I buried my face between her legs, hands stroking her thighs, pushing them wide. They were slick with moisture, hers, mine, and I shuddered in pleasure at the knowledge.
I lifted her h*ps up, dragging a pillow underneath so they tilted up and forward. I dragged every rivulet of my seed back up into her sex. I wanted her to take every bit of it inside and keep it there. I didn’t let myself examine just what that meant, but on even the most primitive level, I could see that I was marking her as mine.
I bent to her clit, sucking at it while my busy fingers shoved deep inside of her. I worked on her, doing all of the things I knew she enjoyed, and though there was some reaction, I couldn’t get her far enough gone to lose herself.
Desperate now, and hard again from my efforts, I dragged another pillow underneath her, gripped her h*ps in my hands, and rammed my c**k forcefully into her. I drove into her repeatedly, strong, measured thrusts, as she silently gasped, my finger relentless on her clit.
I pushed down on her hips, arching her back, so that every pull in or out was grinding against the rawest part of her. I would not, could not stop until I’d gotten what I needed from her.
Finally, mercifully, she came, sobbing with her forced release. Shoving home roughly, I emptied myself deep in her womb, thinking that she would be very sore after this. I hadn’t been gentle.
Desperation and tenderness did not go hand in hand.
I made her kiss me, invading her mouth softly, content to be gentle now that I’d gotten at least that bit of relief from her. For her.
She opened for me, every part of her available and soft for me. Except her heart, I thought. That she had closed to me, if it had ever been open.
Eventually I worked up the nerve to pull back and look at her. Her eyes were wide and clear on me, which was a marked improvement.
“Are you still mad at me?” I asked her, my voice hoarse and raw even to my own ears.
She shook her head, her tongue running over her top lip.
I growled and kissed her again, sucking her tongue into my mouth until I drew a stubborn groan from her.
I lifted off to look back into her face again. Her eyes were still open and cloudless, though enigmatic as ever.
“Do you forgive me?” I asked, wondering what all I needed forgiving for. I couldn’t have said if those last two rough times taking her had added to my crimes.
“I forgive you, Dair,” she said solemnly, not so much as blinking.
I let that wash over me, as it was everything I needed to hear.
Of course, she was a liar, and that one was a very small lie, so it must have been effortless for her.
I let myself fall asleep, still on her, and in her, exhausted from the restless night, and everything that came after.
I should not have been so shocked to wake up and find her gone. Not just her. All trace of her. Even her toothbrush was absent.
I knew, just knew right away that it was more than her usual vanishing. She would not be reappearing somewhere, as though nothing had changed.
I was so certain, in fact, that I went immediately to her slum apartment, seeking out any trace of her, intent on making her face me before she walked out of my life.
I was horrified to find that all trace of her had been erased even from that awful room she was renting, which was easy to deduce, as I found the place unlocked, keys on the kitchen counter, as though she’d left them there for her landlord, whom I promptly tracked down.
He was a grumpy white man in his sixties, missing a leg and sporting a bad attitude. He was forthcoming, but unhelpful, as all he could tell me was that she’d moved out mere hours before, with no notice and no forwarding address.
I was at a loss, and I wasn’t handling it well.
I found myself pounding on the front of the neighboring frat house until some hungover kid answered, shirtless and looking confused.
He gave me one brief glance before saying, “Hey, dude, we don’t want to buy anything.” He tried to shut the door.
I moved my foot inside to stop it. “Wait,” I said loudly.
He just raised a brow and opened the door wide again. “Whassup?”
“I’m looking for a girl. She was living in the crappy duplex next door. Her name was Iris.”
His expression perked up at that. “That smokin hot blonde?” He whistled. “She is highly bangable, dude.”
I closed my eyes and counted to ten. “Yes, that one. Have you seen her?”
He shrugged. “Saw her coming home yesterday, looking f**khot, but she was in too much of a hurry to talk. You should have seen what she was wearing, though, bro. Fuuuck.”
I turned around and left, because if I didn’t, I was almost positive I was going to deck some stupid frat boy.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
I didn’t give up there.
I kept searching, not sleeping, barely eating, too consumed with finding her again.
I did this for days, to no avail.
Inside of every man lived an ass**le, and that ass**le had a strong dose of ‘I don’t give a damn.’ I honestly believed that. I’d written several male characters based on those simple principles. I’d thought it was fairly irrefutable.
Even when I’d caught my wife of twenty years with another man in my own home, my outrage had been followed pretty damn quickly by, ‘Well, f**k her, I’m better off.’
While the ass**le inside of me was obviously alive and healthy, all of his doses of I don’t give a damn had clearly worn off.
I didn’t care for that.
I wanted my emotional numbness back. Badly.
Instead, in its place, I felt. I missed. I craved. I yearned.
But it didn’t matter what I felt, or how I suffered.
She was gone, and she’d left behind nothing to indicate that she ever intended to come back.
As though I’d dreamed her up, Iris had vanished from my life.