Even still, it’s almost too much. I feel like he’s breaking me down, shattering my already jagged edges. “Wait!”
Devan hesitates. “Wait doesn’t mean red.” But he waits all the same.
“I know.” A tear escapes the corner of my eye, and then another. I can’t stop them. I don’t even bother to try. At least he can’t see my face, won’t know…
I really should stop under-estimating this man.
He pulls out of me and flips me onto my back. Devan takes in my tears in and gently reaches out and brushes his thumb over the sensitive skin beneath first one eye and then the other. “Do you want me to stop?”
“No.” I shake my head. I can’t stop the tears, can’t explain to him that this is good and bad and inevitable, all at the same time, all tangled up inside me. “No, I don’t want to stop. Please.”
For a moment, I think he might ignore my words, bundle me up, and do something horrifying like take care of me. I like being held by Devan almost as much as I like fucking Devan. There’s something about being wrapped in his arms that makes me feel like nothing in this world can touch me, that he’ll step between me and whatever tries to hurt me.
I can’t accept that right now.
It will hurt even more than anything he can do to my body, because it’s not real. This is only temporary, which means no matter how kindly or harshly he treats me, it’s all part of one fantasy or another.
I can’t let it be real.
I wrap my hands around his wrists. “Fuck me, Devan. Fuck me hard. Please.”
He studies my face for a long moment, dark gaze touching on my eyes, the tear tracts down my cheeks, my mouth that feels ravished after our earlier kisses. Finally he shakes his head. “No.”
“But—”
“That’s not what you need, Hazel.”
“You don’t get to tell me what I need!”
His lifts his brows, but his face is oh-so-serious. “Don’t I?”
“No.” I start to sit up, but he plants a big hand in the center of my chest and pushes me back down. I glare. “Let me go.”
“Do you want to use red?”
God, I’ve never hated a man the way I do in this moment. Of course I don’t want to use red. We’re so close to the end of this thing, using red now might actually end it, and that’s something I can’t live with. “No.”
He doesn’t mock me for my submission. He just hooks one arm under my thigh and spreads me wide so he can start working his cock into me again. “You don’t need to be fucked, Hazel.”
I’m so furious and hurt and turned on, I can’t keep my mouth shut. “Oh, sure, keep pretending you know what I need.”
“Don’t have to pretend.” He thrusts forward a little more, finally sheathing himself entirely within me. He braces himself on his elbows and holds my gaze. “I know what you need. I’ve always known what you need.”
“And, pray tell, what’s that?”
“Someone to take care of you.” He kisses my neck as he starts moving slowly within me. “Someone to tell when you’ve been a dirty little slut and need the attitude fucked right out of you. Someone to be a safe place for you, a harbor in the storm.” He starts moving slightly faster, pleasure overtaking his words, to the point where I’m certain I don’t hear the next bit correctly.
I couldn’t have possibly. Because I could swear he said… “Someone like me.”
Devan’s dick is too good. It has me hallucinating feelings. Except I know that’s not the truth, it’s never been the truth. I drag my hands down his back to grab his ass, urging him to thrust deeper, harder, even if he never increases the pace. It feels too perfect to be held by him like this, fucked by him like this. Like it’s not fucking at all, but something entirely more emotional.
Even though I know better, I can’t help striking back with the only weapon I have. My words. “You don’t know me, Devan. You never have.”
“Wrong.” He wedges one arm beneath my hips, lifting them into an angle that lets him go deeper yet. “I know you in every stubborn, glorious detail.”
Now it’s my turn to throw his accusation back in his face. “Liar.”
“You were right before.” His voice has gone rough as he fucks me. “Not the little details. Not the bullshit. But I know you, Hazel Gardner, and don’t try to tell me otherwise.” And then his mouth is on mine again. This time, he doesn’t back off. Devan fucks me like he’s mad at me, like if he can just make me come hard enough, he can convey some understanding to me that’s slipping through my fingers.
I want that understanding just as much as I’m scared of it. It doesn’t matter what fantasies we weave here, because they’re fantasies.