Chapter Five #2
His mouth found the hollow of her throat. Lingered there. Moved lower. The curve of her collarbone, where she felt his breath warm against her skin. The sensitive spot behind her ear, where her breath always caught.
And it caught now. Sharp and helpless.
"Troy..."
His name again. She couldn't stop saying it. It was the only word she had, the only word that mattered, and every time she said it, she felt him react. A tightening of his hands. A roughening of his breath. Like her voice was doing something to him that his body couldn't hide.
He kissed the curve of her ribs. Slowly. Deliberately. His hands spread across her waist, holding her still, and his mouth continued its path downward. The soft skin below her navel, where her body jerked and a gasp tore out of her.
Her hand flew to his hair. Gripped. Pulled him back up.
"Please..."
He came back up, his body covering hers, and when his mouth found hers again, the kiss was deeper now, hungrier, his control starting to slip. She could feel it in the way his hands gripped her hips, in the roughness of his breathing, in the way his jaw clenched when she arched against him.
When he finally settled over her, she didn't close her eyes.
Not this time.
She watched him. And he watched her. And the look on his face...
Like she was the only thing in his world that had ever mattered.
He moved, and her back arched off the bed, and a sound came out of her that wasn't a word.
His forehead pressed against hers. His breathing shattered.
Her nails dug into his shoulders and she held on, held on to this man who had broken her heart and was putting it back together with his hands and his mouth and the weight of his body against hers.
He moved again. Deeper. Slower. And she gasped his name against his throat, barely, like a secret even from herself. His grip tightened. His hips pressed against hers, and the rhythm between them built, slow and devastating, until her entire body was trembling.
"Troy..."
"I know." His voice was rough. Wrecked. "I know, Laina."
His mouth found the spot below her ear. His hand slid down her thigh, pulling her closer, changing the angle, and the sound she made—
It shattered something between them.
His control broke. She felt it like a physical thing, the snap of restraint giving way, and his body moved against hers with an urgency that stole what was left of her breath.
Her legs tightened around him. Her fingers dug into his back.
And she could feel it building, feel it gathering at the base of her spine, feel the wave rising—
She came apart with her eyes open and his name on her lips. Said once. Said clearly. And the tears that fell weren't from grief.
He followed her with a groan that he buried against her neck, his whole body shuddering, his arms tightening around her like he was holding on to something he'd almost lost.
And after...
They were in their bedroom. The one they had once shared. And he was looming over her, touching her cheek with the backs of his fingers, and his eyes...
They were bright. And wrecked. And absolutely certain.
"I love you, Laina."
Her heart stopped.
"I'm sorry for all the years I never put you first. You have always been everything to me, but I made you feel the opposite. Come back to me. Please. Give me the chance to be the husband—"
"I can't," she choked out in a sob.
He whitened.
"I'm sorry, Troy, but I can't..."
And she was already crying as she pulled the sheet up to her chest, already crying as she reached for his phone on the nightstand, and she just had to type her name—
Laina Barrymore.
All the videos that came up were from the ambush interview. The one outside her school, on the day everything had gone wrong. The day she had lost her mind.
She hit play. Turned the screen toward him.
And there she was, mascara streaked, hair wild, surrounded by reporters shoving microphones into her face, and the words coming out of her mouth—
"We're divorcing."
Troy stared at the screen.
On the video, Laina watched herself unravel. She remembered this moment. She remembered the panic rising in her throat, the cameras flashing, the questions piling on top of each other, and the desperate need to say something, anything, that would make them stop.
And she had found herself saying all sorts of things just to keep herself from becoming a fool on national television.
"I've...I've found someone else."
She heard her own breath catch on the lie, even on camera. Saw the blush flood her own face. And she remembered the instant regret, the horror of hearing those words come out of her mouth and knowing she couldn't take them back.
But it got worse. Because on the video, she had turned around to walk away from the reporters, and standing right behind her was Oscar Baldwin, who had completely misunderstood everything.
"Is that why Mr. Barrymore seemed jealous of me?" Oscar's voice was earnest, confused, almost flattered. "Did he think I stole her away from him?"
Laina stopped the video.
The screen went dark. The room went quiet. And the only sound was Troy's breathing, which had gone very, very still.
She couldn't look at him.
"The whole world saw that, Troy." Her voice was barely a whisper. "They think I left you for another man. They think Oscar and I—"
She couldn't finish.
Because the silence beside her was the kind that could break a marriage all over again.