Page 55 of Falling for the Enemy

She felt it too. The volatility. The chemistry. The passion. But for all the pleasure he stirred, she only wanted to cry.

“Wren thinks we should stop lying to each other.”

“Wren should mind her own business.” She planned to have a stern talk with her friend. She was turning into another Hideaway Bay busybody. “This is the only way we communicate.”

“I know,” he laughed. “Which is exactly why we’re in this position.” Releasing his hold on her wrists, he plumped her breast and sucked the tip into a sensitive point, nibbling and flicking his tongue as he drove into her with long, hard thrusts.

The bed creaked. The force of his passion drove the breath from her lungs as her orgasm built once more.

But this wasn’t about connection. This was about his possessive nature. Last night he saw something he didn’t understand, and it scared him. His fear should have left the moment he realized his misunderstanding. But it didn’t. On the contrary, he seemed more possessive than ever, as if he came here to mark his territory.

“I don’t belong to you, Soren. Just because you fuck me⁠—”

He kissed her with bruising force. “Shut up.” He bit her lower lips, driving his cock hard and deep.

“What do you want, Soren?”

“I want you to admit you feel something for me.” He captured her nipple between his lips.

Jocelyn raked her fingers through his hair, holding his mouth to her breast as he pounded into her hard and fast.

The sounds pouring out of him were raw and vulnerable, but she was lost when it came to deciphering them. “Why? What’s the point?”

“It matters. Tell me the truth. What do you feel when we’re together?”

Why was he doing this? They never talked about their feelings. He had to have some sort of angle beyond getting laid. “What do you want?”

“You! I want you. Isn’t that obvious?” The second the words left his mouth, they both stilled. Lips parted, eyes locked, they stared at each other in a painful haze of truth that burned with far too much reality, so she panicked and slapped him across the face.

“Fucking brat,” he said with little anger behind his words, driving into her hard and fast, forcing her to take all of him.

Some part of him needed this. He needed to fuck her like he wanted to break her. Maybe they both did. But it fixed nothing. They were already dysfunctional in so many ways. What would one more broken part mean?

She didn’t have a better solution, so she gave in. Every breathy sigh, every hard thrust, every whispered kiss was a wordless accusation as much as an apology, thick with emotion and heavy with all the things they refused to say out loud.

He didn’t just press his lips to her flesh. He consumed her. Licking, biting, sucking until every inch he claimed bore his mark.

He rocked into her, deep and forceful, only to pull her back when his body drove her further away. The push and pull was a song of desperate need. A tango of want and wisdom. She was the poison but also his favorite drug, and he was torn on whether he wanted to escape with his life or die here in ecstasy.

Stripping off his black T-shirt, he flung it on the floor and wedged his hands behind her knees, further opening her to him, folding her with absolute ownership to do as he pleased. To take everything he needed and leave nothing behind.

But the more he took, the more she gave, and the wanting only grew.

It was bigger than him. Bigger than both of them. Neither of them chose this. It chose them. And, again and again, they were at its mercy, unable to break free.

He didn’t just fuck her. He buried himself in the depths of her soul.

And she took it, because she wanted it. Needed it. Hated herself for allowing it to continue. Knowing full well, every time she let him inside of her home, into her body, she lost another small piece of herself she was never going to get back.

Maybe she was losing self-respect. Maybe it was her heart. She only knew those pieces were forever gone.

He’d never know how much it cost her to give herself over to him this way, again and again. Because one day, he’d give his heart and name to someone else, and she’d have nothing left. Just a gaping hole in his absence where her heart once lived.

She didn’t want him anyway. He was a pain in her ass. A colossal cliché. A quintessential, entitled, trust fund douchebag who⁠—

“Look at me.” His fingers framed her jaw, forcing her to meet his eyes. “You don’t get to hide when I’m inside of you.”

He knew her so well, yet missed the most important parts. He had her body. He had her heart. Did he need her fucking soul, too?