“I’m sorry,” I rasp into her mouth.
My words only feed her anger, and she bites me, sending a shot of metallic warmth coating our tongues as they wrap together.
“Shut up and touch me,” she grits. “You don’t get to be the one who controls this. If this is over, then I’m ending things my way.”
She bites my lip again and my hands fly to her breasts. I knead them roughly through her shirt, pinching her nipples and making her hiss.
“I’m sorry,” I say again, earning myself another bite.
I groan into our kiss as her nails scrape down my chest, snagging on the flesh.
“Stop talking,” Tate cries, yanking down my zipper.
She shoves at my pants and pushes her hand into them, pulling my weeping dick out and squeezing it hard.
“Fuck.” Blood rushes painfully to my groin, making me even harder.
She jerks me, and I curse, my cock leaking in a nonstop stream all over her hand.
“Damn it, Tate. I’m sorry,” I groan as she discards my cock against my lower abs and pulls harshly on my balls, digging her nails in.
“Don’t talk to me,” she snaps, shoving her tongue inside my mouth again.
It’s not goodbye sex.
It’s ‘I hate you for what you’ve done’ sex.
But she needs this.
And I need her to have whatever she needs.
If that means scratching me and hurting me, I’ll take it all. I’ll take whatever she gives me if it makes this any easier for her.
“I’m sorry, Baby,” I breathe, knowing it’ll push her over the edge.
She screams into our kiss, and I seize my opportunity, lifting her in my arms and tossing her on the floor beneath me.
Hips bucking against me, she wraps her legs around my waist and digs her heels into my ass, drawing me closer to her.
I hold her eyes, rip her panties to the side, and spear her with two fingers.
“This what you need?” I grunt, watching her eyelashes flutter in undisguised pleasure.
“Fuck you!”
“I want you to, Baby. You’re so damn good at it.”
I swirl my fingers deeper, hitting the spot that makes her tremble. But it’s not enough to push her over the edge. I sit back on my heels and look at her, giving her one last opportunity to leave.
She stays as she is. Legs parted, pussy glistening, and eyes narrowed into hateful slits.
“Get on with it, Sullivan,” she snarls.
“You sure this is what you want?”
“Yes, Just fucking do it already.” She forces her lips together, holding back a sob.
My cock leaks as I lift her leg onto my shoulder and kiss her ankle, sliding my tongue up her calf to her knee as I take her other leg and place it on my other shoulder.
I fold her in half and let out a guttural groan as I thrust inside her.
“How fitting. Just like the first time,” she snipes as my face hovers over hers. “You told me to forget it had ever happened after that. Well, guess what?” She stares into my eyes. “This time, that’s exactly what I’m going to do.”
I suck in a rough breath. “You want to forget me?” I flex my cock inside her, making her whimper.
She gives me a cold smile. “I’ve already started.”
“Fuck!”
I pull out and drive back inside her, fucking her as hard as I physically can. My knees burn against the rug like the skin is being torn off.
She stares at me the whole time, anger blowing her pupils wide as her tits bounce in the gap between us. I know she’s holding my eyes on purpose. It’s not about intimacy this time. It’s about showing me what I’m throwing away. What she will never give me again after tonight.
It’s about giving me one last great big ‘fuck you’ before she leaves.
She tips her head back and moans, coming around my cock in rippling waves.
“Tate,” I growl, the feel of her setting off my own release. I come so hard inside her that my head spins. “Fuck, I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry.”
I keep thrusting as she comes again and tears her nails down my back.
If this is the last time I’ll ever have her like this, then God knows I’m going to make it count.
It’s 5.30 a.m. when she slides out of my bed. Our bodies parted for the final time less than an hour ago, and we’ve been lying beside one another in silence since.
The last proper words I said to her were the rough, “I’m so fucking sorry”, as I came inside her in the living room.
I’ve come inside her more times since then. And on her breasts, over her ass, down her throat. All in groans and grunts. Sometimes, I’ve not even pulled out in between. We’ve just stared at each other in silence.
No words. Just the warmth of each other’s bodies, the taste of each other’s kisses, the scent of each other’s skin.
And the sight of each other’s eyes as we held on to them like anchors.
Neither of us wanted to break it. Because once that final time was over, that would be it.
We’d be here.
In the moment where it’s come for her to leave.
Muffled crying comes from inside my bathroom, and I stare at the strip of light spilling from underneath the door. The sound of her pain reaches my body like a beckoning finger, urging me to climb out of bed and go to her. To find a way to fix this.
But there isn’t one.
I screw my eyes closed and turn my back to the bathroom door.
It opens and she walks into the room, but she doesn’t falter.
She pads softly across the carpet and opens the door.
Then she’s gone.