in the bathroom, keeping one arm around her waist to hold her up as I reach to turn the shower on. She’s shaking so I turn the heat up high.
“Would you rather I leave?”
She doesn’t answer me, just stares at the falling water, a sadness in her eyes that steals every drop of air from my lungs.
“Then I’ll stay,” I say softly.
I strip off my clothes, then unzip her dress. I run one hand down each arm as I kiss a line from her ear to her shoulder on one side. She tilts her head the tiniest amount, granting me easier access, and my entire body relaxes with that one small gesture from her.
“You’re beautiful,” I murmur, keeping my lips on her neck, kissing gently as I unhook her bra and let it fall away. Her panties are still somewhere in the hallway, thrown aside in a moment of whatever this is.
“Fucking about.”
My own words ring in my ears. Idiot.
I step forward, bringing her with me under the hot spray, and reach for a bottle of shower gel. She’s quiet as I wash her, but flinches when my hands graze her lower back. I lean around to look. There’s an angry red line and quickly forming bruise at the base of her spine.
I curse quietly. “Why didn’t you tell me to stop?”
She says nothing.
I drop to my knees and close my eyes, the water running over my face as I move behind her and kiss the tender skin. It’s hot beneath my lips and she sucks in a breath as I dust my fingertips over it lightly.
“If I wanted you to stop, I would have told you to,” she whispers, barely audible above the water.
I stand, wrapping her in my arms from behind. “I’m sorry I hurt you. I’d never do that on purpose. You know that, right?” I dip my head and kiss her shoulder, tightening my arms around her.
She shakes her head, her voice small. “It doesn’t hurt. And neither will landing in London tomorrow when this ends. Don’t make it more than it is, Logan.”
I stiffen. Her voice is faltering. She’s lying. To me. To herself. I’ve known her long enough to realize I can’t push her. She’ll only fight me.
I don’t want our last night here to be spent fighting.
So I say nothing.
I continue washing her and then wash myself as she stays silent. Then I dry us both off and pull her into bed with me, wrapping her in my arms and breathing in her scent.
I’ve got one more night with Maddox Harper in my arms.
Then it’s over.
Soft lips against my neck wake me. It’s dark, only a hint of light from the moon shining in through the open drapes at the balcony doors. I left them open, so the warm night breeze could flow into the room.
“Mads?”
“Shh.” Something—a finger?—presses against my mouth and is then quickly replaced with lips as she kisses me.
“Couldn’t sleep?” I murmur as her kisses travel from my mouth, along my jaw to my ear.
“I just…” Her breath fans over me as she lays her chest over mine.
“Just what, Smiles?”
She laughs softly. “You call me Mads because I look mad to see you all the time. But then you call me Smiles, too. Bit of a contradiction.”
She kisses me again and I breathe her in, reaching up to thread my fingers into her hair to keep her close.
“One’s a challenge, the other a reward.”
“I see.”
My eyes adjust enough to the dark to see her small smile.
I kiss the turned-up corner of her mouth, tasting sweet victory as she parts her lips and welcomes my tongue with hers.
“You rarely give me your smiles,” I say as I suck on her bottom lip.
“You’ve rarely deserved them,” she hums as she kisses me back slowly.
“That’s past tense.”
She grows quiet, before whispering, “It is.”
“Does that mean I get more of them in the future?” I cup the back of her neck, stroking over her fluttering pulse with my thumb.
She dusts her lips side to side over mine, her palms resting on my chest. “We have no future beyond tomorrow, Logan. We both know that. This was never about the future. This was some weird product of years of past emotions finally erupting.”
I ignore the tightness in my chest and pull her to me, kissing her again. “You needed to fuck the hate from your system.”
“I… maybe.”
“Did it work?” I hold my breath.
She kisses me again without answering, and I stroke down her back, kissing her back slowly, matching my movements with hers. She stiffens as my hand grazes the base of her spine.
“You are hurt, Mads. Let me see.” I pull up to a sitting position and reach for the bedside lamp, but she takes my hand, and places it over her naked breast, holding it in place with her own hand.
“I told you. It doesn’t hurt.”
“I don’t believe you.”
She lifts herself into my lap so she’s straddling me. Then she takes my other hand and holds it against her other breast. Her nipples harden as I stroke my thumbs over them slowly.
“What are you doing?” I ask as she circles her hips, grinding gently onto me.
Her fingers find my lips again to stop me speaking, and I kiss the tips of them as she reaches between us with her other hand and strokes my hardening cock.
“Fucking about one more time before we forget any of this ever happened,” she murmurs.
“That’s what you want? To forget?” I stroke her nipples, and she moans. Then she wraps her hand around the base of my cock.
“That’s all we both ever wanted.” She slides down onto me with a gentle sigh. Then arches her breasts into my palms as she starts to ride me.
I groan as I’m buried deep inside her.
“Mads?”
“Logan,” she breathes.
I push forward, wrapping my arms around her back and holding her flush against my chest as I thrust up from beneath her in leisurely strokes.
“You don’t know what I want.”
She shakes her head, her breath coming in soft pants as I kiss her, gripping her like it’s the last time I will ever hold her like this. Because it is.
“I know that you don’t want to be with a woman who hates you.”
She gasps quietly as I pull her down onto me again, fucking her slow and deep, my heart a steady constant in my heavy chest.
“You don’t hate me.” I kiss her neck, and she drops her head back, her throat constricting beneath my lips as she swallows.
“I do.” She whimpers as I ease back, then immediately pull her straight back down onto me. I curse softly as she stretches around me, taking every inch.
“We’re way past hate now, Mads.” I tilt my chin up, holding her eyes as she gazes back at me. “If this is hate, then I never need to fall in love.”
She cups my face in her hands. Her eyes shine in the dark as she searches mine like she’s trying to find answers.
Then she kisses me again.
She doesn’t stop kissing me until I come inside her, setting off her own orgasm. She holds my gaze and whispers my name between kisses. She kisses me through all of it, through everything, until I’m hard inside her once more and we start all over again.
We spend our last night together, hating each other over and over. And every time I kiss her, I swear I taste salt on my lips.
She’s wrong.
This is going to hurt like fuck.
It already does.
