She had a hand on each of my elbows, but I couldn’t look at her. She was too earnest. Too honest. And all I wanted to do was rip that black dress in two and shove my dick inside her. I wanted to fuck her mouth so deep she choked. Get my cock so far up her ass I—

  “I think he used a stencil—”

  “To us,” she said. “What’s happening to us?”

  All I had to do was say, “nothing,” but I still couldn’t lie.

  Both hands in my pants pockets, I bent so only she could hear me. “I want to be fucking you right now.”

  “No. No, that’s not true.” Her eyes filled. They sparkled so brightly when she was about to cry. She blinked. One fell.

  Reaching inside my jacket, I snapped my handkerchief open and handed it to her.

  She didn’t take it. It was poison. Electrified. A pat on the shoulder from a clinician. A slap in the face from a stranger. I didn’t have the sense or the will to hold her or whisper reassurances, because the Thing was punching through again, and resisting it took everything I had.

  She brought her right toe behind her left heel, spun on the balls of her feet for a clean about-face, and forward marched out the door.

  I caught the cab door before she closed it and slid in next to her, barking the 87th Street address to the driver.

  “Greyson, listen to me.”

  “Why were you assisting on a surgery you’ve led a hundred times?”

  I looked at her as if she was crazy, but she wasn’t. Not even a little. “Kate was out sick and Eleanor needed me.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “You can ask her.”

  “Are you having an affair?”

  “What? With Eleanor?”

  “With anyone.”

  “No!”

  “So what is it then?”

  I needed to know what she was perceiving without me dropping hints. “What is what?”

  “You’re the same as you were at the fundraiser, but worse. You’re so cold. You won’t touch me. It’s like you’re somewhere else and I can’t take it. I can’t take it.” The last three words rumbled deep in her throat. It was sexy as hell.

  I let my desire for her out of its cage, and it filled me like a balloon. I thrust my body in her direction, leveraging myself on the window behind her.

  “You’re going to take it.” I spit the words like a threat. “You’re going to take more of it than you ever took before.”

  She swallowed. The tears dried up, but not the feelings that caused them. “It’s not that easy.”

  “No, it won’t be. I promise you that.”

  I didn’t touch her on the cab ride home. I liked watching her squirm. I liked seeing her body’s composure fail as I fucked her mind, leaning close to whisper in her ear.

  “Look ahead, and don’t say a word. Keep your knees apart. The blood is rushing to your clit. Filling it. It’s hard. Feel the way your underwear is rubbing against it. When I fuck you, I’m going to be deep enough to push against it.”

  I had a raging hard-on the whole way home. When we were alone in the foyer behind a locked door, she put her jacket on the hook. Her lips were parted and I’d bet my medical license she was wet.

  I let go of everything. My defenses. My armor. My rage. My fear. When I reached for her, I didn’t hold her. I took the edges of the neck of her dress and pulled, tearing it open at the center seam.

  She gasped. “Stop.”

  I had to stop. I felt something then. Relief.

  I could stop.

  She stood with her hands on her breasts, holding the dress up. “What’s happening?”

  “You wanted me to touch you. I’m going to touch you. I’m going to touch every inch of you. Just me, my dick, my mouth, you, your mouth, your ass, your tits. I’m leaving nothing on the table.”

  “There’s no one else?” Her arms relaxed and the dress fell a little.

  “No. Never.”

  “Why do you get like this? Like tonight? Like a few weeks ago?”

  “Because I need this.”

  That wasn’t a lie, but it wasn’t the whole truth. I couldn’t think about the whole truth. Not with her torn dress and her pheromones invading my mind.

  “Take it.”

  She let her dress drop. Black lace bra. Garter. Stockings. A ribbon of underwear. She must have been expecting something tonight.

  Oh, how the Thing screamed incoherently when it saw my intentions. How it quivered in fear and impotence.

  I undid my belt.

  “Nervous?” I asked, taking out my cock.

  “A little.”

  “If you say stop, I stop.”

  She nodded.

  I grabbed her, pressing her body to mine, mouthing her cheek, her lips, her throat, her ear. I nipped her shoulder but didn’t bite. Not yet. The Thing was there in the connection, but it was scared.

  I pushed her to her knees.

  “Open.” I squeezed her cheeks and put my dick in it, pushing deep past her gag reflex. “Come on. Take it.”

  When I pushed again, she opened her throat.

  The Thing wept, but wasn’t scared away. Not yet. Not when I fucked her face or grabbed a fistful of hair to guide her rhythm. Not when I came in her mouth and it dripped from the corner of her lips.

  I helped her stand and kissed her hard, tasting bitter cum on her tongue. “Upstairs.”

  I watched her go, gartered ass waving as she climbed. Alone for a second at the base of the stairs, I put my hand on the bannister to steady myself.

  “You ready?” I whispered. “I’m going to fuck her so hard you disappear forever.”

  For the second time, the ambient hush of its voice made words.

  I’ll never leave her.

  “We’ll see about that.”

  She was sitting on the edge of the bed with her hands folded between her knees. The part of me that I’d let loose, the emotion and uncertainty, wanted to take her right there. But I didn’t. I had another piece, a cold, calculating piece. He was more methodical.

  She watched me undress and put my clothes on the chair.

  I stood in front of her, already erect as a fucking flagpole. “You’re the only one, Greyson.”

  Her brown eyes were sad, open, honest. I couldn’t comfort her. Not now.

  “You’re different sometimes.”

  “I know.”

  I pushed her down and jerked her legs open. I could smell her sweet pussy through the strip of underwear. I ripped them open. She tried to get up on her elbows, but I pushed down on her chest, leaning my weight on her as I put two fingers deep in her cunt.

  “Get your knees up. Show me everything.”

  She did it, and the Thing’s rage and sadness mixed with desire.

  “You’re so fucking wet for it.” I rubbed her until my fingers were lubricated, then I stuck them in her ass.

  The Thing ran from between the place we touched as if it was burned.

  “Oh, God,” she cried.

  We’d had anal sex before. Gentle, slow anal. I couldn’t guarantee this would be either.

  I held her down and twisted my fingers deep inside her. “Beg for it.”

  “Please, Caden. Fuck me. Please.”

  “Where?”

  “My pussy.”

  I flipped her over and yanked her to the edge of the bed until her toes were on the floor. Then I wiped my fingers on the handkerchief she’d refused earlier.

  I couldn’t believe what I was about to do.

  No. I could. The Thing couldn’t.

  She saw me hesitate. “What are you doing?”

  Holding her arms together behind her back, I kicked her legs wide open. “Say stop if you want me to.”

  “I just want to know.”

  I slapped her ass. She yelped.

  I expected the whirlwind with the shredding of another boundary, but it didn’t show.

  Gripping her arms hard, I hit her bottom hard enough to leave a red mark. “Where do you want me to fuck you?”

  “My pussy.”

  Slap. And again, harder. She yelled again, wiggling.

  “Here’s a hint.” Four fingers gathered moisture, circling her cunt. She rotated with me. “It’s not this.”

  Three fingers in her ass. She tightened down.

  The Thing was in deep distress. It felt so good to beat it, but there was no whirlwind. I needed it. I didn’t know what it did or why it was important, but without the second of spinning confusion, the Thing wouldn’t hide completely.

  I took her by the throat. The winds appeared and waited, like gods called by an offering.

  “Beg,” I demanded.

  “Fuck my ass, Caden. Take it.”

  I tightened my grip on her neck. “You want four fingers in your ass?”

  “Please! Please put your cock in my ass.”

  “Good girl.”

  I took her cunt instead.

  She made a sound between a gasp and a grunt.

  Letting her arms go, I pulled the lube from the night table drawer and let it fall from her back to her crack as I fucked her.

  “You want to come?”

  “Yes.”

  “Later.” I pulled out and slid the head of my cock along her ass.

  She was nervous. I didn’t want her to be nervous, but the whirlwind spun into my perception, whispering promises.

  “Breathe.”

  She nodded.

  “Inhale,” I continued.

  She did. I watched the four-inch scar on her chest rise to expand with the air, and on the exhale, I slid inside her, watching her pucker expand into an O around the head. Maneuvering myself deeper, I stretched her into a tight ring around my shaft. Her face contorted in pain.

  I stopped.

  The Thing was still there, confused, using my love as a vulnerability.

  The centrifuge slowed, waiting.

  I pulled out and turned her over, pulling her knees up. She exposed herself willingly, and the love I’d been hiding was nearly crushed by the spinning in my mind.

  She pulled her cheeks apart, mouthing, “Fuck me.”

  That was it. I didn’t need to be told twice, but I needed to take more than was offered. Mercilessly, I took her ass with every inch, burying myself in her.

  She closed her eyes.

  “Beg or say stop,” I said.

  “Please. Take it.”

  I put her hand between her legs. She circled her clit. I slid all the way in, burying myself in her. Wrapping my arm around her, I put my weight on the base of her throat, just above her sternum, until she was immobile.

  I spun, a slave to my sickness, flipping from the man I was to the man I am.

  To ring that throat.

  To hold her high.

  To own her completely.

  I lost it. In a swirl of me, her, my love, my control, and the Thing I couldn’t name, screaming out and away.

  Chapter Eleven

  GREYSON

  I had bruises on my left wrist where he’d held me down. He had been more gentle with the right side, which had never really recovered from the break I got in basic training, but the left took what was left over. I couldn’t let patients see it.

  The first time he fucked me with brutality, we didn’t talk about it. I woke up thinking he’d been half asleep and it wouldn’t occur again. Three weeks after that, he’d done it again, pushing me harder, demanding more, taking me to the edge over and over.

  Last night, two weeks after the last time, he did it again. He’d fucked me in the ass, in the shower afterward, on the floor. He’d been rough, and the rougher he got, the more I came.

  I wanted him to push me hard. I liked it. But this was slipping out of control.

  There’s a name for this.

  It was spring. Long sleeves would be too hot, and the AC in the office was spotty. I rummaged in my drawer and found a loose coil of bracelets. I slid them over my bruised left wrist. That would have to do.

  I checked myself in the mirror. I looked fine. No one could see the bruises or the soreness between my legs. No one could see the aches or the pleasant, peaceful satisfaction. Looking at me, you’d never know I’d had my fourth orgasm of the night with my husband’s massive cock buried in my throat and four of his fingers inside me.

  Masochist.

  The word shot through my mind, and for the first time, I let it. I mouthed it in the mirror.

  Masochist.

  “Where are you off to today?” he asked from the bathroom doorway, arms crossed over his bare chest. His pajama bottoms hung low on his hips, the waistband cutting across the V-shaped indent of his pelvis.

  “Collecting data for the Tina thing.” I leaned over the vanity and put on lipstick.

  “Are you okay? From last night?”

  “Uh-huh. Are you?” I snapped the tube closed.

  “Yeah.” His nod was serious. It was not an enthusiastic agreement as much as a simple affirmative.

  “You seem more animated.”

  His arms unfolded. I’d startled him. “Animated? What’s that mean?”

  I faced him. “The coldness is gone.” I put my hand on his chest and drew it through the patch of hair in the center, down to his abdomen. “Is something going on you want to talk about?”

  “No.”

  I shrugged. I wouldn’t normally gesture like that any more than I’d roll my eyes. Normally, I’d acknowledge his feelings without validating or dismissing them. But I didn’t feel normal. I felt a little less in control, a little more impulsive. Less like a professional psychiatrist and more like a wife who knew her husband’s boundaries.

  “You on call today?” I asked.

  “Yeah.” He took my hand and kissed inside the wrist. “I’ll call you.”

  I kissed him in typical married-person way. A punctuation between activity. A comma in the day. I didn’t get to the bedroom door before his voice stopped me.

  “Greyson.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I can’t take this back once I say it.”

  This couldn’t be good. Anything he might want to take back wouldn’t be a statement to celebrate.

  “Okay?”

  “You might want to cancel your appointment.”

  “Caden. Is everything all right?”

  Sucking his lips between his teeth as if he wanted to hold the words back, he tightened his jaw and tilted his head. We were frozen in his moment of decision while the currents of his courage swirled and gathered together.

  “I think.” Hands though hair. A pause. I stayed absolutely still. “I think I’m going crazy.”

  Part Two

  HOMEBREAKING

  Chapter One

  GREYSON - DECEMBER, 2006

  Caden’s hands, what they could do, how careful they were in doing it, were always different in my memory than in real life. I forgot them every time they were out of my sight. They were always wider, more articulated than I remembered. When I saw his wedding ring on the fourth finger, tying him to me, I stood in awe of that single band taming a force so powerful.

  “Hey,” he said, meeting me at the desk at the front of the administrative offices of the hospital. He was crisp and showered in a suit with a textured silk tie. He always smelled of alcohol when he got out of surgery. He covered it with cologne and sex, but it was deep in his pores.

  When he signed out, his gold ring wiggled with the letters of his name.

  “How are you feeling? Since this morning?” I asked, remembering the taste of those fingers.

  “If I wasn’t fine, I’d let you know,” he lied.

  I let him have that particular deceit because it was to protect me. He was painfully honest in everything else. We started down the hall.

  When my heels clacked on the floor, he looked at my feet. “Are you all right in those?”

  I turned my calf so he could see the outline of the shoe and the stockings under it. “Do you like them?”

  He walked again. “I like them over my shoulders.”

  Stating facts. Clear and concise. Cold because he was nervous, not because he was losing his mind. He wasn’t lying about feeling better, only that he’d tell me.

  “How’s your thigh?” he asked when we were alone in the elevator.

  “Nice contusion.”

  “Muscular or dermal?”

  “Subcutaneous.”

  He nodded, hands folded together in front of him. “I’ll be more careful next time.”

  We got out at the doctors’ level of the garage, which was nicer than any of the others, and had valet. His Mercedes was waiting. He let me in.

  “Where are we meeting him again?” he asked.

  “Gotham.”

  “We should have taken a cab.”

  The car pulled onto Central Park West. It was the week between Christmas and New Year. Traffic was on a break.

  “It was a cutting day,” I said with a playful curl to my question. Surgery left him raw and potent. We usually fucked on cutting days.

  “Just a quad. Easy. He was young though. So we had tertiary distress.”

  He made a left, crossing hand over hand, his attention always sharp, even when the streets were empty.

  “You don’t want to go,” I said.

  “To dinner?”

  “To dinner with Ronin.”

  “I like Ronin.”

  “To dinner with Ronin to discuss the new protocol.”

  “No.” He faced me when he made the denial, and for a second, I saw his raw power. “I don’t want to go to dinner with Ronin to discuss this at all. Ever.”

  “You don’t have to.”

  “Yes, I do, Greyson.”

  “You don’t.”

  “Yes. I. Do. For you.”

  “Don’t lay this on me.”

  “Jesus Christ. If I wrote you a check for three hundred bucks, would you listen to me for fifty minutes? We’re married. I do things for you. You do things for me. We make sacrifices.”

  Before I could talk about agency, autonomy, and acceptance, he grabbed my hand and squeezed it. For a month, his touch outside our home had gotten rare, and it froze me.

  When I squeezed back, he put his hand back on the wheel to pull the car up to the valet. My fingers were left alone to make their own sense of him.