16. Genevieve
Chapter sixteen
Genevieve
“Because I want the truth.”
My throat tightened, but I held his stare. “You want the truth?”
There was a beat of silence. His jaw locked.
“Fine. You want the truth?” My voice rose, sharp with something between pain and defiance. “I left you, Reid. I. Left. You. And there was nothing you could’ve done to stop me.”
His body went still, like I’d slapped him across the face.
I didn’t stop. “You couldn’t fix us. You couldn’t fight it.
You couldn’t love me hard enough to make me stay.
And I didn’t love you enough to not leave.
” I was breathing harder now, my hands trembling around my frame.
“There was too much happening with you, with Raymond finding out about Jamie’s affair and your paternity—it was too much.
Gregory was the safe option for me and I took it because I wanted to. I needed to for me.”
His eyes lingered on me, hate and fury growing in them as they studied me in the silence.
Then his angry but controlled voice came low. “And you love him, right?”
My breath caught as he took a step closer. I couldn’t answer him. His jaw flexed once. Then twice. His gaze dragged over my face, then my body… slow and punishing.
“More than me? That’s what made it easier for you, isn’t it? That’s what you told me when you left without a second thought? When you let them bury me alive?”
My rage faltered, pulse spiking as he towered over me.
“You left me,” he repeated, stepping closer until my back nearly hit the car door. “And you think that’s the end of the story? That you get to stand there and say it like a fact, and I’m just supposed to live with it all over again?”
At this point we were only inches away. His body pressed me against the side of the car. His hands caged me in, resting beside my head as he leaned in too close.
“You don’t get to call it the truth just because you’re too afraid to admit you fucking regret it.”
I glared into his eyes. “I don’t regret anything.”
“Because Gregory was safe, right?” he spat. “Gregory was your choice?” He scoffed, the sound coming out bitter. “Because I was the risk. I was the one who saw you. Who loved every broken, ruthless piece of you… Maybe that’s why you ran.”
My pulse was thundering. “Stop.”
“Tell me I’m wrong,” he dared. His voice was low now, lethal in the quiet night. “Tell me you didn’t think about me every day like I thought about you. Tell me you’ve never thought about me while he fucked you. Over and over and over again.”
My hand shot out, trying to push him back, but he grabbed my wrist, holding it against his chest as he trapped me.
“Tell me you don’t want my hands on your body…” His voice was lower, closer, pulling me in, ghosting just above my lips. “Tell me you don’t still want me…”
His eyes burned into me. “Tell me… you don’t still belong to me.”
I couldn’t speak. My body betrayed me first. Because I didn’t pull away. I didn’t slap him like I wanted to. Didn’t scream or spit the truth he wanted to hear.
I just stared at him. At his mouth, the rage and hunger crawling over his face… the tension in his jaw that was proof he was holding something back… something feral.
And then—
He kissed me. Hard. He kissed me like a punishment. Like I was his fucking reckoning. And God, in that moment that’s all I wanted to be.
His mouth had crashed against mine, unforgiving and brutal. My gasp had broken the non-existent barrier between us, but he pulled me back in, devouring it like he had a right to it, like he owned it.
I should’ve pushed him away.
But I clutched his shirt instead, fisting the fabric, pulling him down harder, hungrier, like I wanted to hurt him with how much I still wanted… needed him.
He was making life a fucking hell, for crying out loud, but in the moment I didn’t care. When I felt his hands gripping my hips, all possessive, anchoring me against the car as his thigh shoved between mine, forcing my legs apart, all I could do was melt into him.
I could feel his fingers sliding lower, dragging the hem of my wrap dress up my thigh until I felt the cool night air kiss bare skin.
He hiked it up shamelessly, my leg wrapping around his body as he pressed his hardened cock against my wet core.
It was like he didn’t care who saw us, didn’t care that I was coming apart for him after I promised I wouldn’t, not again.
But I already was.
I moaned into his mouth, hating the way my nails clawed at his chest like I couldn’t get him close enough.
His palm curved around the back of my neck, tilting my head to take the kiss deeper, filthier, his tongue sliding against mine in a way that made my knees weaken, made my mind fucking evaporate.
“You hate me…” he breathed against my lips, his hand squeezing my thigh, pushing my dress up farther with little patience. His other hand slid between my open legs as my body buckled, searching for him, aching for his touch again.
There was no warning or permission. Just my need for him being satiated as his fingers slid through my dripping heat he knew was there.
“I hate you,” I whimpered, trembling against the car door.
“You’re soaked,” he snarled, voice savage. “You hate me? Then why are you fucking dripping for me?” His hand dragged the thin fabric of my panties aside like it offended him. I clutched at his arms, but he didn’t budge.
He was relentless, a storm of muscle and memory and punishment. “Tell me again how happy you are, Vieve,” he whispered, pressing two fingers into me without warning.
My knees buckled.
He caught me with his other hand, pinning me harder to the car, his fingers sliding deeper inside me like he had every right—like he never lost it in the first place.
My mind immediately thought of my son in the car, my head snapping over to the tinted windows on instinct. Reid’s hand holding my thigh lifted it, his palm curving around the back of my neck, tilting my head back to him.
He lowered his voice. “Tell me, Vieve. Tell me you don’t want this. That you don’t miss this.”
I shook my head, tears stinging, my hands fisting in his shirt like I needed something to hold onto, something to tether myself to as he fucked me with his fingers in the open night.
“No one else touches you like this,” he growled. “No one else makes you fall apart like this. And you fucking love it.”
My head fell back against the car, hips rising, helpless and frantic against his hand, chasing that edge like I was starved.
“You’re fucking pathetic,” he muttered, fingers curling into me as I could barely keep it together. “You let me put my tongue in you while your fiancé was upstairs. And now you’re still pretending you don’t want it again?”
“Reid—” His name broke out of me, desperate and trembling.
“I could fuck you right here,” he muttered, voice lethal. “Right now. Against this fucking car. I could pull your dress up and make you scream my name loud enough to wake the whole city. And you’d fucking let me.”
His hand went faster, my eyebrows furrowing as he wrecked me from the inside out. And I absolutely loved it. I couldn’t deny it, my body couldn’t deny it, because I would let him do anything and everything to me.
His other hand grabbed my jaw, forcing me to keep my eyes locked on him. His fingers never stopped. He was splitting me apart on them, fucking me open like I was nothing but a hole for him to claim.
My thighs trembled, my stomach tightened. And then—
My body convulsed as my legs shook, my orgasm crashing over me in a wave. I clenched his shirt as I buried my face in his chest. His hand still toyed with me, working inside me, dragging every last bit out of me.
His teeth grazed my ear as his fingers slowed just enough to keep me pulsing on them, fucked open, helpless and ruined, a reminder that only he could make me feel like this.
Once he slipped them out, he pinched my sensitive clit, rendering a soft whimper from my lips before he lifted his fingers to his own, sucking them slow and reverently.
He let go of my jaw, brushing his thumb along my cheekbone.
“You think I’m dangerous now?” he whispered, and for the first time a feeling of unease settled in my chest. “Wait until I know the truth.”
My heart skipped a beat as he turned, walking around the car, and slid into the driver’s seat like he hadn’t just unraveled every fucking part of me.
I opened the passenger door, my fingers fumbling with the handle. My legs barely worked. Every step felt like betrayal.
My baby boy was still asleep in the back, his light snoring enough of an indication that he was deep in REM.
I slid into the seat beside him, trying not to shake, trying not to breathe or feel the effects of what just happened—of what I just let happen outside a hospital against a car my son was sleeping in.
I could still feel his fingers inside me. Still taste him on my lips and hear the sound of my own begging echoing in my ears like a curse.
Reid didn’t even glance my way as he shifted the gear and pulled off without a second thought. I stared out the window, too ashamed to look at him.
His words that hit the pit in my stomach never did settle. Because for some reason… I felt that I knew exactly what he meant. That I knew exactly what he was searching for.
I kept denying it could happen. I didn’t want to think of it happening.
And I knew what would happen the second he confirmed it. He’d destroy everything just like he promised.
And the worst part? There was a small part of me… a sick and twisted part of me… that wanted him to.