The cold tiles sting my feet as I step inside. I flick on the light, and the brightness is cruel. It shows everything—the flush of my skin, my bruised, swollen lips, the faint indentation of his grip on my hips, the way I tremble in the wake of his touch.
I look wrecked, like the pathetic excuse for a woman who let the same man break her twice.
A raw sound claws up my throat, and I slap the light off and step into the shower, turning the water on as hot as it will go.
Steam fills the room quickly, swallowing me whole.
Sliding down the wall, I curl up on the shower floor, arms wrapped tightly around my knees.
The water drums against my shoulders, a relentless rhythm that should be soothing but isn’t.
Not tonight.
My vision blurs again.
“Idiot,” I breathe, forehead pressed to my knees. “You absolute, hopeless moron.”
My tears burn as they finally spill, mixing with the water until I can’t tell the difference. I let myself fall apart in the privacy of the steam, my sobs drowned by the roar of the water.
How could I have lost sight of myself so quickly, so completely?
I can’t believe I let him kiss me, let him fuck me, not after everything that’s happened, not when I know who he truly is inside.
I cry until my throat aches and my eyes are puffy, until my skin is pruned and hot and raw and the humiliation has wrung every last drop of breath from my lungs.
Genevieve. The name won’t stop echoing inside my skull.
Who is she? And why did he say her name like it meant something? Like it carved him open?
I don’t know. And I’m not sure I’m ready to find out. Not after I just handed him my heart on a silver platter—again—and he crushed it beneath his shoe without a second thought.
Eventually, when my muscles are trembling from exhaustion rather than emotion, I shut off the water and wrap myself in a towel. I don’t look in the mirror. I can’t.
When I return to the bedroom, Raf is still sprawled across the bed, naked body so lean and muscular and devastatingly perfect despite the purple bruises spreading across his cheek and ribs that it makes my chest ache.
His brow is faintly furrowed, like he’s dreaming something dark. His chest rises and falls steadily.
He looks peaceful.
My stomach turns.
Grabbing a pair of pajamas from the dresser, I pull them on with shaking fingers, then round the corner of the bed and slip beneath the covers, staying as far from him as possible.
But I can still hear the muffled sound of his breathing, smooth, even, and indifferent. And as I lie awake for hours, mind lost in a tangle of regret and self-loathing, it feels like he’s taunting me with his implacable calm.
The light filtering through the window wakes me early the next morning, and I groan at the headache throbbing between my temples after a night of too much whiskey.
My eyes are gritty, scratchy, swollen. My mouth is parched, my lips chapped.
Every inch of me feels bruised from emotional whiplash.
And a lump forms in my throat as I feel the pulsing ache between my thighs—a reminder of how completely Raf fucked me last night.
I sit up as the sound of the shower turning off alerts me to the fact that he must already be awake, and my heart stutters at the thought of facing him this morning.
I’m not sure I’ll be able to without crying, and the last thing I want to do is look weak in front of the man who knows how to break me so easily.
But before I can make myself scarce, he’s stepping through the archway, a towel slung low around his hips, showing off the deep, enticing V that directs my eyes toward his covered cock.