His fingers find my clit again, and impossibly, unbelievably, I feel another orgasm building. My body shouldn't be capable of this, but it is.
"You can. And you will." He's relentless, merciless. "Come again. Show me how much you hate me right now."
The second orgasm rips through me even harder than the first, if that's even possible. I'm sobbing into the mattress, completely overwhelmed by sensation, unable to form coherent thoughts.
He follows seconds later with a broken groan, burying himself as deep as he can go.
We collapse together, both breathing like we've run a marathon. For a long moment, neither of us can move. We're just lying there in a tangle of sweaty limbs, trying to remember how to function like normal human beings.
Then he pulls out carefully, and I whimper at the loss. I feel him leave the bed, hear water running in the bathroom. He comes back with a warm cloth, cleans me gently and thoroughly. The tenderness is jarring after the roughness, the care he takes making my chest ache.
He climbs back into bed but doesn't pull me close. Just lies beside me, both of us staring at the ceiling in the dim light.
The silence stretches between us, heavy with everything we can't say.
I turn onto my side after a few minutes and study his profile in the darkness. His jaw is tight, his expression unreadable.
We're a mess,I think.We fight constantly about everything, and then we do this, and I don't know what we are or what we're doing.
We can't keep doing this. Fighting and fucking and pretending that's sustainable. That this is what a relationship looks like.
But I know we're going to anyway. Because neither of us knows how to stop. Neither of us knows how to be anything else with each other.
I should probably leave, put some distance between us. Create some breathing space to think and figure out what we're doing.
But I'm exhausted, and my body feels like water, and I don't have the energy to move.
So I just lie there beside him, not touching, not talking. Both of us stuck in this impossible situation that we've created.
We're not lovers. Lovers talk, share, build something together.
We're not strangers. Strangers don't know each other's bodies like this.
We're something in between. Something undefined, maddening, and probably unsustainable.
And I have no idea how to fix it.
Or if it can even be fixed.
21
AXEL
"Boss, we've got a problem."
Viktor's standing in my office doorway at six in the morning, and I know from his expression this isn't good.
I set down my coffee. "What kind of problem?"
"The warehouse on Pier 9. It's on fire."
I'm on my feet before he finishes the sentence. "How bad?"
"Bad enough. Fire department's there now, but the structure's compromised. We're looking at a total loss."
"Casualties?"
"Two guards injured. Nothing life threatening, but they're at the hospital." He follows me as I grab my jacket and keys. "Boss, this wasn't an accident. They found accelerant. Multiple ignition points. This was coordinated."