Please, please, please. She dragged her hands down his arm, pressing his thumb back against her.
The edge of his teeth showed at that, something cruel and fierce, and he took his thumb and drove her toward her peak while he watched her, that torturer’s merciless regard, as if her orgasm was her confession or her punishment.
Kurt, Kurt, Kurt, she tried to cry out his name as the waves hit her, to be saved by him, to be held by him, to find her solace in the wild, rocking pleasure of it. But she couldn’t do that either. She could only come, clutching to his wrist as he made her do so, lost and unable to speak.
He made her come and come and come, as if he wanted to torture her with her own pleasure, and she couldn’t speak to stop him, he wouldn’t let her.
Then he took her, in long, deep relentless thrusts, his hands at last slipping to either side of her head to brace himself while she came apart again at the pleasure of being so used. Oh, God, use me. Please use me. “I love you, I love you, I love you,” she scrambled out as the waves of pleasure mounted again, driving her madder and madder with each slow thrust.
He kissed her this time to shut her up, thrusting his tongue into her as if in his head he was thrusting something else, and brought his thumb back into play, driving her mercilessly with each thrust of his body and the deep, relentless, silencing kisses, until she was caught everywhere in him, unable to think or speak or do anything but yield, shattering for him over and over, until his fingers dug cruelly into her butt with his last thrust as he came, too.
It was a long time before he rolled away. He lay still on his back on the rug for a while, and eventually rolled back on his side to look at her. His hand came up to stroke gently over her mouth, and then he leaned closer to kiss all around the edges of her lips, which still felt crushed.
“I’m sorry,” he said low. “The last time I thought you loved me, you left me in the morning. I didn’t mean to let it out in quite that way.”
She nodded. I’m sorry. “I did love you. Too much. And I just couldn’t—I couldn’t—” Her voice broke, and he took her hand, holding it securely. “I couldn’t love anymore. I just couldn’t. Not then. You know?”
She had tried to tell him this the day before, and yet no matter how many times she said it, it seemed so stupid, so worthless, to say she couldn’t. Couldn’t love him, of all people. Can’t never could, her dad would always say cheerfully when she was a kid balking at some challenge. You always could, if you tried hard enough. Some days it had felt as if she was trying with everything in her. And failing. She had hated those days. She had not wanted to try. She had just wanted to curl up in the snow and die.
“No,” Kurt said. “I don’t know. But I read about it. I can try to understand.”
“You—you’ve never reached the point where you couldn’t love me?” How could that possibly be? The screaming, weeping woman she had turned into, out of all that life and fun and laughter he had married?
“No, Kai. I never have.”
“It just hurt so much, to love,” she whispered. “It was like my heart had been shattered into all these shards of glass and it pierced me every single time it tried to beat. I had to hide.”
He said nothing, lying on his side in the firelight and Christmas lights, stroking her knuckles as he watched her.
“And I was hurting you. I couldn’t keep hurting you that way. I had to get away.”
“Kai. I could take it, you screaming. It was the least I could do.” He shifted back to her until the length of their bodies touched, covering her belly with his hand. “Because I couldn’t do this. I could only watch as it—broke you.” The lights shimmered across the sudden sheen his eyes. “Shit.” His hand left her belly to dash across his eyes suddenly, and then he rolled away to lie on his back, lashes pressed firmly down on his cheeks, as he breathed long careful breaths.
She curled into him, wrapping one arm around him and pressing her cheek into his shoulder. They lay there for a while, in the heat of the fire.
“You remember all those stupid things I used to do, to try to keep it from breaking you?” Kurt asked softly.
She nodded against his shoulder. Just don’t think about it, Kai. Wait until we know for sure. Or, after, Let’s go on a trip, sweetheart. What do you say to the Bahamas? No matter how much she loved him, she had still hated him for those ideas. “I know you meant well,” she murmured. “I know you wanted to help.”
“I suspect you have no idea how much I wanted to help. The same way there are things you felt that I can’t ever really know, I think I have some feelings that you won’t ever be able to understand completely, either.”