“Would you like that? My mouth on your beautiful cunt? Licking and sucking until you come, screaming my name?”

Before I can think about the ramifications of what I’m doing I rock back into him and nod my head. I shouldn’t have done that, I think. I shouldn’t be leading him on when this can go nowhere. This man ripped my heart out a few short months ago. He broke me completely, he pissed on everything we had by keeping his dirty little secrets and tore whatever we had left apart by fucking another woman in front of me.

“Do you still love me?”

“I don’t know.”

Lies, lies, lies.

All of it.

If anything, our time apart has made me love him more, but I can’t give myself over to him again. I let him take my heart once, but I won’t let him take what’s left of me.

“Jesus, babe, you’re wound so tight,” he murmurs against my neck and slides his hand inside my skirt. “Fuck me! And so wet, too. I’m gonna take care of this, baby girl, and then you and I are going to talk about this shit between us. Cause I’m not going another day without possessing you completely.”

A quiet moan escapes my mouth as he teasingly strokes his fingers around my clit, careful not to actually touch it. I want to scream my frustration at him to stop playing games and make me come already but I don’t, because the anticipation of being touched is just as good as the sensations produced when his hands actually connect with my flesh.

When they finally do make contact it’s the sweetest kind of torture. It’s been months since I’ve been touched like this, touched by him. His fingers feel like they’re burning me as one slides inside, knuckle deep, while his thumb grazes back and forth across my clit. The pressure of his erection digs into my arse and I rock back into it until Elijah’s hips are moving with mine. His fingers maintain their steady assault as we rock into one another, both chasing the release that the other is so willing to provide.

Elijah shifts his hand so that his palm is cupping my clit and his fingers are now touching the front wall of my vagina. He wiggles them back and forth and I practically come apart in his hands. I can feel my orgasm building, but all my previous experiences with the big ‘O’ have never felt like this. His fingers aren’t gentle as they push back and forth, but I couldn’t care less. I’m not thinking about the room around me or the fact that I shouldn’t be using him like this. In fact, I’m so far gone I’m not thinking anything at all, apart from the fact that I never want this to stop.

I rock my hips back and forth in time with his fingers and hear him groan in my ear, “So fucking sweet, baby. I want you coming all over my hand.” And no less than a second after he says this, I do. I come hard and fast, and it’s more intense than any orgasm I’ve ever felt before. It’s wetter, too. So wet that my knickers and Elijah’s hand are drenched. He doesn’t seem to notice though, because he’s busy losing himself in his own release. His free hand slides up my side and squeezes my breast, as his own orgasm rocks through him.

For a second I just lay back against him, exhaling loudly, breathing the same air as one another and luxuriating in the feel of his arms and the saccharine sent of sex on the air. And then he eases his fingers out of me and I get a sense of just how wet we are.

I am beyond mortified. He just gave me the best orgasm of my life and I returned the favour by peeing on him. The mortification amps up a notch when I turn and see him licking his fingers clean of me.

“I’m so sorry,” I blurt.

“I’m not. That was the hottest fucking thing I’ve ever experienced.”

“I just peed on you.” Elijah guffaws and I glance around, wondering where our roommates got to, though I don’t really blame them for leaving. “Why is that funny? Where did Holly and Jack go?”

He gives me the smug smile, like he’s over the freaking moon hearing me admit I was so distracted with him that I didn’t notice our flatmates leaving. “They left about the time you started moaning. And that wasn’t pee.” He laughs again. “Fuck, baby, that was some of the hottest shit I’ve ever seen. I don’t think I’ve ever been this hot for a woman after watching her come.”

I’m completely confused and I’m probably staring at him like he’s some fetishist freak who enjoys golden showers because he smiles like I’m a goddamn piglet that’s so bloody endearing you can’t help but want to pinch and coo to it. “That was your G spot, Ana. Oh, the things you have to learn about your body. Lucky for you, I’m a very hands-on teacher.”

I haven’t the foggiest idea of how to respond to that, so I push the lever on the side of the couch and the chair comes lurching upright. My heart is racing, and now that the afterglow is wearing off I realise what a colossal mistake I’ve just made. This could obliterate all the progress we’ve made toward being regular flatmates. To my piece of mind. To the fact that we’ve both tried our hardest to be civil and adult about living together and pretending like we’re fine when our hearts are breaking. And, with ten minutes of touching, we’ve managed to destroy any hope we had at a normal friendship.

After the rape I stopped thinking about my wants and desires. I forgot that I was a young woman who needed to be loved, to be touched, just as I had been before. I focused on my family and my friends and began lovingly taping band-aids over their problems because they seemed so much bigger than mine when the reality was that my bandages had come undone, ripping and tearing off my skin, and I hadn’t even noticed.

And now? Now, I noticed. I just had no idea had put them in place again.

I unseat myself from his lap and head for the bathroom.

“Hey, where are you going?”

“I have to take a shower.”

“I thought we were going to talk about this?”

“No. You said we were going to talk, I don’t remember agreeing to anything.”

“Like you didn’t agree to coming just now?”

“Fuck you.”

“What the fuck, Ana? Why are you fighting this so god damned hard?” he shouts and I spin around, stung by the harshness in his voice. “I can see how much you want me. I can feel it. Fuck me! I can’t stand in the same room as you without feeling the longing seeping out of your pores, and you’re still refusing to acknowledge the fact that you’re still in love with me.” The surprise I feel at that last confession must be written all over my face because Elijah comes closer, until he’s staring right down into my eyes and says, “Yeah, you can drop the fucking act, baby girl. I know how you feel about me, the question is, why don’t you?”

“You need to stop pushing this. Stop pushing me!” I shout. “Yes, I still love you, but you tore my heart out, Elijah! You left me broken in a million fucking pieces! You don’t get to be the one to put me back together.”

I storm into the bathroom. Slamming the door behind me, I quickly undress and slip underneath the hot spray. I’m too numb to cry and, despite seeing myself shake like a leaf, I don’t feel a thing, not the sting and burn of the water against my flesh and not the fresh wound gaping in my chest.

I let it go too far. I let him in again, I think, as I lean my head against the tile. My chest hurts, my head hurts. I feel like I’m made up of millions of tiny exposed nerves, all trembling and clamouring at once with the aftershock of being prodded by sharp implements. I feel raw. There’s no other way to describe it. How many times can we do this to each other before we realise we’re completely broken with no chance of ever being put back together?

I don’t know how long I stand there, letting the water soak me to the bone, but sometime before it turns cold I hear the shower door open behind me. I whirl around and find Elijah there in the cubical with me, the spray soaking his clothes.

“Get out!”

“No.”

“Fine then, I’ll get out.”

“No. You won’t,” he says as he pushes me back against the tile. “You’re not making this decision for us.”

“Jesus Christ, Elijah, how many times do I have to push you away before you get a fucking clue? How many more times can you stomach hearing that I don’t want you, that there is no more us?”

“Bullshit! The only reason we aren’t together right now is because you’re too fucking stubborn to admit how you feel, because it might mean being hurt again. Well guess what, baby girl, life is all about hurt. From the day we’re born to the day we die, we fucking hurt and we cry and we pick ourselves up and, if we’re really lucky, we have people to help us pick up the fucking pieces.”

“You think I don’t know this shit? You’re not the only one who knows hurt, Elijah, so quit with your fucking world weary patronising.”

“You know hurt, huh? Then why the hell are you putting us through more of the shit?”

I shove him up against the glass and then clench my hands into fists to keep from scratching and clawing at him until there’s nothing left. “You did this to us! Not me. I’m just trying to deal the best way I can. I’m trying to save myself from you, because if I give you what’s left I’ll have nothing leftover to pick up when you leave again.”

A sob tears free from my throat, and then there’s a whole torrent of tears and my hands are thumping at his chest while he holds me to him. “I hate you!”

“Don’t hate me, Ana,” he coos in my ear, and his voice is so soft and so full of hurt that it only makes me cry harder. “I love you. I’d go to fucking ground for you. I can’t deal with this shit any more. For six months I waited for you in that hellhole and you never once came to visit, and then the day I’m released you show up like some fucking miracle, an angel who wants to give me a home and care for me like a stray puppy. But the funny thing about angels is you can’t touch them, just like I’m not allowed to touch you, though I know you want me too as badly as I do. I need you, Ana. I’m fucking dying without you, baby.”