Chapter 164 164

Chapter 164 164
4

WILLOW

My first coherent thought is, God, this feels good.

Who knew it was even possible that a kiss can feel so wholly intense? That it can make you feel powerful? That it can put a broken person back together again?

My second thought is, These aren’t my husband’s lips I’m kissing. There’s a moment of guilt, quickly followed by a wave of anger.

Casey cheated on me by fucking some stranger in our bed… and here I am, feeling guilty for one tiny, meaningless, innocent little kiss.

Except the purist in me is forced to acknowledge that no kiss is innocent.

Especially not this one.

The tingling in my lips has spread to my entire body now. For the first time in years, I feel my pussy throb back to life. I’ve spent so long thinking I was broken inside. Shattered beyond repair.

I’m only just now realizing that my loss of sexual desire the last few years has nothing to do with me—and everything to do with Casey.

The man’s hand curls around my waist. I gasp as he pulls me onto his lap.

He feels different, somehow. So solid and strong.

It’s a strange observation, considering Casey’s a big man in his own right. But some nights while suffering under my husband’s sweaty thrusts and grunts, I get the feeling he’s insubstantial. Like sand in my arms. I try to hold on and he just seems to waste away.

But this man? He feels alive.

I breathe him in. Under the vodka, I smell oak, mint, leather. If confidence had a smell, this would be it.

When I sense his erection between my thighs, I pull back with another small gasp. My eyes find his. In a sudden moment of clarity, I take stock of the position I’ve found myself in.

I’m straddling a stranger. My arms clutch his shoulders for support. His hands grip my waist like he could break me in half if he cared to.

“I… what did you say your name was?” I stammer. I honestly can’t remember.

“Leo.”

“Leo,” I repeat. “God, what am I doing?”

“Letting go.”

His fingertip snakes beneath the untucked hem of my uniform. I hiss at the skin-on-skin contact and recoil. “No, no… We can’t…”

“Why not?”

He doesn’t seem in the least bit put off by my hesitancy. In fact, he looks a little intrigued by it. The type of man who likes a challenge.

“Because… because I’m married, for starters. Just because he cheated doesn’t mean I have the right to.”

“Doesn’t it?” he asks.

His finger strokes over the bare skin of my hip and my eyes flutter with desire. Leo is not making this easy in the slightest. “He’s still my husband.”

“Don’t waste your time being faithful to people who don’t deserve it. You want something, Willow? Fucking take it.”

“What do you know about what I want?”

“I know you want me.”

I frown again, deeper. “You don’t know that. You don’t know me at all.”

His eyes glimmer. “I know everything there is to know about you, Willow Powers.”

I do a double take. There’s a sense of some huge roiling mystery under those words. It frightens me in an exhilarating sort of way. Like swimming in the deep ocean and shivering when you realize just what kinds of monsters are lurking beneath your feet.

“W… what do you mean?”

He ignores the question. “Tell me what you want, Willow.”

For a long time, I just stare at him.

But once the words sink in, so does the power.

It’s the first time in a long time I’ve felt powerful. So I do what Leo told me to do: I take what I want.

I lean in and kiss him. It’s hot and possessive. I feel like I’m melting into him. Like I’m leaving myself behind and letting Leo Solovev consume me in my entirety.

I lift my legs up so he can slide my panties from beneath my skirt. His fingers dance over my thigh and part my thighs. He brushes against my clit with a feather-light touch.

“That’s a good girl,” Leo murmurs. I burn with shame at how hot those four little words make me.

Casey usually prefers to call me his “whore” or his “slut” when we have sex. I’d probably be more offended if it was something I had to endure for more than two or three minutes at a time. But he’s a three-pumps-and-done guy if ever there was one, so it only hurts for a little bit.

Sex with Casey—scratch that, life with Casey—is about him. His greed. His selfishness. His inability to see me as anything other than a conduit for his pleasure.

But the way Leo is touching me right now is the polar fucking opposite.

He thumbs my center and stares into the depths of my soul. When he murmurs, “Do you want to come for me?” I know that that’s exactly what he wants me to do.

More importantly, it’s what I want to do for him.

So I do. I come, hard and guiltlessly.

And when he opens his zipper and his cock springs out, I straddle it, sink onto him, and start to ride. Just as hard. Just as guiltlessly.

Leo is far bigger than Casey, thicker and longer. But it’s not just the size of him. It’s the way he uses it.

He controls from the bottom. Never any doubt that he’s the one calling the shots. He fucks up into me, pinning me in place and leaving me with no choice but to cling to his shoulders and whimper with each savage thrust.

After fifty or a hundred or a million hard poundings—I lose the ability to count pretty early on—he flips me onto my back on the plush sofa. I’m sweating as he lays his body on top of mine.

The first grinding thrust lights up my clit. He licks and bites and kisses his way from my neck to my collarbone. All I can do is hook my heels behind his back and urge him deeper and deeper into me.

He rips my blouse open with one hand before burying his face between my breasts. When he nips my nipple between his teeth, I cry out.

Leo laughs. “Sensitive little kukolka, aren’t you?”

If I could talk, I’d tell him that it’s never been like this before. But since I can’t talk, I just moan and spread wider for him.

He lifts up, clenches my hips, and starts to pull me onto him. He’s as deep as it’s possible to go, and the light pressure of his thumb on my clit is the last thing I need before I blast off again.

My eyes roll back in my head and my entire body dissolves into shivers and goosebumps.

I dig my nails into the backs of his thighs as he drives me to orgasm. He gives a few more brutal thrusts, and then I feel new warmth spread inside me, sticky and familiar.

After he empties himself in me, he sighs. He runs his tongue over my nipples and props himself up on the sofa.

Immediately, he’s calm and collected, like nothing ever happened. It takes me a little more time to get my bearings. When I finally manage to sit up with him, my heart is still racing. My breathing is labored.

As I come down off the high, the shock of what I’ve just done settles over me.

I’ve fucked another man.

Not just another man, but a complete and total stranger.

What was I thinking?

He could be diseased! He could be crazy! He could be married or wanted by the police. He almost certainly is very, very dangerous. One look at his steely eyes is enough to confirm that much.

I’m going to have a panic attack if I keep thinking about it. So as I tug my clothes back into place, I try to just breathe. Stave off the freak-out.

The whole time, Leo is reclined on the sofa, watching me.

“I… I should go,” I tell him. “I’m sorry…”

“Why are you apologizing?”

I glance towards him, cheeks burning. “We shouldn’t have done that.”

“Did you want to?”

I turn to him, taken back by his calm bluntness. “I don’t know.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“I… yes,” I admit. “I did.”

He nods. “Good. Never apologize for what you want. I don’t.”

“You’re a man,” I say automatically. “Men can get away with things women can’t.”

“That sounds like an excuse.”

“It’s how the world works.”

He shakes his head. “The world works however you make it work, Willow. Either you understand that and shape it how you like… or you remain ignorant and let others decide the rules. The choice is always yours.”

“Did you read that on a fortune cookie?” I snap bitterly. As soon as the words leave my mouth, I feel guilty. I didn’t mean to come off like a bitch.

I’m about to apologize, but then I remember what he just said: Never apologize.

It doesn’t really matter anyway. After tonight, I’m never going to see him again. I’m surprised when that realization comes with a zing of disappointment.

Once I’m dressed and looking half-way presentable, I notice that bucket of ice on the table. It’s half-melted.

“I… I haven’t even taken your order,” I say awkwardly.

He smiles and gets to his feet. He’s tall—really fucking tall. I didn’t quite process that while we were… occupied.

“There’s no need,” he tells me. “I got what I wanted out of tonight.”

“Oh. Right.”

Not that I understand at all what he means by that. Again, I feel like I’m floating in the deep ocean. There’s no land in sight and something huge is brushing against my foot. I shiver.

Something else occurs to me. “Leo?”

“Yes?”

“Thank you. For… for what you did. With Casey.”

He nods solemnly. “Don’t thank me just yet.”

Then he leaves. When he walks out of the room, he doesn’t look back.

I sleepwalk through the rest of my shift. When I finally turn in my uniform, it’s with insurmountable relief. Only a few more obstacles between me and blissful unconsciousness.

The first of those obstacles is snoring up a storm on the living room couch when I get home. I sneak past Casey and into the master bathroom.

I splash some cold water on my face and stare at my reflection in the mirror. Can you see what happened on my face? Are there physical signs of infidelity etched into my skin?

It’s odd because I look the same, but inside, I feel wildly different. Like this is the first moment of the rest of my life. Surely I ought to look different in some way, if only to commemorate that. To mark the transition.

But I see nothing. Why do I feel disappointed?

“Willow!”

“Jesus!” I whip around as the bathroom door slams open.

Casey stands at the threshold, glowering at me like some beast right out of a horror movie. His lips are pulled back over his teeth and his eyes are bloodshot. I can smell the alcohol coming off his clothes. The whiskey stain on his shirt confirms it.

He stalks into the bathroom, backing me into a corner. “It’s fuckin’ late.”

“I told you it was—”

He slams his hand against the wall directly beside my head. I cringe and bite my cheek so I don’t cry out.

I’ve heard stories about abused women, and of course I’ve sympathized. How could I not? But it’s always from an outsider’s perspective. Because I could never imagine how any woman would stay with a man who treated her like that.

Until now.

Standing here with my back pressed against the tiled wall and no way out, I realize something: it happens so slowly you barely recognize the warning signs. Like water in a pot getting hotter and hotter until, suddenly, it begins to boil.

You make excuses and justifications. You pretend you’re different from all the women who’ve been broken down and used by bad men.

Then something happens. A slap across the face, the threatening clench of a fist. And all at once, you understand the truth: I’m being abused.

If another woman had told me this happened to her, my advice would have been immediate: run. But when it came to be my turn in the trenches, my objectivity flew out the window.

Along with my common sense.

Along with my bravery.

Along with all those pieces of my heart that I broke up and gave away to make myself fit into the person he wanted me to be.

“Casey,” I beg. “Please…”

He locks me in between his arms. His eyes are dark with drunken anger, but I see desperation, too. Something more is going on here.

“Did you fuck him?!” he seethes.

I try not to let the terror show. “What are you talking about?”

“That big motherfucker in the suit. Did. You. Fuck. Him?”

“No.”

He stares at me. For one horrible moment, I’m certain he can see the lie in my eyes.

Then, out of nowhere, he starts to cry. Big, ugly sobs rip from his chest and he collapses onto me. I’m dragged down onto the cold bathroom floor while Casey clings to me like a huge baby.

“You can’t leave me, Willow, you just can’t. I love you… You promised to forgive me…”

I stare down at the giant man crying in my lap, and I feel…

Nothing.

“Casey…” I can’t bring myself to hold him like he wants. My hands hang limply underneath his elbows.

“I’m in trouble, baby. That’s why I needed you tonight. I’m in so much fucking trouble.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve been accused of e-e-embezzling,” he chokes out. Snot drips from his nose onto my shirt. “The company is suing me. If I’m found g-guilty, I could go to prison for a long fuckin’ time.”

I feel oddly detached from his confession. It might as well be some true crime doc on TV. I wonder if I’ll still feel that way tomorrow.

“I need you, baby. I need your support,” he whimpers. “You’ll be there for me, won’t you? You won’t leave me?”

“I… No,” I say in a robotic voice. “No, I won’t leave you.”

“Thank you,” he blubbers. “Thank you, my God. Thank you.”

But all I can think is, Don’t thank me just yet.

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