I glance toward the floor. “Oh no …”

“Shh, it doesn’t matter.” Lawrence grabs my chin, making me look at him, and quiets me with another kiss that I feel all the way to the tip of my toes. His touch a dark paradise, he palms my tits savagely and surprises me by ripping the front of my dress down to my belly button, baring my breasts to him. Laughing as euphoria runs through my veins, I grab him by the hips, spread my legs wider to make room for him, and pull him closer to me.

Hardness against softness.

Purgatory of my soul. Heaven of my flesh.

“Put your cock in me,” I moan, tilting my head back as Lawrence begins to shower my neck with deep kisses that feel like small heartbeats on my skin, reviving my body with his mouth. Urgently, I take his dick out of his underwear while he pulls the scrap of lace covering my wet pussy to the side and sinks into me in one smooth and deep thrust. I gasp. He groans. And then we get lost in the cursed and prohibited pagan dance of our bodies.

Lawrence closes his eyes and lowers his head against my chest, moving his hips furiously. The harder he thrusts, the easier it is to forget him. The easier it is to pretend that this is what I want.

This is need.

This is cruelty.

This is hunger.

This is total obliteration.

Matching him thrust for thrust, I feel an earthquake of sensation about to shake my body from the inside out. My ears ringing and my core vibrating, I don’t think I can hold on much longer.

“Oh shit, Lawrence … I-I’m … oh fuck,” I groan.

“Touch yourself. Rub your pussy for me,” he whispers, looking down to where we’re joined.

Intoxicated with lust, I lean back on my elbow, offering myself to him as I slip my hand between us. And while I watch the intoxicating visual of his glistening cock pumping in and out of me, I spread my lips open with two of my fingers and begin to rub my clit in circles. I moan as the tempo of my touch grows faster … furious … merciless … making me even wetter than I already am.

“Fuck … Blaire,” he breathes, increasing the speed of his thrusts. His cock becomes a blur as it leaves and enters me over and over and over again, bringing me closer to the skies.

Our bodies soar in ecstasy with the power of our orgasm, climaxing together. We stare at each other, his eyes a bright bonfire as the frenzy of our hearts slows down and our labored breathing goes back to normal. With his hardness still pulsing inside of me, Lawrence brushes the hair stuck to my cheek. “You make hell feel like heaven, Blaire.”

For a brief moment, a veil is removed from Lawrence’s eyes and I’m able to see a sliver of his soul—beautiful yet so full of naked yearning and pain that it takes my breath away. It shakes me to the core.

Before I have a chance to reply, he pulls out and takes a step back, his soul hidden behind a cool and calculating gaze once more.

He extends his hand, offering me help. “Let’s go upstairs and get clean.”

I stand, look down, and notice the sorry state of my dress. “My poor Versace,” I say, meeting his gaze and smiling. “At least it died a good death.”

As I watch him walking next to me, my body trembling from satisfaction and my mind confused by our exchange, I realize that he never answered my question regarding Ronan.

Tonight I let a man fuck my brains out so he could eradicate a different man from my heart. I’ve done it before but, this time, it didn’t work. Ronan was everywhere. In every kiss and every touch. He still is.

Why did Ronan have to come back into my life and screw everything up? He was supposed to be a thing of the past. He wasn’t supposed to make me doubt myself. I thought I had moved on, but seeing him again shattered all my idiotic illusions that I had conquered my feelings for him. If anything, it proved how deep he engraved himself within me.