I thought Hannah was right.

Had she made me a chump?

Why couldn’t I leave, if that was what I thought? Why wasn’t I out the door?

Because she had asked me to be her safe place.

Because she wanted me to meet her sister.

That had to count for something.

I kissed her. Still rough. Yet with a trace of tenderness. She weakened me.

Did she know that?

I wrapped my hands around her wrists, pinning her down on the mattress. I made sure not to hurt her, but I wouldn’t let her go. My face felt hot. My blood pumped wildly. I felt a little out of control.

Hannah had always made me feel that way. I enjoyed it.

Now it felt like chaos.

“Promise me, Hannah,” I demanded. I positioned myself between her thighs. The tip of my cock brushed against her wet warmth. She wriggled and squirmed, spreading her legs wider, pushing against my ass with her heels.

“Promise me, damn it!” I all but yelled.

I was getting angry. I tried to rein it in. I let go of her wrists.

I was at war with myself. I cared for Hannah.

I wanted to trust her.

I stared down into her wide eyes. She looked confused. Then worried.

“Mason, I promise.” Her eyes begged me to believe her.

She slowly pulled my face down, her hands cupping my cheeks. “I promise,” she murmured, kissing me softly. “I promise.”

I pressed my lips against hers. Not tender. Rough. Crazed. Tongues. Teeth. I bit down on her lip and tasted her blood in my mouth. “I promise,” she said again, more firmly.

I rubbed my cock against her. Not penetrating. Only a taste. A tease.

“I promise,” she shouted, digging her fingers into my ass as I ground against her.

“Don’t fucking lie to me ever again, Hannah,” I snarled, lifting one of her legs and dropping it over my hip. I quickly unwrapped a condom and put it on.

“I promise,” she growled through clenched teeth.

“You’d better mean it,” I groaned just as I pushed inside her.

We cried out in unison as I plunged forward. We were a mass of hot, sticky skin. I thrust into her, going as deep as I possibly could. My anger and fear ignited something inside of me. Something primal and unfettered. I wanted to fuck the truth out of her.

I flipped Hannah over onto her stomach and entered her from behind. “Oh God,” she screamed as I slammed into her over and over again.

This wasn’t gentle.

This wasn’t romantic and sweet.

This was rutting. Pure and simple.

I couldn’t slow down and Hannah wouldn’t let me. She pushed back against my cock, swallowing me up.

I let out a guttural roar as I pumped into her, our flesh slapping together.

“I need to…I can’t…” I don’t know what I was trying to say. The words strung together without coherence.

I gripped Hannah’s hip and thrust one more time. Deep. To the core. I came with a violence I had never experienced. Hannah followed a few seconds later.

We collapsed onto the bed, trying to get our breathing under control.

Neither of us said anything. I wasn’t sure what words could ever suffice at that moment.

I had thought about the first time we would sleep together many times. I had imagined it hot and heavy.

I hadn’t pictured the almost animalistic encounter we had just experienced.

And it was, bar none, the most intense sexual encounter of my life.

I just didn’t know what to do now. Hannah was my girlfriend. Sleeping together was natural. Expected.

It shouldn’t be tangled with anger and mistrust.

“Can you turn on a light?” I asked, my voice rough.

“Sure.” Hannah rolled over and turned on the lamp. I winced in the sudden brightness.

Hannah covered herself with a blanket, pulling it up around her breasts. Her hair was disheveled, her skin splotched red. I could see the marks from my mouth on her collarbone. Her lips were raw and bruised, the soft skin still bleeding sluggishly from where I bit it.

She tried smiling. It seemed to take a lot of effort.

I pulled the condom off and tied a knot at the end. “What can I do with this?” I asked.

Hannah pointed to the far wall. “There’s a trash can over there.”

I got up and tossed the condom, grabbed my boxers and jeans from the floor, and pulled them back on before sitting down on the edge of the bed, my back to Hannah.

“Are you leaving?” she asked quietly.

I let out a breath, weighted with questions. “I don’t know,” I told her.

“I thought that would have been different,” she said, sounding sad. Maybe a little angry too.

I looked at her over my shoulder. She was staring at the ceiling, her fists clenched in the blanket. “What do you mean?”

She glanced at me, her expression conflicted. “Do you want to be here, Mason?”

“Yes. But…” I ran a hand over my face in agitation.

“I thought you wanted me to be your safe place.” Her words sounded like an accusation.

“I want you to be.”

“How can I be if you’re now expecting the worst? I want to make this work. Do you?” A tear fell down her cheek, and that was my undoing.

I couldn’t bear to see her cry.

I crawled across the bed, bracing myself over her. “I want this to work, Hannah, but I’m conditioned to look for the worst in people. It’s what I’m paid to do. I’m wary by nature. And you not telling me the truth—”

“I get it. But please stop looking for the worst in me. I’m terrified that you’ll find it,” she pleaded, the tears falling harder.

I wiped them away with the pad of my thumb. “Please don’t cry,” I murmured, kissing her cheeks, feeling like an ass. “If that’s the worst, I think I can deal with it. And I’m the one who should be terrified.”

Hannah sniffled, her eyes now bloodshot. “Why?”

“Maybe you’ll see the worst in me,” I rasped, my voice cracking, my cheeks wet with my own tears.

Our lips met and this time it wasn’t angry. It wasn’t rough and wild.

When I took my jeans off again, it was slow. Deliberate.

And when I entered her a second time I wasn’t filled with doubt and rage.

I was full of something sweeter.

“I’m sorry,” Hannah whispered against my skin.