Chapter 17 — It Wasnt Supposed to Hurt Like This #2
There was no gentleness. None of the reverence from the night before. There was urgency. There was the terror of knowing we were dancing on the edge of an abyss, and the only thing keeping us from falling was the weight of each other.
He lifted me, my legs wrapping around his waist automatically. He carried me to the couch and sat down with me in his lap, never breaking the kiss.
I felt his erection against me, hard and demanding through the fabric of his pants.
“Gabriel…” I gasped as he trailed kisses down to my neck, biting lightly at the sensitive skin, right over the old mark that was starting to fade.
“Does it hurt?” he asked against my skin.
“Yes.”
“Good.” He bit harder. “I want it to hurt. I want you to feel it. I want you to remember I’m here every time you breathe.”
“I can’t forget,” I moaned, throwing my head back. “Even if I wanted to.”
He slipped his hand under the shirt I was wearing, touching my breast, squeezing my nipple hard.
“Do you want to forget?”
“Sometimes.” The truth escaped. “Sometimes I wish I’d never walked into that office.”
He stopped. His hand froze on my body. He lifted his head and looked at me, his black eyes drilling into mine.
“Say that again,” he ordered, his voice dangerously calm.
“I wish I’d never met you,” I whispered, tears stinging my eyes. “Because before I met you, I was alone, but I was whole. Now… now I feel like there’s a piece of me that only exists when you’re touching me. And I hate that. I hate needing this.”
Gabriel’s expression shattered. The arrogance disappeared, replaced by a raw pain that mirrored mine.
“I know,” he said, his voice broken. “I know what it’s like. I feel the same thing. From the moment you challenged me in that room… I’ve had a hole in my chest that only closes when you’re near.”
He pressed his forehead to mine.
“It wasn’t supposed to be like this, Elena. It was supposed to be a contract. It was supposed to be clean.”
“It wasn’t supposed to hurt like this,” I finished.
“But it does.” He squeezed me against him, too hard, too desperate. “It hurts like hell. And it’s going to keep hurting. Because I’m not letting you go.”
“I didn’t ask you to let go.”
He kissed me again, but this time it was different. It was slow. It was heavy. It was a kiss of mourning for the life we could have had if we were normal people, and a kiss of acceptance of the twisted life we had chosen.
He opened his pants with his good hand. He pulled my sweatpants down.
He entered me right there, on the living room couch, with the gray light of day illuminating our faces.
It wasn’t sex. It was an anchor.
He moved slowly, looking into my eyes the whole time, making sure I was present, making sure I felt every inch of him filling every empty space inside me.
“Mine,” he whispered with each thrust. “You’re mine. With your murderous mother, with your idiot brother, with your hatred and your fear. You’re all mine.”
“Yours,” I answered, accepting the sentence. “I’m yours.”
And as we moved together in that slow, agonizing rhythm, I realized the pain didn't come from what he had done. It didn't come from the manipulation or the lies.
The pain came from the absolute certainty that if he sent me away now, I would die.
I had survived poverty. I had survived my family's shame. I had survived the fear of prison.
But I wouldn't survive his absence.
And that terrified me. A fear far greater than any burned file could ever inspire.
When the climax came, it was silent. A wave of heat that dissolved the tension and left us limp, intertwined, breathing the same stale air.
Gabriel didn't pull out of me. He stayed there, holding me, his face buried in my hair.
“I'll protect you,” he murmured, his voice muffled. “From everything. From the world. From your past.”
“And from you?” I asked, stroking the back of his neck. “Who's going to protect me from you?”
He lifted his head. His gaze was sad, serious.
“No one,” he said. “That's the part that hurts.”
He pulled out of me and started adjusting himself. Reality returning with the zip of his fly.
“I have to get back to the office,” he said, his voice returning to its professional tone, but there was a crack in it, a fracture. “I have meetings with Richard's lawyers. The share transfer needs to be finalized today.”
“All right.”
“You'll stay here.” It wasn't an order. It was a plea. “I'll order dinner. We'll eat here.”
“I'll stay.”
He nodded, picked up his briefcase, and walked to the elevator.
Before stepping in, he stopped and looked back. At me, sitting on the couch, disheveled, wearing his shirt, marked by him.
“Elena.”
“Yes?”
“The file…” He hesitated. “I burned the original. But the truth… the truth about your mother… it still exists.”
“I know.”
“I'm going to hire the best lawyers in Europe. We'll review her case. We'll make sure she gets the best possible treatment. That she's safe. And that no one, ever again, can use this against you.”
I felt a lump in my throat.
He wasn't just burning the leverage. He was trying to heal the source of the wound.
“Why would you do that?” I asked.
“Because she's the mother of the woman I…” He stopped. The word stuck in his throat. The forbidden word. The word that would change everything.
He swallowed hard and corrected:
“Because she's the mother of the woman who belongs to me.”
The elevator opened. He stepped in.
“See you tonight,” he said.
The doors closed.
I was alone in the silent penthouse.
The woman I…
He almost said it. He almost admitted it.
I touched my chest, where my heart pounded painfully against my ribs.
It wasn't supposed to hurt like this. Love shouldn't be an open wound.
But as I looked at the elevator door, knowing he would return, knowing I would be waiting, I realized that the pain was the price.
It was the rent for this distorted space we had built.
And I was willing to pay.
I got up from the couch and went to the window. The rain had stopped, but the sky remained gray.
Below me, the city of Ashford kept turning, indifferent to the monsters living at the top of its towers.
I was no longer the invisible translator. I was no longer the victim's sister.
I was the monster's woman.
And for the first time in my life, I knew exactly who I was.