down on a belt in olden days when they are about to lose a limb. Langston is doing the same to me—except instead of losing a limb, I’m losing my soul.
His thumb is merciless as he rubs faster and faster on my clit until water stings my eyes from trying to keep my screams inside. I taste his blood in my mouth, but he doesn’t surrender. It seems he’s happy to pay the price in blood to make me pay in sin.
I crumple as his fingers thrust in and out, crushing all my walls I’ve built to keep him out.
His hand slides down my back before he dips me sideways in our row of seats until I’m lying on my back. He settles between my spread legs, his hand still inside me, but our mouths separated. I no longer have his lip to bite down on, nothing to muffle my cries.
He smirks down at me, knowing once again that he’s won.
Why did I need to keep quiet again?
With one hand still inside me, his other hand moves to my stomach, pushing my shirt up before running down my center. Then his fingers dip lower, tracing over my C-section scar.
A scar he has avoided touching or commenting on until now.
My scar.
Atlas.
I prop myself up on my elbows abruptly, pushing through the fog that has surrounded my head since he started touching me.
“Stop.”
He does, but he doesn’t remove his fingers from my slit.
“We can’t.” I shake my head. “I’m already a cheater, a whore, a bitch. And as bad as my body wants me to become a cheater again, we can’t. I won’t hurt Phoenix. I won’t hurt the mother of my child. Before, I thought we were going to die. Now, we have a choice. I won’t make the same mistake again.”
My breathing is erratic, and my hands shake. My entire body is calling me a fool for telling Langston to stop.
“Tell me what you’re hiding, or I keep going,” Langston says with a devilish smirk.
“You wouldn’t.”
“Try me.”
My breath hitches, and my heart rate skyrockets. How do I get out of this with my body and sanity intact?
Tell him the truth—at least what you can of it. Tell him the why.
“You tell me I should trust you. That we are on the same side—both looking for the treasure and a way to protect our kids.”
He nods.
“I trust you,” I say.
His eyes widen at my admission.
“And now I’m asking you to trust me. I can’t tell you any more than I already have. At least not yet. It’s not safe.”
“Not safe for who?”
“For you! Our kids need a father alive.”
He pauses, and I’m not sure what he’s going to do—keep torturing me to tell him the truth or let this go.
Slowly, he slides his fingers out of me. He pushes my panties back in place and even zips up my jeans and fastens the button.
Then he lifts his fingers to his lips and sucks my juices off them. I’m so close to coming that I’m afraid just watching this enchanting man suck his fingers is going to make me come, so I look away.
“They also need their mother to stay alive,” he says as he holds out his hand to me.
I take it, and he helps me sit back up.
“They already have a mother,” I say, my eyes locking on the back of Phoenix’s head. She’s still looking straight ahead, and I have no idea if she knows what happened between us.
He stands up and looks at me sadly. “Maybe they need two.”
8
Langston
Trust her.
That’s what Liesel wants—trust.
I sink back into my chair next to Phoenix. She doesn’t even glance up from her phone. She can pretend she doesn’t know what I went back to Liesel for all she wants, but pretending we are one big happy family isn’t going to make our children’s lives any better. We have to face the truth.
Liesel said she trusts me. I assume that must be true since she didn’t immediately demand her child be removed from my custody. To some extent, she must also trust Phoenix.
But do I trust her?
I want to. I want to trust her desperately. I want to trust that everything I thought I knew about Liesel isn’t true—that she didn’t do the horrible thing I discovered. I want to believe that the reason she’s hiding things from me is truly to protect our kids. I want to trust her.
But I don’t.
She’s broken my trust so many times, as have I.
I don’t know