32. Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Two
Sulla
We crash against the wall. Her hands are everywhere—pulling at my shirt, my hair, my skin. Not gentle. Not like the bothy.
This is fury made physical.
I kiss her as if I’m drowning and she’s air. She bites my lip, draws blood, and I groan into her mouth. My hands find her waist, pull her flush against me.
“I hate you,” she gasps between kisses.
“I know.”
“I hate what you were.”
“I know.”
“I hate that I still—” She cuts herself off, kisses me harder.
Still what? Still wants me? Still loves me?
I don’t ask. Too afraid of the answer.
Her shirt comes off. Mine. Skin on skin, and Goddess, I’ve missed this. Missed her. Four nights ago, we were in the bothy and everything was perfect. Now everything is broken and we’re trying to put the pieces back together with rage instead of love.
It won’t work. I know it won’t work.
But I can’t stop.
I walk her backward toward the bed. She’s fumbling with the string of my sweats, hands shaking. Not from cold this time. From fury. From grief.
From something that might be need.
We collapse onto the mattress. She’s on top of me, kissing me with teeth and desperation. I let her. Let her take whatever she needs.
My hands slide up her rib cage, over her breasts. She arches into the touch, makes a sound that’s half moan, half sob.
I flip us. Pin her beneath me. Look down at her face.
She’s crying.
Tears streaming down her temples into her hair. Silent. Devastating.
“Reid—” I pull back. Not away, just enough to look at her. Enough to let her see the question on my face: do you want me to stop?
Her hands fist in my hair. She pulls me down. “Don’t you dare stop.”
“You’re crying—”
“I don’t care. Don’t stop.”
I kiss her again. Taste salt mixed with anger. Her tears wet my face.
This is wrong. We’re wrong. Everything about this is broken.
But her hands are on my shoulders, nails digging in hard enough to leave marks, and she’s pulling me closer even as she’s crying.
We’re destroying each other and neither of us can stop.
My mouth moves to her neck, her collarbone, her breast. She gasps, arches. I want to be gentle—want to worship her like I did in the bothy—but that’s not what this is.
This isn’t worship.
This is exorcism.
“Sulla—” My name breaks on her lips.
I look at her: eyes squeezed shut, tears still falling. Her face is twisted with something between pleasure and agony.
“Look at me,” I say.
She does. Her eyes open—devastated, furious, still somehow full of something that looks like love.
“I see you,” I tell her. “All of you. The anger. The hurt. The betrayal. I see it.”
“Do you see that I can’t let you go?” Her voice cracks. “Even knowing what you are? Even hating you? I can’t let you go.”
The words destroy me.
“I see it.”
“I hate that,” she whispers.
“I know.”
She pulls me down, kisses me with renewed fury. We shed the rest of our clothes with shaking hands. No grace. No patience. Just need.
When I settle between her thighs, she’s ready. Has been ready. But I pause, hand cupped against her face.
“Reid—”
“If you apologize right now, I swear to God—”
“I wasn’t going to apologize.”
“Then what?”
I look at her. Memorize this moment. Her face flushed and tear-streaked. Her body beneath mine. The way she’s looking at me like I’m destroying her and she’s letting me do it.
“Mea vita,” I whisper. “My life.”
She closes her eyes. Fresh tears spill. “Don’t.”
“Mea carissima. My dearest.”
“Stop—”
“Mea lux.” I kiss her softly. Once. “My light.”
“I hate you,” she sobs.
“I know.”
She wraps her legs around my waist, pulls me closer. “Then show me. Show me what you are. Monster and man. All of it.”
I do.
I enter her slowly despite the fury, despite the rage. This is the first time—the bothy was everything but this. And even in anger, I can’t hurt her. Won’t.
She gasps. Her hands dig into my shoulders, nails breaking skin.
“Move,” she demands.
I do. Deep and slow and deliberate. Watching her face. Watching tears still stream from the corners of her eyes even as she’s gasping with pleasure.
“Harder,” she says.
“Reid—”
“I said harder.”
I obey. Give her what she’s asking for. It’s rough and desperate and nothing like making love. This is harsher. Darker.
This is two people who love each other tearing each other apart.
She comes first, crying out my name, body arching. I watch her shatter—pleasure and pain and grief all mixed together. Beautiful and devastating.
I’m close. So close. But I force myself to slow, to gentle.
“Don’t,” she gasps. “Don’t be tender. I can’t—if you’re tender I’ll—”
Fall apart? Love me? Forgive me?
She doesn’t say it. Doesn’t need to.
I understand.
So I give her fury instead of tenderness. Give her what she can handle. What we both can handle.
When I finally break, it’s with her name on my lips and the knowledge that this is goodbye.
This is both the first and last time.
After, we lie tangled in the sheets. Sweaty. Wrecked. She’s still crying—softer now, nearly silent.
I should let her go. Should give her space.
Instead, I pull her against my chest. And she lets me. Doesn’t resist. Just curls into me as if maybe we’re still the people we were in the bothy instead of the broken things we’ve become.
“I can’t do this,” she says against my shoulder.
“I know.”
“I need to not see you for a while.”
“How long?”
“I don’t know.” A pause. “Maybe forever.”
The words land somewhere below language.
I’ve been hit before—fists, weapons, Domina’s endless, relentless torture—and I know the difference between pain that heals and pain that changes the shape of you permanently.
This is the second kind. Maybe forever from her mouth, said not with anger but with genuine uncertainty, which is somehow worse than anger.
Anger means she’s still fighting. Uncertainty means she’s already somewhere I can’t reach.
She lifts her head. Looks at me directly for the first time since we stopped.
“Don’t contact me,” she says quietly. “Not a text. Not an email. Not anything. I need to figure this out without you in my ear.”
I nod against her hair. “Okay.”
“Okay?” She pulls back to look at me. “That’s it? Just okay?”
“What do you want me to say? That I’ll wait? I will. That I love you? I do. That I’m sorry? I am.” I cup her face, wipe tears with my thumb. “But none of that changes what I was. None of that makes this hurt less. So if you need forever, I’ll give you forever.”
She stares at me. Something in her expression crumbles.
“I wish I could hate you,” she whispers. “It would be so much easier if I could just hate you.”
“I wish you could, too.”
She closes her eyes. More tears fall. I kiss them away—her eyelids, her cheeks, her temples. Tender now because she’s not watching. Can’t see me being soft.
After a long moment, she pulls away. Sits up. Gathers her clothes.
I watch her dress. Memorize the curve of her spine, the way her hands shake as she buttons her shirt.
She gets to the door. Hand on the handle. Pauses.
Doesn’t turn around.
“Did you mean it?” Her voice is barely audible. “In the bothy. The Latin. Mea lux. Mea vita. Did you mean it?”
I could lie. Make this easier for both of us. Tell her it was just words.
But I’m done lying. Done being a coward.
“Every word. Then and now.”
Her shoulders shake. One quiet sob.
“I wish I could believe you.”
She opens the door. Steps into the hallway. Doesn’t look back.
The door closes. The lock clicks.
And I’m alone.
I sit on the edge of the bed, still naked, staring at nothing. My shoulder aches where she scratched me. I can still smell her on the sheets.
Everything I feared has happened. She knows the truth. She can’t forgive me. She’s gone.
This is what monsters deserve.
I lie back on the bed that still smells like her and sex and grief. Close my eyes.
Don’t sleep.
Can’t.
Because every time I do, I see her face. The way she looked at me with love and fury and devastation all at once.
The way she cried while I was inside her.
The way she said “maybe forever” like she wished it were different but knew it wasn’t.
I did this.
I broke her trust. Kept the truth from her. Let her fall in love with me without knowing what I was.
And now I’ve lost her.
The only good thing in my entire existence. Gone.
Because I’m exactly what she called me: a monster.
And monsters don’t get happy endings.
They get exactly this, hotel rooms that smell like the person they love walking away. Forever.
I press my face into the pillow that smells like her hair and finally let myself break.
Silent. Alone.
The way I deserve.