Chapter 2: The Only Way He Knows How
The pounding on her door was a chaotic, insistent rhythm that cut through the deep quiet of her apartment. Evie’s eyes snapped open in the dark. She knew that cadence. It wasn’t polite. It was an assault.
She sat up, her heart a frantic bird against her ribs. The digital clock glowed 2:17 AM. A week. It had been a week of silence, a week of jumping at every text notification that wasn’t him, a week of pretending the ache between her legs wasn’t a memory of him.
The pounding came again, harder now, shaking the frame. “Evie! Open the fucking door!”
His voice was a slurred, angry growl. She could smell the whiskey through the wood.
She got up, her bare feet cold on the floorboards. She didn’t turn on a light. She just walked to the door, her hand hesitating on the knob. This was the edge of a cliff. She knew what waited on the other side. More breaking. More pieces of herself she’d have to quietly gather up afterwards.
She turned the lock.
The door crashed inward, slamming against the wall with a crack. Shane filled the doorway, a dark shape backlit by the harsh fluorescent light of the hallway. He was a mess. His hair was wild, his eyes bloodshot and unfocused, his jacket hanging open over a stained t-shirt. The reek of bourbon and cigarette smoke rolled off him in a wave.
He didn’t speak. He just looked at her, his chest heaving. Her nightshirt was thin cotton, old and soft, hanging to her mid-thighs. She was defenseless. He saw it.
He pushed past her, into the warm, lavender-scented air of her home. He kicked a stack of textbooks, sending them skidding across the floor. “Cozy,” he spat, his gaze sweeping over the pressed flowers, the neat shelves, the single framed photo of them. He stared at it for a long second, at his own younger, smiling face, then turned away as if it burned him.
“Shane, you’re drunk,” she said, her voice carefully even. She didn’t close the door. The open door was a potential escape, for one of them.
“Astute.” He fumbled in his jacket pocket, pulling out a half-crushed pack of cigarettes. He didn’t light one. Just spun it in his fingers. “Couldn’t sleep. Thought I’d visit my favorite charity case.”
“You should go home. Sleep it off.”
“Home,” he snorted. “That shithole.” His eyes landed on her, really looked at her now. The clean lines of her throat, the curve of her shoulder under the thin fabric. A different heat ignited in his gaze, one that had nothing to do with anger and everything to do with possession. “You’re my home, Evie. My pretty little ground zero.”
He said it like a curse. He took a step towards her. She stood her ground, but her breath hitched. He saw that, too. It fueled him.
He was on her before she could move. His hands were rough, one tangling in her hair, the other snaking around her waist. His mouth came down on hers, a brutal, wet collision of teeth and tongue that tasted of ash and regret. She whimpered, a small sound lost in his mouth. He used the grip on her hair to turn her, spinning her away from the open door. He marched her forward, two stumbling steps, until her palms smacked flat against the cool plaster of the wall beside her bookshelf.
“Shane, don’t—” she started.
“Don’t what?” he breathed into her ear, his body pressing flush against her back, pinning her. He was already hard, a rigid line against the cleft of her ass through both their clothes. “Don’t fuck you? That’s all this is. That’s all you’re for.”
One hand left her hair, sliding down her side, over her hip. He grabbed the hem of her nightshirt and yanked it up, bunching it around her waist. The air was cold on her skin. His fingers hooked into the waistband of her cotton panties and dragged them down her thighs. They snagged at her knees. He didn’t bother pulling them off.
His own jeans were already open. She heard the rasp of a zipper, the rustle of denim pushed down just enough. He spit into his palm, a crude, wet sound. She heard him slick himself roughly, then the blunt, insistent pressure of his cock against her.
He didn’t enter her. Not yet. He pushed, letting the head of his dick press against her entrance, demanding. She was dry. He was going to hurt her. They both knew it.
“Say it,” he growled, his lips against the shell of her ear. His voice was low, guttural, broken. “Say you hate me, Evie. Go on. Fucking say it.”
Tears welled, hot and immediate, blurring her vision of the plaster grain. She shook her head, a tiny, desperate motion.
He drove into her.
It was a tearing, burning invasion. She cried out, a sharp gasp of real pain that echoed in the quiet room. Her nails scraped against the wall. He was buried inside her, a cruel, full stretch. He didn’t move. He just held her there, impaled, his body trembling against hers. He was panting.
“Say you hate me,” he demanded again, his voice cracking. “Please.”
She couldn’t speak. The hurt was a physical knot in her throat. She pushed back against him, not to get away, but to take him deeper, to end the awful, waiting stillness. It was an answer.
He let out a choked sound, part sob, part snarl, and began to move. His hips pistoned in a hard, fast, rhythm that had nothing to do with pleasure and everything to do with exorcism. Each thrust shoved her against the wall, the impact shuddering through her bones. The books on the shelf rattled. A pressed flower, a delicate bluebell, loosened from its frame and fluttered down like a sad ghost.
His hand moved from her hip to her clit, his touch rough and circular, a punishing mimicry of intimacy. “You love this, you fucking liar,” he grunted, his breath hot on her neck. “You love me ruining you. I can feel you getting wet for it.” It was a vicious fiction. The wetness was her body’s reluctant betrayal, a tearslicked ache.
He was close. His thrusts became more erratic, his control fraying. He leaned his forehead between her shoulder blades, his body bowing over hers. “Maria,” he moaned, the name a ragged sigh into the damp cotton of her shirt.
There it was. Not Lydia. Maria. The real ghost. Evie closed her eyes. She had braced for it this time. The pain was a dull, familiar throb beneath the physical violation. She focused on the feel of his skin against hers, the sweat-slick heat, the animal desperation of his movements. This was all he could offer. A broken thing.
His orgasm ripped through him violently. He shoved into her one last, deep time, his body locking, a raw, wounded shout tearing from his throat. He pulsed inside her, hot and spent. Then his strength vanished.
He collapsed against her, his full weight driving her harder into the wall. His arms slid around her waist, clinging now, not restraining. He was sobbing. Great, heaving, silent sobs that shook them both. His tears were a hot flood against her back, soaking through her nightshirt.
They stayed like that for a long time, connected, wrecked. His softening cock still inside her, his face buried in her shoulder blades. The only sounds were his ragged, wet breathing and the hum of her refrigerator.
Finally, he slid out of her. A wet, uncomfortable trickle followed. He staggered back, pulling his jeans up with clumsy hands. He wouldn’t look at her. She slowly, stiffly, pushed herself away from the wall. She pulled her nightshirt down, the fabric clinging unpleasantly. Her panties were still around her knees. She stepped out of them, leaving them a puddled flag on the floor.
She turned to face him. He was staring at the floor, wiping his nose with the back of his hand, a lost little boy in a man’s ruined body. The anger was gone, leaving only a vast, hollow shame.
“The draft combine,” she said, her voice surprisingly steady. It was the only thing she could think to say, a lifeline thrown to the man who had just tried to drown them both. “It’s tomorrow.”
He flinched as if she’d struck him. He looked at her then, really looked. Saw the tear-tracks on her cheeks, the red mark forming on her forehead from the wall, the quiet devastation in her eyes that held no accusation. Only a weariness so deep it seemed ancestral.
He opened his mouth. Closed it. No words came. He turned and walked out, leaving the door gaping open to the indifferent hallway light.
Evie stood there, listening to his unsteady footsteps fade away. She walked slowly to the door, closed it, and locked it. She slid down the back of it until she was sitting on the floor, her knees drawn to her chest. The ache between her legs was a throbbing bruise. The ache in her chest was a canyon.
Her gaze fell on the dropped bluebell. She reached out, her fingers trembling, and picked it up. It was crushed. The delicate petals were bruised beyond repair. She held it in her palm for a moment, then closed her hand around it tightly. She didn’t get up. She just sat there in the dark, holding the pieces, waiting for the strength to sweep them away.