Page 75 of All That Glitters
“Ha! I’ve always been in your good graces, Helen. Admit it, you have enjoyed every moment of this.”
“I…”
I had her. “You’ve enjoyed every touch, every orgasm, every second some part of me has been on or in some part of you.”
“That’s not fair,” she said softly.
“You knew that when you agreed. It was meant to benefit me and in no way would that ever be fair to you. I’ve tried to make it feel good, but it was a means to an end. I thought you understood that.”
Saying those things to her, watching her face change from surprised to hurt to sad to the flashes of anger made me want to call some of it back, to say something, anything to see a smile that I didn’t deserve. But the words would stay in the space between us.
Which made the next ones both easer and harder to say.
“You should go.”
“You’re such a dick, Ashton.”
“You’ll get no argument from me on that.”
“You asked what I was doing before I answered your text.”
“You said you were working, but I don’t care anymore.”
Lies. So many damn lies.
“Too bad. You’ve won. It didn’t even take ten days for you to win.”
“What do you mean?”
“Hale. You’ve… Driven a wedge between us, or… I don’t know. We’re not the same. I’ve had to lie to him. He’s suspicious and I don’t think he trusts med. And why should he?”
The coldness in her eyes, the humorless laugh, the way she curled in on herself…
“Leave.”
“No.”
“Helen.”
“Ashton.”
“Go.”
“No.”
“Go the fuck home.” In response, she settled deeper into the corner of the couch and took her hair down, toed off her shoes. She seemed ready to stay right where she was. Her stubbornness both pissed me off and made me incessantly proud.
I should be happy that Hale was hurting, he was losing his grip on the one thing he’d always been able to count on. But all I felt was anger. Always the fucking anger.
“Nope. I think I’ll stay for a bit longer. You asked me to come over and I drove all the way here, so…”
“It wasn’t a long haul. I shouldn’t have texted. It won’t happen again. I need you to go.”
She stretched her legs out, arched her back, turned her head from side to side, lifted her arms over her head and let out the most sensual moan I’d ever heard from someone I wasn’t buried inside of.
Damn woman.
“I don’t want you here.”
