Page 114 of Paper Hearts

He nods, brushing my wet hair from my face and searching my eyes. “I don’t have a condom.”

“I’m on the pill.”

He doesn’t move. He stares at me. He drops his forehead to mine as I lift up. “Okay.”

Reaching between us, he pulls himself from his boxer briefs and holds his cock steady as I slide down on him. I waste no time, and neither does he. When he’s all the way inside me, he exhales and circles both arms around my waist. I stretch around him and it’s clear I haven’t had sex in a long time. It’s not painful, but it’s not exactly pleasurable yet.

I hear his feet shift on the rocky ground beneath us, but all I can focus on his face. His lashes flutter closed. “Jesus Christ…” One hand moves to the back of my head, and he presses his mouth to mine. He kisses me desperately, damn near furiously, fulling my mouth with the taste of his regret for leaving. He’s doing exactly what I asked him to do. “You’re so tight.”

I snort, my breath shuddering. “It’s been six fucking years, dude.”

Smiling, he drags his kiss along my neck, but he doesn’t ease up. He pushes up with his hips, meeting mine, possessiveness soaring through him with his tight hold on me.

He fucks me in anger, his fingers digging into my waist so hard I think he’s going to leave bruises or crush my ribs. There’s absolutely no gentleness in any movement he has. Hatred, yeah, and sadness. There are no words either. His mouth frantically moves from my ear to my neck and down to my collarbone, then returns urgently to my lips again as if he needs me to breathe. I can’t get close enough though there’s not an inch of space between us.

It feels a lot like it did the night I dry humped him in the barn, but so much of it is different. We’re actually having sex this time, and he’s no longer a boy. He’s all man, and Jesus Christ, I want to know the man version of Ender James. He’s a solid wall of muscles, but the anger is still buried deep. It’s in his movements. The ones that border precariously on the edge of control and untamed.

He’s grunting every time I rise up, and then back down on him. His grip on my thighs is so tight I can barely move. I didn’t know it could be like this, so intense. Animalistic. Hell, he even has his hand around my throat at one point, squeezing with enough pressure he gets my attention.

“Is this what you want?” he growls, breathing heavily but unable to meet my eyes. He keeps looking away from me, like he doesn’t want me to see whatever his eyes hold.

Securing his face in my hands, I continue to ride him, our eyes locked on one another. “Fuck me harder. Stop holding back,” I rasp, my words constricted by his hold. “I want your pain. I want our pain.”

He shakes his head frantically. “I don’t want to hurt you.” His hand falls from my throat and he groans into my neck.

“You won’t.”

“I might,” he growls, his words laced with anger I haven’t heard before. He turns his head, breaking eye contact.

My heart is hammering, my chest aching with the force of each thump. Gasping, I try to catch my breath. “You couldn’t.” For every excuse he makes, I give another.

Thunder rolls outside, the wind howling again. Our eyes meet. His bright blue eyes burn through me as they slowly scan my face. His entire demeanor changes in a blink of an eye and all the stories make sense finally. He’s… on the verge of hyperventilating I think.

“If you know what’s good for you, you’d leave him alone.”

“Angry. Destructive. I only ever saw him smiling around you.”

“He was fucking his demons out with any girl who would spread her legs for him.”

I push until he breaks.

I want this side because I’ve never seen it. No, fuck wanting. Ineedthis side. He’s never let me. Not in all its glory. If I’m going to forgive him, we have to get to this point. I need to see this. I need to experience what he keeps hidden from me.

Without looking at me, he grabs a hold of me tighter and stands while he’s still inside me, like it’s no effort for him to go from seated to standing while holding me. And then he drops to his knees and lays me on the hay bale, his suit jacket underneath me. His hands move to my thighs, and he curls his arms around them and drives into me harder. He pulls out with a groan and then slams inside me again.

“You have no understanding of what he’s really like. It’s a front he gives you.”

His shield of armor lowers, and I see the man he is now. Bitter. Angry. Regretful, and fucking me into forgiveness. He drives into me, over and over again, and I take it.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he says in a pained whisper, still refusing to meet my eyes, but the scowl on his face is set in a hard grimace. His voice is gritty and emotionless. There’s so much hate inside him, it’s bleeding out of him. His movements scoot me further up the hay bale but before I can get away, he rises further on his knees and loops his arm around my thigh and yanks me hard into him.

His hands are strong, body like steel as he fucks me, and I think whatever this is he’s keeping inside him, burying deep down, I might now want it. Can I handle it?

I squeeze my eyes shut because the pain in his is unbearable as he kneads his fingers into my thighs, my muscles protesting against his hold. Fire spreads through my body, tingles engulfing my entire body from my head to my toes. “Let go of your pain,” I beg, not sure if my words are loud enough for him to hear, but he squeezes me tighter to his body,

“I don’t want to fucking hurt you,” he snaps, his voice bordering on a growl, but it’s his reaction that resonates with me. He can’t catch his breath. As he heaves out sharp gasps, his entire frame is shaking to the point I don’t know how he’s continuing this. His grip tightens and I wince.

“I need it.”

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