13. Cole #2
His lips graze my cheek, stubble scraping as he descends to my neck, and scuffs his teeth over my jugular. My breath stalls in my chest.
He nips my collarbone. “Maybe I’ll sink my teeth into your ass, and break the skin, do the same to your inner thighs, so the next man you give your hole to knows who you belong to.”
The idea tantalizes me. I’m already wearing his ring for eternity.
“If I’m just going to be talking to myself, I might as well go,” he says.
“No. Mark me everywhere.”
His eyes darken. “You sure, sweetheart?” The term of endearment is more menacing than reassuring.
I nod, eyes locked on his, telegraphing my sincerity.
Time crawls to a standstill. Then he spins me away from him, and taps my ass. “Get on the bed on your hands and knees.”
I do as he says, feeling vulnerable and raw as he makes no move to follow. His footsteps creep closer. I look over my shoulder at him with a conflicting mix of shame and arousal.
“Eyes on the mattress, Cole.”
He takes another step closer. Displaced air chills my feverish skin.
“Tell me you’re sorry,” he says.
“I’m sorry,” I say, tone laced with remorse. “I’m so fucking sorry.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Please. I swear. I hate myself for hurting you.”
I wish he’d let me look at him. Maybe then he’d believe me. But even if he did, no apology can erase what I’ve done. The only way to absolution is atonement, and the only way to atone is to let him go.
Hot tears spill over. I arc down and rub my face against the pillow.
“Better.” He palms my ass cheek. “Show me how much you want me.”
I rush to comply, lowering my head to the mattress, tipping my ass up for easy access, ignoring the protest of pain in my lower back.
Wordlessly, he grips my hips and hauls me to the edge of the bed until his denim-clad hard-on brushes against my ass. He sweeps his tongue up my spine, then presses his bare chest against my back, and kisses my neck. Heat blooms inside me, and goosebumps erupt across my body.
He strokes my feverish skin. “You like this, don’t you? You get off on groveling.”
“No.”
“No?” He laughs darkly. “Sunshine, you’re fucking the sheets like you’re in heat.”
My mouth betrays me with a whimper. We’re pretty vanilla, but degradation has always turned me on, and he knows it. Even when he’s punishing me, he’s punishing me the way I need him to.
“You look tempting, but how can I trust you haven’t been with anyone else when you packed me away so easily? For all I know, your hole is sloppy with another man’s cum.”
“It’s not. I haven’t been with anyone else.”
“Why?”
“All of me belongs to you.”
He says nothing. My skin heats, the longer he stares.
“Prove it.”
I reach back and part my cheeks for him, too far gone to care. He overlaps my hands with his, and spreads me wider, then spits on my hole.
I hold my breath. But he does nothing as his saliva slides down to my balls.
“Please,” I whine. “I’ll do anything.”
“Oh, I know.” His breath ghosts against my hole. “Look at you, baring your hole, begging me to fuck you so you can get off.”
“I don’t want to get off. I want you to claim me, to take back what I took from you. I want the pain I caused you poured back into me.”
He steps backward, and cold air rushes to fill the space he left.
At the sound of his zipper, I scramble off the bed. “What are you doing?”
He buttons his pants and looks up, eyes hardened.
“What I promised.” The contempt in his tone turns each word into a curse.
“What you did to me. I’m leaving when you need me.
” He pulls his hoodie over his head. “Tonight, I’m going to fuck my fist with a grin and no regrets because I know you’ll be fucking yourself with the dildo I bought to DP you, wishing I never left. ”
“Wait. Don’t go.” I jump to my feet. It’s not about the sex. I’m afraid if he walks out that door, I’ll never see him again.
“Sorry. That ship has sailed.” He winks.
He’s reminding me of where we started, just teens living under the same roof, fishing long hours on the boat when school was out. I used to annoy the hell out of him with nautical puns because every once in a while a smile emerged from behind his flat affect.
When you’ve been with someone for years, you know exactly how to hurt them. Morgan has more than a decade of ammunition, and I’m all out of armor.
“You could have had me, but you wasted it.” He dons his jacket. “If you want me back, you’re going to have to work for it and hope to hell I haven’t replaced you by then. Because when you kick me out, pack up my stuff, and ask for a divorce, that’s what comes next.”
My stomach lurches like I crested a massive wave. The ocean is crumbling beneath my feet, and I won’t survive the fall.
He massages between his brows, and shakes his head. “I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to stop loving you.” His hand curls around my hip, fingertips trailing toward my ass. “But I promise you, husband of mine, I’ll fuck my way through as many people as it takes to forget the way you feel.”
He didn’t just turn the tables. He flipped them, snapped a leg off, and eviscerated me with it.
He picks up the box labeled Us, eyes shining with tears. “When did it happen?”
“What?”
“I took care of you for months, I’ve loved you for most of my life, and as soon as you didn’t need me, you got rid of me. When did you decide we were done?”
I don’t know if I ever decided. I just couldn’t do it anymore.
“I’m going to take a shower,” I say, voice cracking. “When I get out, I want you gone.”
By ‘take a shower’ I mean ‘turn the water on and wait for him to leave, then turn it off without stepping under the spray.’ I can’t watch him leave, and I won’t wash away his touch.
I need to hold on to his scent until it fades and map the historical landmarks he left on my body—the beard rash on my neck, the path his fingers took, every single kiss.
At least the scars on my heart are permanent.
“No,” Morgan says. “You’re going to hold the door open for me, and do whatever the fuck you want after I leave. I don’t have to listen to you anymore.”
He heads to the door, and I have no choice but to help him because I need him to get out of here before I fall apart.
“I’ll text you to arrange a time to pick up the rest.” He leans his back against the door, propping it open. “Oh, and Sunshine, don’t hire that skipper unless you want to take his wages out of your share. The boat’s half mine, it’s Finn’s inheritance, and I don’t trust you not to sink it.”
He’s always believed in me, and his lack of confidence hurts, but the chance to see him again softens the blow. He’s not quitting the boat, at least not yet. Even if we part ways after the season’s over, maybe I can make up for the pain I caused him.
He nods brusquely, and leaves. He just fucking leaves. I lock the door before I go after him. The pain of his departure eclipses all the physical pain I’ve ever suffered.
Muscle spasms strangle my sciatic nerve and burn acid through my glutes.
On the way to the bed, I take the framed wedding photo Morgan forgot, the one with him kissing my smile, and trip over a shirt on the floor.
Pain slices down my leg as I bend to pick it up.
It’s Morgan’s. I lift the shirt to my face and inhale sea salt and petrichor cologne mixed with his natural scent, filling me with homesickness—for my husband, for the ocean, for the time before I lost Seb.
Blinking back tears, I wrap Morgan’s shirt around the picture frame, slide under the rumpled bed linen, roll onto my good side, and hug the frame and shirt to my chest, feeling so fucking empty.
After hours of agony, I finally fall asleep. When I dream, I don’t dream of him.
I’m standing alone on the edge of Briar’s bow. Waves crash over the deck. We’re seconds away from sinking, but instead of clinging to the fleeting hope of survival, I climb on top of the rail and leap.