“I thought you loved me, Abigail? I thought you loved me even if I betrayed you.”
The worst, most cruel part about this is I still did love him. I wanted to take it away, I wanted to break it, I wanted to forget my love for him ever existed, but I couldn’t. It was throbbing and bruised from what was happening, but it was there.
His eyes were red, and I could almost convince myself that this hurt him as much as it was hurting me, but then he pulled out, flipping me onto my stomach so I couldn’t see his face. He grabbed my hips, pulling me against him, so rock hard.
He yanked my hair, pulling my ear to his lips. “You don’t deserve this cock, Reject.”
He dropped me, and I bounced on the mattress, and he was inside me again. The new position was too much, too deep. Every thrust driving me higher.
“Look at me.”
I shook my head, so he grabbed hair that had taken hours to braid, yanking it and lifting my head. “Look at me, Reject.”
The black window mirrored our image inside the diamond-shaped golden lattice. I saw our relationship, a hundred different reflections of what we’d become, dark and twisted and wrong.
I still saw Theo too clearly in the window. His beautiful, sculpted features next to me, his lips even more plump from kissing me. My hair was nearly all down. Messed. Tangled from him.
He slowed his thrusts, watching my reaction just like before, and it was so much worse. Too deliberate, almost tender, as he fucked me atop my sister’s ball gown. A ball gown I could now see had twisted inexorably with my own. His lips came to my ear, eyes still locked with mine. His words were low and steady, gentle even, as if they weren’t going to rip me apart.
“Truth or promise?”
“I don’t want to play this game with you.” Tears reflected back at me, my makeup entirely ruined.
He slid out, then back in—deeper. I gasped, clawing at the sheets—her ball gown—I realized. Still going the same, deliberate pace, but now deeper, harder. I was on the edge, begging to jump off, but Theo held me back by the collar.
Shivers slid inside my veins and I could barely breathe, let alone speak.
“Truth or promise, Reject, and I’ll let you come.”
“Promise,” I gasped instantly.
He froze, body and eyes rigid, but still dug into my hip with his hand. For a moment, I saw old Theo, sweet Theo. I’d only ever made him one promise, after all.
I promise, Theo. I promise I’ll never let you go.
Then he rammed into me again, this time harder, faster. I was going to come. I could feel it.
“Promise you don’t love me, Abigail,” he commanded, voice dark.
“What?” I gasped.
How could he ask that of me?
Theo continued to slide in and out, and I was reaching that addicting moment where you’d do anything to reach the peak. Selling my soul seemed like a good trade, if only Theo would…just…keep…going.
“Promise,” he gritted.
It wasn’t his command, or even my need, that made me say it. He was nearly out of breath, fingers bruising my thighs, like he was trying to keep himself from coming, but his thumb… his thumb softly traced my hip, back and forth. It was almost like he didn’t know he was doing it. How treacherous that a show of affection would topple me.
“I—”
Just before I was about to speak and damn myself for eternity, Theo spoke over me.
“Promise you’ll never say ‘I love you,’ promise you’ll never make another goddamn promise to anyone again.”
When he slammed the final nail in my coffin, it didn’t matter, I was already over the edge, and the words were already leaving my lips.
We came together. As I exploded back into a thousand pieces that only Theo had been able to put back together, I promised I wouldn’t love him.