The Fishermen (Infidelity #2)

by C.P. Harris

Franky and I are different because we are the same.”

Marks don’t mean you’ve hurt me, Franky. I’ve always bruised easily. I love it when your lips are on me, when your teeth sink into me, and when your hands are too firm,” I said. “Rough sex is my favorite. Rough sex with you is my favorite. And I more than returned the favor.”

“That you did,” he said, smiling against my ribcage.

“Take off your clothes...

“You want to see your h...

“All o...

“I can’t breathe when I’m not with you, Leland. My heart doesn’t beat the same. It took being without you for a day to realize I’ve taken being here with you for granted. I couldn’t wait until the house was quiet, until everyone had fallen asleep, so that I could race back to you. No one can compete with you. No one.”

Every night I got to rip him out of something lacy. One night in particular, Leland wore a lace catsuit that came with a built in opening at the front and back. I did my best to keep that one intact but was unable to do more than let my erection fall through my open zipper before taking him on the patio. We shared baths, we shared our bodies, and we made plans. I couldn’t wait to get our life started.

She smiled and said jokingly from her hospital bed, ‘Sunshine on legs,’ and I knew she was talking about you.”

“You came here to hurt me. Why, Franky?”

“I need you to hate me,” he whispered.

“Don’t you know that I love you too much to ever hate you?”

I’d never said the words out loud before. Maybe a part of me was always afraid I’d scare him off, like maybe our foundation wasn’t strong enough to handle a bombshell like love. But I’d said it with every look, every ...

I felt it with every tortuous and possessive claim he’d made on me, and even through his most unpleasant moods. I couldn’t hate him if I tried.

“You can’t love me,” he said.

“Why not?” I asked, kissing his tears away.

“Because… I can’t leave...

“Yes,” I breathed. “Yes. I can wait for you. We can even take care of her together. Please.”

“Don’t say it. If you aren’t going to say the right thing, then don’t say anything,” I ordered, yanking at the collar of his shirt. Franky didn’t say anything, which said it all. Two excruciating heartbeats turned into ten, and I couldn’t stand it anymore. “Say something!” I yelled, shaking him.

“What do you want me to say, Leland?” He brushed a thumb under my damp eyes.

“I want you to say we’ll find a way to make it work. I want you to say it’ll be hard, and it will take longer than we thought, but nothing will tear us apart. Because if you want me, Franky…” I stopped to swallow down a sob. “If ...

Wanting to kiss him, to remind him of how good we were together. Of how w...

Choosing me doesn’t mean you don’t love her, or that you can’t be there for her. It just means you love me enough to fight for me. No matter what it takes.”

“The odds weren’t in our favor from the start.”

“Fuck the odds,” I said, refusing to let him run through excuse after excuse as to why we couldn’t be. “I’d face down anything to be with you. Now please do the same for me.”

“You could never be my priority. Your needs would come last to hers, if I could even tend to your needs at all. You would get the scraps of my time. I’ll make promises I won’t be able to keep. You’ll live in a constant state of waiting for me. She’s dying,” he said, agonized. “They won’t say it, but she is. And my heart is broken because of it. Every time I see you, I’ll be looking for something to ease the pain, something to dump my pain on, something I can rage against. You would be getting the worst parts of me every time, because I’ll need to give her my best. It will slowly eat away at you, and you’ll eventually hate me.”

“You don’t scare me. Your darkness doesn’t scare me, Franky. How many times do I have to prove that I can handle you?”

“You shouldn’t have to,” he said angrily, trying to shake some sense into me. “You shouldn’t have to handle me...

“I don’t want better! I want you. I’ll take your fucking scraps without complaint if it means one day I get to have more. If it means that sometime in this lifetime ...

“Fight!” I yelled. “Fight for us!”

“Can’t you see I’m doing the right thing here?! Can’t you see how much this is killing me?!”

He was giving me a taste, an example, using this as a teachable moment for what he’d have to offer me moving forward. What he didn’t understand was that I’d take it, because I loved him enough to, because something was a fuck ton better than nothing.

“Let me have it, Franky. Give me your pain, your anger, your fight… I can take it.”

“I love you, Franky,” I said, biting my lip to still the quivering.

“I’ll never be the same, Franky,” I promised, giving in to the pain and devastation contorting my body. “Please don’t fucking break me.”

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

I waited for him for nineteen whole days, with nothing to nourish me but fleeting hope. I waited, and he ...

“You’re a tortured soul, Franky, but I can handle it. When no one else can, I can handle you,” I’d promised him.

With Noon gone, and now Franky, I was the one thing I feared more than anything. I was alone. I’d been thrown out of a window again.

Franky was a man of few words, a man who could ruin me with one look, a man who could make me come with the promise of a single touch, a man who could make hate sex feel like the greatest expression of love ever known.

Next came numbness. I couldn’t even feel myself silently crying anymore. Couldn’t feel the organ I assumed was still beating within my chest. Couldn’t even feel myself orgasm as he reached around to jack me off, adding more white streaks to the collection on the door. It was over. I was done. I would never be hurt by anyone ever again. It was all wrong, but it was everything I needed.

He was still handsome, more so now, if that were possible. But he no longer reminded me of sunshine. Leland was a cyclone of pain. I’d tarnished him.

“I didn’t know you worked there,” he whispered.

“It doesn’t matter,” I hissed, looking over at Cole again and lowering my tone. “You left me broken on the floor dripping your cum.”

“You had no right to show up in any space you knew meant something to me.”

I couldn’t let him break me again. I couldn’t let him see that I was broken already.

What I’d been doing these last couple years, who I’d had to turn myself into… It wasn’t to toughen me up, to make me immune to the pain, immune to him. I’d simply done what was necessary to get by, to survive in hopes that one day he would come for me.

“You need him too,” he said quickly as I marched from the living room.

“What I need is you!”

“I know,”