I look at him like he wants. It’s the only true thing in me.

“Yeah, like that, baby.” He’s moving differently now. There’s something wild about him. He rocks against me, movement less measured, breath ragged. “Just like that.”

He was so in control before, but he might just be the one coming undone now.

He repeats the words a few times, becoming less intelligible each time, as though the words themselves are breaking apart into bits of debris, breaking up and floating away.

That’s the last thought I have before I shatter in an explosion of feeling. In unstoppable waves of bright sensation.

He shoves into me once more with a cry, burying himself as he presses his face to my neck, using it to stifle a soft grunt of ecstasy.

The waves slow. I’m riding them. Loving them.

Did we just come together?

I’m panting. Shocked. I’m soconflicted; I hate him, but the way we just fucked... I need to touch him. I need some human contact.

Tentatively, I set my hands on his shoulders, and right then, I don’t know what anything is. I just know that I can’t float alone in space.

Chapter Twenty-One

LUKA

She starts to get down from the sink.

I clamp a firm hand over her thigh.

“Stay right there,” I growl.

She looks outraged.

I run warm water over a towel and clean her.

She seems surprised, but this is what I’m doing. “You got something to say about this, too?”

She shakes her head.

Gently, I pat her pussy. “You sure? No bullshit about this, too?”

“It’s nice,” she says.

“You tell yourself whatever you want,” I say.

“I’m going to tell myself it’s nice, then.”

I pet her pussy with a dry towel now.

“When I make you come while you hate me,” I say, “it takes a little bit of your soul, doesn’t it?”

She narrows her eyes, processing what I just said. “Literally—you are so deranged.”

“We established that a long time ago. But I think you are a little bit, too.”

She sniffs, chin held high, and grabs the cloth from my hand. She finishes up while I put myself back together, and then she hops down and throws it in the towel basket.

“Ready?”

She hesitates. Something’s on her mind—I can tell from her expression. How is it I’ve come to read her expressions so well?