Does It Hurt?

by H.D. Carlton

“I can get on my knees again and show you a blessing from a different type of god,”

Fuck, I love her.

“È impossibile odiarti quando mi fai sentire così vivo,” I start, slipping two fingers past her lips and hooking them over her teeth, bringing her closer.

“Ed è esattamente per questo che voglio odiarti. Prima di incontrare te ero un sonnambulo. Cazzo, non ero pronto a svegliarmi.”

“Ho sbagliato a dirti che eri debole. Sei così incredibilmente coraggiosa, vorrei che lo vedessi anche tu.”

“Ti penso ogni ora, ogni minuto, ogni dannato secondo. Non so che fare.”

“Era l’unica cosa che mi eccitava e dava pace. Hai rovinato anche questo. Sentirti su di me è meglio di immergersi nell’oceano. Neanche con questa rivelazione so che fare.”

Using two fingers, I gather it from her leg and push it back inside her cunt, biting my lip when she chokes on a gasp and turns to look back at me. “This is mine,” I proclaim. Then, I repeat it in Italian. “Questa è mia.”

“I will never stop worshiping you.”

“You will be mine until you draw your last breath, Sawyer. And it will be my hand holding you beneath the surface, introducing you to death.”

“Ma solo quando sono pronto a venire con te. Annegheremo insieme, bella ladra.”

“Good girl,” he murmurs, a note of approval in his tone as he leans in and places a soft kiss on my forehead.

“But I’m going to. I don’t want to be angry with you anymore, Sawyer. I did swear that I wouldn’t be cruel, but I realize now that for me to keep my promise, I’m going to have to fucking forgive you. And I’m going to have to trust you. If I’m going to give you everything you deserve, then I have to give you all of me.”

If I’m the siren, then he must be Poseidon, an angry god who commands my body like it’s the ocean beneath his fingertips.

“Show me, bella,” he rasps. “Show me where you hurt so I know where to love you most.”

“There’s a place in the ocean, so deep, where not a single point of light penetrates through it. And for so long, I’ve been trapped there, unable to breathe. When I met you, you lifted me out of that darkness, and it was the first time I came up for air. You’ve become my oxygen, bella ladra, and I can no longer breathe without you.”

“You are a thief, baby. You stole my name, and now you’ve taken my heart, too. Demand anything else from me, and I’ll give it to you.”

“I love you, and you will love me.”

“I do. I do love you,”

“The police are after me—his friends. Not because I steal identities or because Kev is trying to find me, but because I killed a cop. I murdered my twin brother.”

“There are many things you deserve, bella ladra, but the only prison you will be a captive in is one of my own making. If my love is a prison, so be it.”

“The day you stole from me was the best day of my life,” he whispers against my lips. “Because then you became my life, and I don’t want it back. I won’t fucking take it.”

“I forgive you, bella. And now I’m going to need you to forgive yourself. Can you do that for me, baby?”

After a moment, Simon sasses, “Well, you gonna sit down for your own or just keep starin’ at me like a dead fish?”

“Good girl,” he praises, grinning wildly.

The real predator is already inside the cage, and I’m trapped right between his teeth.

Enzo bought this boat the day I said yes to marrying him.