Page 57 of The Love Penalty

“You know what I think? I think he gets drunk on purpose so you take care of him. Because he’s too scared to tell you how he feels and so he hides behind pretenses to be near you.”

Elias doesn’t say anything else, so I stand up. “You should take him to the spare bedroom and stay with him so he doesn’t throw up all over my bed, yeah?”

“Yeah, okay,” he says quietly, looking at Ash and brushing his fingers across his forehead.

Oliviaand I don’t get much time together the next morning before I need to drive her to the airport. We knew the trip was going to be short, we just didn’t anticipate how little time we’d actually get to ourselves.

“What is it about us and airports?” Olivia says with a small smile as she looks up from where she’s snuggled against my chest.

“We’ve perfected the act of PDA. Everybody gets to see us say goodbye to one another,” I say, running my thumb across her bottom lip.

“I’m sorry we didn’t get more time.”

“Don’t apologize. I had a lot of fun in the moments we did spend together,” I say, lowering my head to whisper in her ear. “Especially this morning, against the bathroom wall, when you came so hard you almost woke up Eli and Ash.”

“Shh, stop!” She halfheartedly swats my bicep, and I kiss her right below her left ear, the spot that makes her shiver.

“I love you and I’m going to call you every day for the next month. You’re gonna be so sick of me.”

“Never,” she says with a smile before kissing me and heading for airport security.

When I get to the car I see a text from her.

Love you too, Bobbert.

A MONTH APART

Robbie

I don’t think I can take this anymore. Can I just jump on a plane and come see you?

Olivia

I wish. I’ll be traveling all next week for games :(

What are you wearing right now?

Um, leggings and a sweatshirt?

Sexy. Tell me more ;)

We’ve been over this, Bobbert. Sexting is cringey, we can just video call later :*

What happened to my fun girlfriend?

She’s been apart from her boyfriend too long and now she’s a bitter shell of who she used to be:((

THIRTY-TWO

Olivia

February

A monthapart from Robbie is pure torture. Especially since every time I hear his voice on the phone, it makes me want to cry. I want to hug him at the end of a long day, I want to kiss him senseless when I have one too many drinks and run my fingers through his soft hair. I want to dig my fingers into his back as he fucks me against the wall.

I haven’t stopped thinking about that since I left Grand Marquee. I have dreams about it, remembering how I woke up and told him I was going to shower and pack. Robbie stayed in bed for another minute, then joined me in the bathroom, fully naked andveryeager for me. The water was running but I hadn’t entered the shower yet and before I could ask him to join me, Robbie pushed me against the wall and kissed me like he never had before. There was a sort of wild desire running through him and I was the only one he wanted, right then and there.

He lifted me up, his whole body pressing into mine. My legs wrapped around his waist and he found my clit with one handand rubbed small circles until I couldn’t take it anymore and started shaking around him, my teeth sinking into his shoulder. Then he got inside me in one thrust and fucked me senseless until all I could see was stars. I started screaming his name and he had to silence me with his hand over my mouth, so our friends couldn’t hear us. When his thrusts got choppier and his breathing against my mouth got harder, I wrapped one hand around his throat and squeezed lightly. I’ll never forget the noises he made as he came.Pure fucking bliss.

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