Total pages in book: 92
Estimated words: 84939 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 425(@200wpm)___ 340(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84939 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 425(@200wpm)___ 340(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
“Mac,” I whispered in despair as I choked back a sob. I’d always believed Mac was in heaven watching over me. That thought had brought me comfort in the past but now it served only to horrify me. Even if I could get past the feeling that I’d cheated on the man who’d essentially been my husband, how was I supposed to explain away the fact that I’d let a complete stranger jerk me off?
And in my nine-year-old son’s bedroom, no less.
“Hey—” Matias began, but that was all I let him get out.
“Leave,” I demanded, though I couldn’t bring myself to look at him. I sank to my ass and drew my knees up to my chest. “I’m sorry, my love,” I murmured as I brought up a picture of Mac in my head. God, it was so hard to remember him these days. I looked at his picture every night—the one I kept in the drawer of my nightstand—but outside that one image of him, I couldn’t really “see” him any other way. I’d get fleeting reminders of things like his laugh or his touch, but I struggled to get his face just right.
Forgetting his face was one thing, but betraying what he’d meant to me… comparing him to someone who couldn’t hold a candle to him?
Unacceptable.
I kept repeating the apology over and over even as my ears picked up the faint sound of footsteps leaving the room.
I wasn’t sure how long I sat there like that for, but by the time the tears dried up and I felt numb and empty, I barely had the strength to stand. I dragged my body to my bathroom and turned the shower on as hot as I could bear it, then proceeded to scrub at every inch of my skin in the hopes I could wash Matias’s touch away.
It didn’t work. Even as my own fingers skimmed my skin, I imagined they were his. He hadn’t even touched any skin besides my dick and yet I could still feel his touch everywhere.
His touch.
Not Mac’s.
I gave up my efforts to forget the incendiary encounter with the man who was no better than a stranger and sank to my ass. I buried my face against my knees and stayed there like that long after the water started to turn cold. I had no idea how much time passed before I managed to reach up and turn off the water before climbing to my feet. My body felt wrung out but the numbness in my mind quickly began to wear off.
My moves were robotic as I dried myself off and went to my bedroom to search out a clean pair of jeans and a t-shirt. My body felt too heavy for my limbs, so I ended up moving to my bed so I could sit down. I glanced at my nightstand but made no effort to reach for the knob on the drawer. Although I often reached for Mac’s picture when I needed someone to talk to, for the first time in pretty much ever, the last thing I wanted was to see his face.
“I’m sorry,” I murmured. Saying it once wasn’t enough. Twice wasn’t, either. I ended up losing count of how many times I repeated the words. It didn’t really matter though because I knew there was no magic number that could undo what I’d done. Such a thing might have been possible if Matias had somehow forced or coerced me, but there’d been no mistaking the way things had played out.
I’d been the one who’d refused to let go. I’d been the one who’d turned my head and kissed him. I’d whispered those endless pleas for him to give me what I’d wanted.
Which he had.
A tremor racked my body as I thought about how hard I’d come. I wanted to believe it had just been because I’d been abstinent for so long, but I’d still had the pleasure of my own hand for company in the years since Mac had died. But not once had my own fingers done what Matias’s had.
Mac’s hadn’t either.
I could feel the tears threatening to fall again, so I forced myself to stand on shaky legs. I went to the bathroom to retrieve my phone from the back pocket of my jeans, but in the process of gathering the denim up off the floor, my eyes fell on the spots all around the crotch that were a darker shade of blue.
It was physical proof of the very thing I was trying to forget.
I snatched my phone out of the pocket and crumpled the jeans up into a little ball. I didn’t care how ridiculous or childish I was being when I jammed the jeans into the small wastebasket beneath my sink. I sent my neighbor a quick text to let her know I was on my way back over to her house, then grabbed the bag out of the garbage can and hurried to the front door. Since garbage day had happened the morning after the attack, the garbage can was still sitting on the curb. It would have been easier just to leave the semen-stained jeans in the larger can in the kitchen, but I needed them out of my house.