Page 99 of Torment Me Knot
The grief rises with the pleasure. I don't fight either one, because this is me now.
“Ezra.” My voice breaks. “I can't hold on.”
“Then don't.” He speeds up, his other hand cupping the back of my neck, holding me steady. “Let go. I'm right here.”
His purr rumbles through both of us. His want is thick in the air. He’s hard beneath me, and he hasn't asked for a single thing. He's just giving. All of it. Everything I asked for and nothing I didn't.
The orgasm gathers at the base of my spine, then crests.
“Come for me, Aubrey. Let go.”
The release rips through me, my body clenching and shuddering as I spill over his fist. I cry out against his shoulder, my whole body shaking with it. Pleasure and grief and relief, tangled together and wholly mine.
Ezra works me through it. Slower. Gentler. His hand doesn't stop until I'm gasping and oversensitive and boneless in his lap.
The tears come again. Different this time. I can't name them exactly. Closer to gratitude than grief. Closer to hope than either. He quickly cleans his hand on some tissues stored next to the couch, and then gently cleans me before gathering me against his chest. He strokes my hair, his purr settling around me like something I can rest inside.
“Let it out,” he says quietly. “I'm not going anywhere.”
Believing him breaks me open all the way.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Sera
The light through the curtains has shifted from pale gray to full gold.
Mid-morning. I’ve stared at the ceiling long enough to watch the shadows crawl across the walls of the guest bedroom.
Guestbedroom. I’m not calling it mine.
I won’t be here long enough for that. My duffel is still zipped in the corner like proof.
I retreated up here straight from the study.Retreated. That’s a nice way to say ‘running away,’ I guess. The memory of Lex’s mouth warm on mine, his grip mapped along my ribcage my ribcage is raw enough he might have permanently branded me. I closed the door, laid out on the bed and listed out all the reasons the right call was to walk away.
Lex had looked at me in the study like I was someone he'd been waiting for. Like the answer to a question he'd been carrying around for years, which is insane, and I know it's insane, and I also can't stop replaying the way he'd saidyoulike it was the whole argument settled.
Why do you stay in prison when the door is so wide open?
I'd fisted his shirt over that. Walked him back a step. And then I'd kissed him, because apparently I had no impulse control.
I told him whatever this was between us was for Espie and Aubrey, about keeping the window open for them while things were fragile. All true. Not the whole truth. I know how this goes. I know what I am. A curiosity. A rare card someone collects to prove they handled one, interesting for a few weeks until the novelty wears off.
I ran upstairs and locked my door because I'm a coward.
They've knocked twice. Kev first, three measured raps, his oakwood and whiskey drifting under the door before he even spoke.Sera. Come out when you're ready.Then Ezra, his scent sitting in the gap for a few seconds before his footsteps moved away. I haven't answered either of them.
My phone buzzes on the nightstand. I pick it up expecting Levi.
It's not Levi.
EZRA
It's Aubrey. I know you're in there hiding from us.
Whatever you think you're protecting us from, you're wrong.
Put your big girl panties on and come out.
