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His handprint is on my neck like a faded tattoo.

My left nipple is red raw from him biting it.

And my wrists and ankles have all the evidence of me beinghog-tied.

I catch myself smiling. I’ve never felt as beautiful as I do right now.

This is where heaven exists. This is all I need. All I want.

This isn’t just about lust and desire or my feelings of love for him.

This is the deep seeded fantasy where I can pluck from to mold it into reality.

Honestly, this is… joy. Happiness.

This is me being fulfilled.

All those feelings come crashing down in a few seconds.

Chad knows. Which means Mary Beth knows. Which means…

KABOOM.

Corbin struck the match the day he showed up to the house. I took the match and lit the fuse. And I watched the fuse burn, never once actually trying to stop it from reaching the bomb that’s been called my life.

So, once again…KA-fucking-BOOM.

I leave the bathroom and go back to the bed where I curl up under a blanket and wait for Corbin to return.If he does at all.

Corbin does return.

With a bottle of whiskey for us to share.

I note a sense of happiness and sadness on his face.

The most beautiful, rough man I’ve ever met in my life. The only man to ever truly understand me and take me the way I needed to be taken.

Corbin uncaps the whiskey bottle and flicks the cap across the room.

He drinks as he walks into the bathroom.

There’s silence for a handful of seconds before he emerges and comes toward the bed.

He’s wearing only jeans and he climbs up onto the bed and steps over me.

The whiskey bottle is thrust at me and Corbin nods.

I take the bottle and take a sip. He demands I drink more, so I do.

Then for good measure I add in a third decent sized gulp.

He then sits next to me and grabs for me, demanding to hold me in his arms.

“Everything is known, Katie,” he says.

“I figured that…”

“I was back in your house and he attacked me. He actually knocked me out.”