She laughs, drops her head in her hand. She turns back to me. “Don’t know if you got the memo, Trey, but we don’t have to use those anymore.”

I take a sharp breath, the reminder I don’t need or want right now. “Right,” I say, managing a laugh as I press my thumbs against her ass, spreading her cheeks, lifting her up a bit for the perfect angle. I sink into her, and close my eyes.

The feel of her heat is almost too much, but I know how to control myself, because I’ve had sex without condoms before. Some of my ladies liked it that way. Mrs. Fitzpatrick had her tubes tied, and Sloan was on the pill. I was sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, and when the thirty-year-old hottie told me it was fine to fuck her without a rubber, I didn’t question the wisdom of an older woman. I slid home. So this isn’t my first time riding bareback, but it’s one of my first few times like this with Harley, and she’s so tight and hot against me that I have to still myself so I don’t come too soon. I don’t want to come yet. I don’t want to come for hours. I want to fuck her for as long as I can, for as long as it takes to numb me again.

So I do, taking slow, deep strokes. In. Out. Hot. Wet. Deep. I close my eyes, let my instincts take over, fucking her against the counter like I did the others. Bent over their bathroom sinks. Up against their walls. In elevators. On the counter while no one was home. Them telling me how good it felt, how much they loved it, how I took care of them like no one else did.

They took care of me, too. They turned my mind blank, and they coated my neurons in pleasure and ecstasy. And I’m going back there now.

“You look so fucking hot in this position,” I tell her, because they all did, and that’s what they all wanted to hear.

She moans, and pushes back, letting me fill her.

“You like that?”

“Yes,” she says, and I can hear the desire thick and hot in her voice. But she’s not Harley anymore to me. She’s anyone.

“Do I make you feel good?” I ask, falling into my old persona, the things I said and did, even though they were the ones who talked more. They were the ones who said you make me feel so good.

“You always do,” she says.

“Rock back into me. You’ll come easily like this.”

“It feels so good,” she says, all breathless and needy.

“Because you love this position,” I say.

She flinches, but I keep going, the words spilling out of me of their own accord. “It makes you come so fucking hard.”

She says nothing.

“I want you to shout so loud it drowns out everything.” I hardly know what I’m saying, but the words are flying from my mouth like I have no control over them.

Then she stops moving.

“Everything,” I repeat, losing myself in the rush, in the feelings, in the ecstasy of fucking her.

Her shoulders tense, but I can feel the blood racing faster in my body, tearing through my veins, the sparks building, and I start to pump harder, faster, and I can feel it building, and it’s going to wash away the pain, the fear, the worry, the five stages, the way I’ll never hurt again. It’s going to do the job, and if it doesn’t we’ll do it again and again and again, and then once more.

“Fuck,” I shout, as I drive deeper into her, coming inside her. Then I slump against her back, resting my cheek against her shoulder, savoring the way I’m buzzed, and no longer worrying about anything.

But she wriggles away from me. She turns around and stares sharply at me. A noise catches in her throat, but then she buries the tears, and her brown eyes are blazing mad. She grabs her underwear, yanks them up, adjusts her skirt, and pushes me away.

Hard.

“Don’t fuck me like that. Don’t ever fuck me like that again.”

I stumble against the wall, my underwear and jeans at my feet. “What are you talking about?” I ask, playing dumb, or maybe I’m not playing because I feel pretty stupid right now.

She points a finger at me. “You know what I’m talking about, Trey Westin. I’m not one of them. I’m me. I’m the woman you’re supposed to love. Don’t ever fuck me like that again.”

Then she grabs her purse and marches to the door.

“Wait!” I call to her, grasping for my briefs and tugging them up. “Don’t go.”

She breathes in through her nostrils. Breathes out, hard. “I’m going, and it would be really great if you don’t come after me. If you don’t show up at fucking midnight acting all sorry. And if you don’t call Kristen and convince her to let you in.”

My heart plummets. Shit. “Harley, I’m sorry.”

“I’m so impressed you remembered my name,” she spits back.

“You’ve gotta let me apologize.”

“I am letting you. That doesn’t mean I want to see you again tonight. You can say you’re sorry six ways to Sunday, but that doesn’t change what you just did to me.”

“You act like I raped you.”

She rolls her eyes. “Get over yourself. I never said that. You fucked me and pretended I was one of your women. You love this position. We’ve never done it in that position, you fucking ass. Did you think I would forget? You come hard like this? What the fuck is wrong with you? You pretended I was someone else. You used me like a drug. Just because you have more experience having sex than me doesn’t mean you can pull the wool over my eyes.” She taps the side of her head, her eyes dark and filled with fire. “You might be the only guy I’ve ever slept with, but I’m not stupid. Don’t forget—I’m an addict too, so you can’t fool me.”

Deny. That is all I know. It is all I can rely on. It is my only recourse. I have a fucking master’s degree in it. It’s been a daily practice of mine. “I didn’t, Harley, I swear. Jesus, I just wanted to do it against the counter. You act like it’s such a big deal.”

She parks her hands on her hips. “It is a big deal. Us. This. You and me. It’s the biggest deal. Sex between us is a big deal and if you can’t handle that, then sorry, Trey. But it’s a big deal for a million fucking reasons, not the least of which is this,” she says, pressing her hands to her belly. “Everything matters.”

“You are seriously overreacting and you need to calm down. Is this preg—”

She holds up her hand. Her palm could stop a truck right now. “No. Just don’t, Trey. Just don’t.”

She turns around, grabs the door handle and pulls it open. She looks back at me one more time. “I need a break. I don’t want you to show up tonight saying you’re sorry. Or tomorrow. Or Sunday.”

This is the real bullet, and it shoots straight through my chest. “Are you breaking up with me?” I ask, my voice wobbly.

“I’m saying we need a break right now. Goodbye.”

Then she leaves. She doesn’t slam the door. She closes it quietly, and walks away, leaving me alone with all my terrible loneliness.

And I don’t feel an ounce less pain. I feel everything, all the weight of my stupid decisions, and it hurts so much, because my trick didn’t work. I didn’t fool myself. I didn’t fool anyone. She is gone, and the memories and the images play on a reel in my head. Each one. Each brother. Each death.

It’s on a punishing loop that I deserve.

Chapter Eleven

Trey

Michele would kill me if she knew what I’d done. Okay, maybe not kill me. More like wallop me verbally. So I don’t call her the next day. I don’t crawl on my hands and knees begging for her to solve this problem the day after, either. I made the mess. I fucked things up. I need to fix my shit.

I give Harley the space she needs, though it takes all my resistance to do what she asked. I become a zombie, clunking to my history class, to No Regrets, to the gym, to hang with Jordan. But the whole time there’s this persistent ache in my chest, a hollowness that longs to be filled with her. That can only be filled with her.

At work one night, a punkish-looking girl comes in to plan out a tat she wants on her shoulder, and I’m shot back in time to the night I first inked Harley, to all the things we shared in the coffee shop, on the train, at my place. Then when I redid her ink and made it ours.