They’re embracing, and it’s far too intimate to be a hug between friends. I can’t see her face, but the expression on his is one I can relate to. It’s adoration. It’s affection. It’s maybe even love.

Emotion shoots through my body at the sight. Jealousy, astonishment, scorn—the emotions mix into a toxic cocktail of rage. I’ve never been this worked up, this livid. My blood is boiling, my skin itching, and my gut feels like it’s been punched.

But I wear my mask. So David sees none of it when he sees me. Instead he sees cold and steel, which can be very intimidating, I’ve found.

Instantly, he lets Alayna go and backs away. “Hey, Pierce.”

Alayna spins, and her eyes meet mine. Hers are sparked with worry, with fear, and the blood drains from her face. Her concern softens the slightest bit. Not enough, though. I’m still consumed with my fury.

The bitch of the whole thing is that I have no right to feel this way. To feel any of the way I do regarding her. I’ve made my decision. I’ve chosen to walk away and to bury any emotion she may have stirred in me. She’s allowed to embrace any man she wants. She can kiss and fuck anyone she pleases. Because she isn’t mine.

My stomach clenches. All I see is red.

I’m vaguely aware of David speaking and then the sound of the door closing as he leaves. At least he was smart enough to know he should go without being asked. I realize I’m angry with him as well—he’s an employee and he’s making moves on his boss’s girlfriend. My feelings toward him are such a small part of my turmoil though, and I’m glad for his departure. Now I focus on directing the torment brewing inside. If I have to feel this pain, at least I can use it to push her away.

“Hudson.” She says my name, and it sounds like a broken chord—each syllable hanging in the air with distinct weight. She steps toward me. “I read about Plexis. I’m so sor—”

Like I give a fuck about Plexis at the moment.

I cut her off. “What’s going on with you and him?” It’s not my place to ask, but though my voice is controlled and even, I have no authority over my actions. I need her to answer. I need her to alleviate this fear that she feels for anyone the way she feels for me.

It’s insane. It’s irrational. And I can’t stop needing it.

“Nothing.” She sighs. “David was, um…it was a friendly hug, that’s all.”

Her answer only makes the sting worse. “The expression on his face was much more than friendly.” I step toward her, demanding with my body before I’ve even voiced the question I have to have an answer to. “Have you fucked him?”

“No!”

I study her with narrowed eyes. There’s more she isn’t saying—I can read her face, read her posture. There’s something between them. “But almost,” I guess.

“No.” Her tone is adamant, but her eyes shift.

This, her lie, tears me apart more than anything. “Why don’t I believe you?”

“Because you have some serious trust issues. What is your fucking deal, anyway?”

There is a rational voice in my head screaming that this is not how I should behave. That her relationships are private and not my concern. That this is not my place. She. Is. Not. Mine.

I want to listen to it. I want to calm the blistering storm that is traveling through my every nerve. But it’s impossible.

So I give up, letting the tempest swallow me as I step toward her and growl. “I told you before. I don’t share.”

Whatever plans I had for our paths are suddenly null and void. Because though I cannot have her, though I’m supposed to let her go, I’ve just claimed her.

There’s a flash of acceptance in her eyes. It’s brilliant, and I cling to the light of it long after it’s lost to the challenge that follows. “But I have to share you with Celia?”

“Goddammit, Alayna. How many times do I have to say it? There is nothing going on with me and Celia.” I convince myself it’s not a lie because she’s questioning a romantic involvement. In my bones, I’m sure that she senses the truth—that there is some sort of connection between Celia and me. Alayna can read me too well to miss this.

Still, I refuse to shed any light on my secrets.

So she uses the only weapon she can. “And there’s nothing going on with me and David.”

“Really? That’s not how it looked when I walked in here.”

“Just like that’s not how it looked when you left with Celia while I was still naked in your bed?”

Anger surges through me like lightning. How can she not understand? I grab her by her upper arms and pull her into me. “Leaving you that morning was the hardest fucking thing I’ve done in a long time. Don’t treat it lightly.”

Then, because she has to know how I feel and because this is the only way I know to tell her, I crush my mouth to hers. I bite and tear at her lips. I’m brutal and bruising. This, I tell her with my kiss, is how it felt to walk away.

She pulls away. “Hudson, stop.”

But I can’t. I have to get through to her. Or maybe I just need her body to calm the fury inside of me. I don’t know anything anymore except this fervent urgency to have her.

“Stop.” She pushes at my chest.

“No. I have to fuck you. Now.”

“Why? Are you marking your territory?”

Her question startles me. Is that what this is? Is this action merely an extension of my irrational jealousy? It’s not what I wanted this to be.

My pause allows her to wrestle free of my grip. “You don’t own me, Hudson! Stop messing with me like I’m one of your other women. Not with me, remember?”

It’s the truth I try not to face, slapped at me with such force I can’t deny it. “Don’t you think I know that? Every minute of every day, I remind myself that I can’t conquer you. That I can’t do that to you. But it doesn’t mean that I don’t want to.”

The words rush out of me so quickly, I can’t digest them until they hang in the air around us. In them is clarity. I have wanted to conquer her. As much as I’ve refuted Celia’s plans and defended my actions as benevolent toward Alayna, there has always been a part of me that wanted to own her. To master her. To win her. Was this the real reason I agreed to the game? Because I can’t help myself from playing?

The possibility pains Alayna as much as it does me. Tears spill down her cheeks. “So I am just like the others.”

“No. You’re not.” I wanted to manipulate her—it’s a desire that will never go away. But it was faint with Alayna. It lingered in the background behind so many other more prominent desires. “I told you before,” I tell her. “I don’t want to hurt you more than I need to win you.”

She’s sobbing as she says, “You’ve already done both.”

Horror washes over me like an icy shower. “Fuck!” This was not what I wanted. It was everything I’d tried to prevent. And even though I knew—I knew—that I had hurt her, the reminder of it, paired with the reminder that she’s declared her love, overpowers me. The reality of her emotions bring all of mine to the surface. I’ve fucked everything up. There is no possibility of either of us walking away from this relationship like it was a bump in a road. There is no good decision to be made. I’ve made our story so that it can only end in pain.

I step backward, away from her, as if I can distance myself from the hell I’ve put us in.

But she follows, charging into my arms and kissing me with the same determination that I’d earlier thrust upon her.

I can’t resist. And there’s no point, really. We’re both damned no matter what.

“Alayna.” I take what she’s giving me, take it greedily. My hand kneads her breast as I lick into her mouth. My other arm pulls her closer. She says my name. She tells me she needs me. I don’t need to hear the words. I feel it in her kiss, in her body as she yields to me.

I’m quick to remove her panties and lay her on the couch. My gaze never leaves her as I undress. She’s gorgeous like this—all spread out for me, her cunt glistening with her arousal. And even beyond the erotic visual, there’s beauty in the significance of her capitulation. Even in her pain, she looks to me for comfort. Just as I look to her.

I can’t delay our connection any longer. I lower myself on top of her and drive in. I’m relentless with my speed, with my force. I’m focused only on release, mine and hers, my thumb rubbing against her clit as I pound into her. Our sex is primal and raw. It’s a mirror of our circumstances—we shouldn’t want each other, but the pull that draws us together is stronger and baser than anything we can control or contradict. I have no words for this connection, and so I shower her with the only sound that makes any sense—her name, spilling from my lips, repeatedly, reverently. Then it’s the word that announces my release as I come inside her in a savage explosion. She echoes my climax with her own, crying out while she clenches around me.

I collapse onto her, burying my head into her neck. My cock twitches inside her as it calms. She’s warm and safe, and as our breathing settles, I relax into her. This is the first time in my life that I can remember being completely at ease. Despite the lack of resolution in our predicament, I’m free in her arms.

In the sanctuary of this moment, disclosure comes naturally. “I wanted to win you. But I didn’t want to hurt you.” I tighten my grasp around her. “That’s the last thing I wanted.”

With this simple admission, my load lightens. There’s so much that I still carry in guilt. I can almost imagine what it would feel like to relieve my entire load, brick by brick, confession by confession.

Alayna runs her hand through my hair, her fingers sending sparks of electricity through my scalp. “That’s part of relationships, H. People get hurt.” She kisses my head. “But you can make it better, too.”

Though her relationships may have been atypical, Alayna has much more experience at this than I do. I realize that many of the questions I have can be answered by her.

I’m not used to asking for help, but I lift my head to meet her eyes and plead, “Tell me how.”

She cradles my face in her hands, her thumbs skimming across my skin. “Let me in.”

“Don’t you see I already have?” I’ve let her in further than anyone’s ever been. She’s broken walls that I didn’t even know were standing. She doesn’t even realize.

Or it’s just not enough.

She closes her eyes and swallows. When she opens them again, a tear runs down her cheek. She moves out from underneath me, pulling her panties on as she stands up.

There’s my answer, then. It’s not enough. But this is all I can give—for her protection as well as for mine. And I’m still stuck between a rock and a hard place. Where does this leave me with Celia? Where does this leave me with Alayna?

I sigh as I tuck myself back in and zip up my pants. I’m back where I was to begin with, where the best decision is to end this.

And I can’t.

So I fight for her instead. Even though I don’t know how. Even though it’s the worst possible thing I can do.

I stand and cross to her. I wrap my arms around her from behind and can feel her pulling against her desire to lean into me. She stays put though, and I speak gently in her ear. “Why do you act like I’m running?”

“Because you shut me out. Isn’t that the same as running?”

It’s exactly the same. I’m hit with the sudden recollection of Alayna in our bedroom at the Hamptons. I’d been asleep, and she’d been out swimming. When she returned, she’d been upset. “What about you? What about how you showed up in our bedroom crying and couldn’t even tell me why?”

She tenses in my arms. “That was different.”

What could be different? I wrack my brain trying to come up with a scenario that had hurt her. Then with sickening certainty, I know—my mother.

I turn Alayna toward me. “What did she say to you, Alayna?”

She wars with herself for only a moment before answering. “That I was insignificant. She called me a whore.”

Fuck. My anger is reignited, directed at my mother now. Time and time again, I’ve come to Sophia’s rescue. Now I can’t think of a single reason why. “My mother’s heartless and cruel.” For so long I would have added like me to that phrase. In this moment, I don’t feel anything like her.

I lift Alayna’s chin up to meet my gaze. “You’re not a whore, Alayna. Not even close. And the magnitude of your importance in my life can’t be put into words.” It’s the nearest I can come to a declaration of emotion.

As if she can read my subtext, she adds, “She also said that you can’t ever love me.”