38

With his left hand, he tightened his hold on my wrists, and with his right hand, he dove deeper into the front of my panties, his finger sliding between my pussy lips, circling the tip of my clit. My stomach plummeted at the shock of pleasure.

When I opened my eyes, I could see nothing but darkness. Part of me liked this, but the other part of me felt like the person behind me was a version of Lorenzo I'd never seen before.

And it tantalized me.

He removed his tongue from my ear and paused, his breath tickling my cheek. "Do you want my cock, Ophelia?"

"Yes," I panted.

"Tell me you want me."

"I want your cock."

He yanked his right hand out of my panties and slid it up the back of my neck, his fingernails gliding into my hair and pressing my cheek against the wall. My nipples hardened in my bra. "Tell me you want me. And then you'll get my cock."

"I want you so bad, Lorenzo."

He tugged my hair back just enough to cause a ripple of pleasurable pain to travel down my spine. "Beg for me."

"Please, Lorenzo, I want you. All day, every day."

He ripped my panties down the curve of my ass, the cool air rippling goosebumps across my ass cheeks. "Again."

"I want your cock in my pussy. I want you."

The pull of the zipper echoed in the silence of the closet. His voice was a low growl. "Again."

"I want to feel you inside of me, Lorenzo. I want you to fuck me, every single day."

His throbbing cock entered me without effort, his huge bulge making me spread my legs apart as he thrusted himself deep inside my pussy. Unwinding my hands from behind my back, he pressed his palms over the back of my hands and guided them to the wall, holding me in place as he fucked me.

Grunting in my ear, his erection only grew larger, and as his movement sped up, separating my legs further apart, my panties, which still hung around my knees, split at the seams. My breaths spilled from the lacy bra, my nipples slamming against the wall as he pounded into me.

His breath was fast in my ear, his lips pressed against my cheek, tongue sliding in and out of the corner of my mouth. "You're mine, Ophelia. You're all fucking mine. Say it," he growled.

"I'm yours," I cried out. "Take me, Lorenzo. Fuck, I'm all yours."

My words were the push he needed. Lorenzo moaned, his cock throbbing and vibrating as he emptied himself inside me. Panting, his hands released mine, and he slumped his body over me, his chin resting on my shoulder as he caught his breath and his arms wrapped around my waist.

His cock was still inside me as he took another deep breath. "Was that...was that...okay?"

"Fuck, was it," I chuckled. "That was...incredible."

He removed his cock from my pussy, and I twisted around to face him, my back leaning against the wall. His knee slid between my legs, his upper thigh pressing against my pussy, still sensitive from the pressure of his cock.

Cradling my exposed breast, he suckled on my nipple, his hands cupping my ass. My eyes had adjusted to the darkness, and as he looked up at me, his eyes were soft. His lips found their way to mine, his tongue was gentle in my mouth.

He leaned back, and I couldn't tell if the expression on his face was exhaustion, pleasure, or a combination of both. "I love you, Ophelia."

My heart leapt into my throat. It had been years since someone had uttered those words to me, but the way he said it was different. Genuine. He meant it with his whole being, and that fucking terrified me.

Because I felt it too.

I had fallen in love with Lorenzo all over again. Except this wasn't the childhood pursuit of love. This was something deeper. More visceral. Real.

But I couldn't bring myself to say it. So instead, I kissed him, deep and passionate and said the second best thing I could think of. "I want you to fuck me again."

LORENZO

Her response slammed into me in the darkness. The dissonance between what she'd said, compared to what I'd said, vibrated between us, the echo of my words taking on a pulse of its own.

I'd told her I loved her.

That stupid mother fucker Quinton had planted the seed in my head, causing the admission to spill out of me, except that wasn't exactly true. All Quinton had done was pour water on top of fertile soil. The seed of my affection for Ophelia had been growing since the first time we'd run into each other, and that plant was ready to burst from the soil.

It was only a matter of when.

She must have sensed the tension in the silence because she leaned in, wrapping her arms around my neck, her lips meshing against mine in the darkness. I opened my mouth, receptive of her kiss but well aware of her true motive. It wasn't a kiss of someone responding to the mention of love with love—it was the kind of hard passion that followed an intent of distraction.

Distract me with her body so that she could avoid saying she loved me back.

I leaned into it because what else was I supposed to do? My feelings were real, genuine, and a piece of that clung to the intimacy I felt when I was inside her. I hoped that if I made her feel good enough, she might wake up and realize how much I actually meant to her.

Lifting her into the air, I cupped her ass, our mouths still locked as I carried her out of the closet and into our bedroom. I had opened up all this space to her—not just in my house, but also in my heart.

Maybe that was why I'd just fucked her in the closet, more forceful and aggressive then I'd ever been before.

Maybe I just needed to know the truth. Was I just a fuck to her? Someone to manipulate? Or did I mean something?

There was a part of me that had to accept that I might never know the truth.

Deep down, I think I'd always known that this wasn't permanent for her. It was a gut feeling, a stirring in my chest that came about when I silently questioned the way she said things. But I'd written off those suspicions as mere postulates, an expressions of my own insecurity, of my distrust in women.

After a lifetime of being taken advantage of by women, of being wanted for my money, sometimes, it was difficult to tell truth from fiction. Was I searching for red flags, seeing things that weren't there? Or was I removing my rose-colored glasses and acknowledging the truth before me?

I no longer needed to wonder.

Laying her down on the bed, her blonde hair billowing behind her, she looked up at me, a soft smile on her face. I slowly pulled off her ripped panties, and she spread her legs for me, revealing herself in full.

She was still wearing the see-through bra, but both of her breasts had now spilled out of it. I shimmied out of my clothes, wanting nothing more than to feel my body against hers, with nothing between us to stop us from feeling that kind of intimacy.

I forced a smile, hoping she wouldn't see the sadness I was trying to cover up. But all I could hear were Quinton's words:And...I told her that she was safe with you. That no one would suspect her if she was dating you.

That's all this had ever been for Ophelia. That's all I'd ever been. A fortunate opportunity to hide her own crime. And that fucking sucked. I'd fallen for it, just like I'd fallen for every woman who had taken advantage of me before her.

All because I'd thought she was different. Because obviously, if we had a past, if she had loved me when we were younger and before I had money, what difference would it make now? She would be able to see beyond a paycheck.

And while it might not have been money that had motivated Ophelia to stay with me, it had surely been power, security, safety.

That somehow made it feel all the more worse.

Crawling over her on the bed, my body hovering just inches from hers, I stared into her eyes, searching for something, anything. Some semblance that this was real for her. She smiled up at me, her hand caressing my face.

I didn't see an ounce of deception in her eyes. Maybe it was because she was a great actress. Or maybe it was because that's what love did. It made you see only the good to a fault.

"Lorenzo," she whispered, her eyelashes fluttering. "Make love to me."

I wanted to be angry at her for saying that. She couldn't tell me that she loved me, but she could ask me to make love to her. Yet, no anger came because all I felt was an overwhelming desire to be close to her one last time.

I could lie to myself, continue being with her, but it would never be equal, not while these secrets hung in the air between us.

This would have to come to an end. There was no other way around it. And for Cecilia's sake—for co-parenting our daughter together—Ophelia and I would need to learn how to exist side by side with an understanding of where we both stand. Otherwise, resentment would fester, and our relationship would ultimately have a negative effect on Cecilia.

So, I decided then and there that this would be the end. That this would be the last time I would shower Ophelia with the love that had grown inside me.

Cradling her face in mine, our lips inches away from each other and our eyes locked in an intense stand off, I entered her, my cock filling up as deep as I could fit. She moaned against me, her back arching as the pleasure rippled across her face.