I knew where it began, what made it thrive, and why it had decided to focus so squarely on me.
I owned my part of it, my share of the blame, but that didn't make it easy, or even okay. It was simply a fact of life that I'd had to accept along with many others.
While I bided my time.
But the smile she gave me then, that one particularly, one almost as gentle as it was condemning, Jesus, I knew in an instant that it meant something had changed.
And I was terrified.
"I'll answer that," she said in a voice so throaty and resonant it could choke your soul. "I will. But not yet. First, I have a question of my own."
I was shaking my head before she'd even finished.
No. No. No.
There was something too meaningful in her eyes as they raked over my face, like a switch had been flipped, one that should not, could not, be turned on.
But she knew me too well, knew how to weaken me, what strategy to use to gut me the fastest.
Her mouth was my undoing, her lips my own personal heaven and hell. They were a weapon she used seldom but unrepentantly, and they were all the more potent for it.
I was a slave to those lips, a willing lamb to slaughter, and when she pressed them to mine, I was already past the point of all resistance.
I forgot my question, forgot hers, forgot everything but the simple joy of reveling in her—my weakness and my strength, my purpose and my distraction, my redemption and my undoing.
I couldn't even believe I was here with her, that she hadn't had me kicked out the second she found my drunken ass in her trailer. Instead she was straddling me naked, leaning over me as she kissed and kissed me, unbuttoning my shirt, pushing it aside to rub her naked breasts against my bare chest how she knew I loved.
She completely ignored the chain around my neck and the small objects that hung from it.
I was only relieved by that. She usually took exception to it.
But I would never take it off.
I returned her kiss with fierce abandon, not even trying to hold back.
When she spoke, it took a while for me to register her words, even as sharp as they were.
"What have you done to us, Dante?" she breathed into my mouth. "What have you done?"
I froze.
No. No. No. This could not happen.
Could not.
I was tense, ready for the next blow, the next unanswerable question, but it didn't come.
As though she thought she'd said enough, she didn't ask it.
Instead she kissed me again, her hands as busy as her tongue. She kneaded at my abs, working her wicked hands lower, undoing my slacks, freeing me.
She kept moving, poising herself over me, rubbing her wet sex against my cock in a way that she knew made me lose half my brain cells.
At least half.
She gave my lip one last drugging bite and pulled back to glance down at our bodies.
My head fell back, and I couldn't keep in an involuntary shudder.
I was half convinced she was just teasing me, that she'd leave me like this, high and dry (she'd done it before), but that was not what she did.
With excruciating slowness and utmost care, she impaled herself on me.
We didn't speak for a time, well, nothing coherent was said, at least, just a lot of calling out names and speaking to God.
And begging. There was definitely some begging going on.
I'll let you guess which one of us that was.
I lay back on my elbows, fists clenched, and watched through heavy lids as she rode me, languidly and thoroughly, all the while wondering if this was just some wonderful, torturous dream.
I didn't touch her, didn't trust myself to put my hands on her and not just come instantly. I didn't want this to be quick.
I wanted it to last. It was a fact that there was nothing else I'd rather be doing, for as long as I could possibly get away with doing it.
My head fell back again, eyes closing as pleasure washed over me in acutely heavy waves. I was so close, but trying my damnedest not to embarrass myself.
I wasn't succeeding, about a thrust away from losing the battle, when her voice broke through to me.
"What have you done, Dante?" Her voice was as silky as it was deadly. "What lies have you told? Where do they even begin?"
Every muscle in my body tensed.
She leaned forward and kissed me. Her mouth and her movements had almost made me forget her questions, or at least had me back to ignoring them, when she spoke again. "What have you been keeping from me?" came out between kisses.
I froze and almost pushed her off me, almost fled. But there was no running from this, or her. Not anymore.
Also, she started moving again, in earnest now, working herself on my length with quick, jerky motions that were guaranteed to get me off and fast.
I groaned out a protest. She was distracting me from her words on purpose, using a very sound method to switch my attention, and at first, I fought it.
But not for long. Not for more than a few seconds, if I were honest.
She knew what she was doing.
I jackknifed up, bear-hugging her to me as I started to come, pistoning my hips against her, face buried in her neck, as I let myself go.
I was still jerking inside of her, mid ejaculation, when she whispered against my ear, her voice filled with gentle malice, "What secrets are you holding trapped in that manipulative brain of yours?"
It was a sobering enough question that it probably should have stopped me in my tracks, if it were possible.