“You fucked seventeen people for money.”
“Yes,” she confirmed. How many had he fucked? How dare he judge her, especially after he’d just told her to forgive herself for it? “I knew if you met one of my marks, you’d look at me differently. You think I’m a whore.”
He reared back as if she’d called him a whore instead. “You’re not a whore, and trust me, I’m not judging you for sleeping with those people. I can’t understand why you did it, but having sex with them doesn’t make you a whore or a slut or whatever else you think I’m calling you. I’m angry because he’s been inside you.” His voice went low and growly. “I’m fucking jealous.”
She shivered, goose bumps running across her collarbone. Jealous? In a million years, she wouldn’t have guessed his behavior today had anything to do with jealousy. Sure, he was possessive, but at the same time, they were sexually adventurous and had participated in orgies together. Not once had he ever shown one iota of jealousy. Besides, she’d slept with those people before she’d met him. Before this week, she hadn’t had sex since they separated. Unlike him.
She waved a finger in his face. “You have no right to be jealous. You own a sex club. Our marital vows didn’t mean a damn thing to you once I left.”
He snatched her hand and kissed it. “Our marital vows meant everything to me.” He dropped the hand to trace her cheekbone. “I searched for you. I never stopped searching. I couldn’t move on. I didn’t want to move on. The sex club made me forget, kept me busy during the night so I didn’t have to think about you and how much I missed you. A woman who took my money and stomped on my heart. My friends tried to tell me it was all about the money. That you never really loved me. But I never believed it. And as busy as I kept myself, I couldn’t stop thinking about you.” He rested his forehead against hers. “I didn’t break my marital vows. There have been no other women since you.”
She jerked back, searching his eyes for the truth. “How is that possible?”
“I won’t say I haven’t touched another woman. There were a few times I’d help my friends with a scene, hold a woman down, caress her breasts as my friends fucked her, and a few times I’d stay in the room and masturbate as I watched, but since you left, I haven’t had my mouth on another woman. I haven’t had a mouth on me or even a woman’s hand wrapped around my cock.” He captured her face in his hands. “The only times I’ve come were by my own hand, thinking of you.”
A dam of tears burst wide open. Tears of relief. “You stayed faithful even when I hurt you?”
“Why are you crying?” he asked, wiping the tears away with his fingertips.
“I don’t deserve you.” She couldn’t believe he’d been faithful after she’d taken his money and run. “It killed me to think of you with someone else.” She laughed halfheartedly through the tears. “Which I know doesn’t make sense, because I get off on watching you fuck other people.”
He shrugged. “Don’t question your kink. It is what it is. And it happens to match mine.” He stroked his hand up and down her spine. “Do you know how jealous I was at the thought of you with another man or woman? It was unbearable. But once you told me that you hadn’t broken our marriage vows, I knew that you still loved me. And nothing else mattered but breaking you down until you told me the real reason you left.”
But he’d honored her limits and hadn’t asked.
She wanted to tell him. Wanted to tell him so damn badly. She could hardly remember all the reasons to keep it a secret anymore.
Yet something held her back. That one string that tethered her to the past that wouldn’t let her go and sowed the seed of doubt that had been planted by her father years ago.
“Trusting someone is like handing them a bomb. It might not go off right away, but eventually, it’s gonna blow up in your face.”
“I’m afraid,” she admitted.
“You think I’m not?” He had as much to fear as she did. After all, he wasn’t the one who’d walked out on their marriage. “We’ve all got our demons to bear. But you and I are stronger together than we are apart. That has to mean something.”
“It means everything,” she said, disturbed by the pain in his voice. She might not be ready to cut the ties to her past yet, but she could help him cut the ones to his. “Tell me your sins, Sawyer. Let me wash them away and purify your soul like you did for me tonight when you told me to forgive myself.”