My right hand glides up her stomach and over the swell of her breast, skipping over her sweaty skin and moving over her décolletage to her neck, pausing momentarily before cupping her jaw. Her green eyes flash with heat just as her fingers grip behind my neck and pull me down, slamming our lips together.
“Let go, Cal,” she whispers against my mouth, dragging her teeth against my lower lip. “Show me.”
My momentum falters as depraved images threaten to distract me. Then Lucia’s hand curls around mine and she gently places my palm over the delicate skin at the front of her throat.
I flex my fingers before my entire body freezes mid-thrust, forcing myself to stop. “I trust you; I love you. Take what you need, Cal.”
The roaring begins to be overtaken by buzzing, my entire body electrified. Never have I felt this desperate desire for more, to sate the endless craving that I’ve resisted for most of my adult life. But now, in this moment, with this woman, her silent consent is pushing me toward the terrifying unknown and I’m helpless to resist any longer.
Her eyes flare and her fingers press into mine against her throat. My hips undulate backwards and forwards, and I resume the punishing thrust of my cock between her legs. She grabs hold of my shoulders and bites her nails into my skin, snapping me out of my revelry and back to my tightening hand around her throat.
Her green eyes glaze over as her breathing starts to slow. I’m skirting a fine line of control and the heady feeling consumes me. The racing thrum of pulse beating in earnest against my hand, giving away just how hard she’s fighting to rein in the panic threatening to overcome her. Increasing my thrusts inside of her, a wave of heat sweeps over my body. Suddenly I feel totally separate from the world around me. I press down on my fingertips. Her muscles tense as she races headfirst into the most intense climax I’ve ever witnessed. Her body arches against mine as I continue to pound my hips against hers, tightening my grip around her throat as my own release hits me so hard I’m forced to bury my face into the sheet above her head as the waves of pleasure course through me and I loosen my grip on her
“You okay?” I ask. I roll off of her and collapse on my back as I come down from my long anticipated and fantasized about proclivity. I almost feel invincible in the afterglow.
A few minutes pass and reality starts seeping in. The room is deathly quiet. “Luce?”
Every time I close my eyes I’m confronted with flashes of earlier tonight.
Flashes of her.
I can see her pale, clammy body beneath me. My shaking hands pressing into her chest as I struggled to compose myself enough to help her.
Her shallow breaths, her slack expressionless face so unlike Lucia’s normally full, animated smile.
The emergency operator’s flat, disapproving voice in my ear telling me to make sure she was breathing and to shift her into the recovery position.
The angry look of the paramedics as they entered the room and asked me to move away from Lucia’s barely clothed body.
I hated seeing them touch her, them seeing her like that. She didn’t have a choice in that moment. That was my fault. That is all on me.
I’m broken. Ripped raw, my wounds open wide for the world to see.
She was wheeled out on a gurney leaving me with nothing to do but sit and watch, frozen in place across the room.
The police tried to talk to me about what had happened, advising that they’d need a statement from me as a precautionary measure, telling me that it’s unlikely I’d face charges because it was a consensual act between two adults—something they would need to confirm with Lucia when she had recovered. They promised discretion and privacy, but I couldn’t escape their judgment, their eyes filled with curious bewilderment. I could only nod absentmindedly, my thoughts stuck on the sickly pallor of Lucia’s skin, the warmth and radiance gone. Her lack of consciousness. Her eyes not opening at all while I waited for the paramedics to arrive.
I can’t even remember the last words I said to her.
“I trust you; I love you. Take what you need, Cal.”
My chest feels as if there’s a lead weight pressing against it, a fist wrapped tight around my heart continuously constricting as the minutes tick by.
How is Lucia now? Is she breathing? Is she awake? Is she even alive?
I could never live with myself if she doesn’t recover.
My moment of weakness was an ultimate moment of selfishness. I should never have put my own need for release ahead of everything else. I lost myself in the moment and hurt her, a fate worse than death to me.
I’m the ultimate sinner. A conceited man who took what was offered without any forethought given to the risk or the wide-reaching effects of the act itself.
I’m the man I fought hard never to be, but was too weak to stop myself from becoming.
It feels as if I’m having an out-of-body experience. I know there are four police officers walking around my house. I know that there is one sitting across from me, trying to talk to me, the muted buzz of his voice bouncing right off my ears as I stare at my large wooden grandfather clock. Time moves so slowly I can almost imagine that this is a dream; a horrific nightmare I wish I could wake myself up from.
The detective started questioning me as soon as the ambulance took Luce to the hospital. He told me they would not be arresting me, despite me arguing for them to do exactly that.
I deserve to be locked up for what I have done. Turning my head, I watch a blond policewoman looking around my living area before turning toward the balcony and freezing in place as she takes in my view of the bay.
I consider begging her again, demanding that they cuff me and take me away. Lock me up with criminals, with other monsters like me.
“We’re going to leave you now, Mr. Alexander. Is there someone you can call? Someone to come stay with you?” the detective says to me, his expression full of concern. “You’re in shock and it’s only at your own determined request that we’re leaving you here alone. I’d prefer to stay until you can have someone come over to be with you.”
“Yes,” I reply, not seeing anything other than black and white. Good and bad. Lucia the saint and me the unworthy sinner who deserves to continually relive this painful memory alone.
“We’ll see ourselves out, Mr. Alexander,” the detective announces and joins the other officers as they walk out the front door, closing it behind them.
There is only one person I can call.
I stand and walk to the kitchen, grabbing my phone and swiping my fingers over the screen.
“Grant?” My voice cracks as I say his name.
“Cal? What’s happened?”
“I hurt her,” I rasp out as I lose the loose grip on the overwhelming emotions I’ve been burying for the past hour.
“What?”
“Can you come to my house,” I reply hoarsely, my voice tight with unshed emotion.
“I’m there. Give me fifteen and I’m there, Cal. Just sit down and I’ll be there, okay?” His voice is full of concern. I can tell he’s worried about me, worried about her. “Where is she, Cal?”
“I don’t know. The paramedics took her.”
“Alright. We’ll find out and then we’ll go see her.”
“No,” I state determinedly. “She’s better off without me.”
“Cal, you—”
“No!” I shout, and my rough voice echoes around the house. “Just come over, Grant. Please.”
He sighs and resignedly agrees. “Okay. I’m on my way. I’ll let myself in.”
I end the call. There’s nothing more to say.
I can no longer hide behind ignorance. I’m the monster who wrapped his fingers around a woman’s throat, abusing her trust and experiencing the most intense and satisfying climax I’ve ever had while I choked the life out of her.
I walk to the drinks trolley to get myself a drink. My hand shakes as I tip the bottle toward the glass. All the alcohol in the world won’t rewind the last twelve hours. I’d give anything . . . anything to take it all back, to stop the pain and suffering Lucia has been dealt by my hands.