“Cal, wait. Wait,” I pant out but he doesn’t. His hand slips between my thighs and he’s in me again.
“We’re not finished yet,” he says his into my ear as he starts again and, thank God, he’s holding me up because I’m exhausted. It hasn’t been long but I feel exhausted. Yet my body still manages to come alive, waking up for him all over again. His mouth is on my neck sucking hard, so hard I know it’s going to leave marks and his fingers trace their favorite spot as he pushes into me. His fingers cause the most perfect pleasure I have felt in such a long time.
“Tell me to stop,” he says. One of his hands squeezes my thigh as he goes faster and faster. I can’t even speak, just an indistinguishable moan. I want him to stop but never stop, pleasure and pain crashing against one another inside of me.
“I dare you,” he taunts me. Everything is spinning around me. I’m on a rollercoaster right at the edge of the highest peak
“You and I are much more alike than you think,” he says. He’s so deep but each thrust feels deeper than the last one. “You’re like Chris on your weakest day, me on your best.” He’s rubbing me faster and faster and I feel it coming again, tears coming just as I’m about to.
“Where’s your fire, Lauren?” he says as I throw my head back and I come down in waves.
“He put it out. Don’t worry, I’ll start it again.” I hear him but his words seem far away. I’m far away, like I’m floating. I just want to sleep but I still feel him. I feel helpless, high. As he finishes, his arms wrap around me pulling me back as close to him as possible. I feel like I’ve been both punished and rewarded. I glance back at him, my eyes barely able to stay open. His expression tells me that it was both. I can’t even speak. All I want now is just sleep.
chapter 3
Lauren
Unraveling. If I had to describe a state that I’m in that would be it. I’m coming apart. He made me come apart again and again until I fell into pieces. Pieces he broke me into and threw into the deep-end of what’s now my life, and I’m drowning.
How did I get here? How did I end up in the most complicated relationship I could have ever imagined in my life? Thinking back to all of those days when I wondered where he was, who he was with, if he was cheating. Was he was involved in some type of organized crime? I even entertained the idea that maybe he was doing covert missions for the CIA. I was so far off but, as crazy as all those explanations were, any of those things would have been easier to handle.
Now he’s right here next to me and it gives me comfort but it also makes my heart skip a beat. This should be a turning point, but in what direction? I don’t know. Where is Chris? I don’t even know if Cal is the one next to me at this point. The last time him and I had sex, he switched just like that. My life is as easy to flip as a light switch.
When I first saw Cal, I couldn’t help but wonder if Chris really was who I slept with or if it was some strange mind game Cal was playing. Would Chris sleep with me? If he’s still with Jenna, I can’t see him doing that. I don’t think that’s who he is. But who is Cal? Who is Chris? They’re one in the same but so different. Chris is lost but I don’t think that Cal is. Of the two, he knows exactly what’s going on. He always has and it’s time for answers. If he thought that little display yesterday would shut me up, he has another thing coming. He’s been gone for two years. I felt his loss each day that he was gone and I need answers, not just for me but for Caylen and for his family.
Last night, it was like he was making up for lost time—two years of lost time, of us not being together, him not having my body—and yesterday, it felt like he claimed me. He owned me. He had to prove that I was his, to prove that he knew me better and in ways that Chris doesn’t. The thing is, after all the time I’ve known him and the little time I’ve known Chris, I know more about Chris than Cal, and that knowledge alone makes me want to throw up. I’m still hurt that he didn’t tell me the truth and disgusted we’ve fallen right back into our routine—the temporary fix of sex—and I can’t let this happen again. He said I lost my fire with Chris, the spark in me gone. Well if he means me being a screaming lunatic, no I wasn’t that way with Chris. It was nice, even if it made me feel as if I were walking on egg shells most of the time. I felt like I had to be careful with Chris. He was vulnerable, almost breakable, but what would happen once Chris is broken? Would a broken Chris be Cal? Did I break Chris?
“You have an hour to get dressed or I’m leaving you,” he says, his voice and tone distinctive and very different from the voice I’ve been hearing for the past few weeks. One that was almost forgotten but is etching itself in my memory again, vibrating through me.