Page 19 of Painter's Obsession: Volume II

But I know there will be none of that in his future. By the time I’m done with him, Byron will be nothing but a shell for me to fill.

Then—cold, sharp, inescapable nails claw down my back.

Too real. Too deep. Too much.

My grip falters around him… a crack in my control. A slip I can’t allow.

My body freezes, tension locking my limbs like rusted chains.

I focus on the sensation of her. The presence that shouldn’t be here.

It’s not real.

Not Real.

My grip tightens around him, forcing myself back into the present. Back into this. My nails dig into his skin, hard enough to leave marks, to feel his pulse pound against my fingertips.

A sharp inhale.

A shudder.

He moves.

He strokes into my touch—mindless, instinctual—a twitch of surrender he doesn’t recognize,but I do. Byron doesn’t know, doesn’t realize how that single movement throws me a safety net, so I don’t drown in her. Pressing harder against him, seeking, grounding, controlling, owning, as my cock slides up between his ass.

“Show me how much you like it, Byron.” The words spill from my lips before I can stop them.

Foreign. Unbidden. Not fully mine.

Byron stills.

Refusing. Even now, even like this.

Not without a fight, no doubt. It doesn’t matter how much his body wants it when his heart… his brain… his very essence fights it.

Fights me.

The nails dig in deeper.

A force beneath my skin, inside my bones. A whisper, a laugh, a shadow that doesn’t leave. I rest my head on his shoulder, the wet heat of his skin beneathme, the scent of water and something deeper—something breaking.

“Such a good boy,” I whisper, but it’s not just me. My voice twists, morphs, warps—pulling hers into mine. My nose drags along the length of his neck, slow, deliberate, tasting the sweat, the heat, the battle inside him. I continue to stroke him, matching the thrusts of his body against my hand.

“St-”

A lie.

Another refusal to admit the truth.

I bite him.

Not softly. Not gently.

Teeth sinking deep into the tender spot of his neck while my hand moves more frantically, as if trying to wring something from him, from myself, from whatever the fuck is clawing its way out of me.

“Stop lying.” I groan into his skin before I rip my hand away, and slam him into the tile. The water pours down his face, slipping past parted lips that gasp for something unspoken. The look on his face is feral.Devastating.

Something shattered. Something ruined.

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