Came Back Haunted (Experiment in Terror #10) - Karina Halle Page 0,93

my skin while I wrap my legs around his waist. “I deserve it.”

The anger wants to consume me still. So does the darkness. So does desire. Dex reaches down and unzips his pants and before I can even breathe, he’s pushing my underwear to the side and thrusting up inside me.

I gasp, pain overwhelming me for a moment, my body not quite ready for the size and speed of him. Then I’m holding onto his shoulders as he slowly pulls out and pushes back inside me, tight and hard.

“Fuck,” I cry out softly, feeling like I’m being broken and mended all at once. I want this to reset what happened, I need to let go.

“Never do that to me again, baby,” he says into my neck, thrusting into me hard against the tree. “Never tell me you hate me. That’s not fair.”

“I’m sorry,” I whisper to him, my words trailing off into a cry. “I just…”

I’m so mad.

I’m so lost.

So scared.

And yet with each sharp pump upward from his hips, each scrape of the bark along the back of my head, each time he catches my skin between his teeth, the fear goes to the background.

“Promise me,” he says, giving another punishing thrust, my neck arching from the impact, my mouth falling open as he drags himself over every coiled nerve. “Promise me we don’t fight like that anymore. We don’t get vicious. We don’t purposely hurt each other.”

His words trail off, his grip tightening around me. “Fucking hell, Perry,” he says, breathless. He lifts his head to stare at me, lust and love and sorrow in his eyes, his mouth wet from kissing my neck. “We can’t afford to fight like this.”

“But we can afford to make up like this,” I say as he lets out a rich groan, his hips slamming into me again, knocking the air from my lungs.

“We fight and then we fuck. In that order,” he says, pressing his forehead against mine. “But we don’t fight like we fuck, okay?” He lets out a low curse and then pins me against the tree, his hand against my throat as he pumps inside me. “Not us.” His hand goes off my throat and back to my jaw, holding my face. “Promise me.”

“I promise,” I whisper, before he kisses me viciously, consuming me, and the pressure inside me starts to build. The hurried breath of him at my mouth, the fact that we’re fucking in public, the emotions from the entire evening are swirling around us, it’s all coming together in a hurricane. “I love you.”

“I love you.”

He grunts roughly, and with a few deep, hard shoves, his brings us both over the edge. We come hard, holding on tight, our bodies melding together like liquid metal.

But when he lowers me off the tree with trembling hands, my own legs shaking from holding his waist, I don’t feel any stronger. The connection I have with him that usually feels unbreakable now feels precarious. Like one wrong move and it could all come crashing down.

The sex didn’t help this time. It was only a Band-Aid, a balm on the wound. Something to soothe the fear and the anger and hopelessness inside me, but it did nothing to eradicate it.

“Perry,” Dex says to me, grabbing my hand and pulling me to him. He reaches over and smooths the hair behind my head. “I’m really sorry I didn’t tell you. I’ve been wrestling with it for weeks and I feel…I feel terrible. The worst. Like a fucking jackass. I didn’t mean to hurt you and I know I have and I wish I could take it back.”

I nod. I’m still really hurt, and I still think he made the wrong choice, but I understand where Dex was coming from. “I’m sorry I said those awful things. I didn’t mean them.” I pause, eying his cheek. “And I’m sorry I slapped you.”

He rubs at his face and gives me a quick smile. “I actually deserved that. Better than you getting me in the nose again, anyway.” He cups my face in his hands. “Ready to go back to the party?”

I nod. The party. I forgot all about that.

He kisses me lightly and then grabs my hand, leading me out of the park.

But for all it seems like we’ve made up, I know that something changed tonight. That I showed both him and myself a part of me that I’ve tried to keep hidden. And that maybe I’ve damaged us in ways