Read Online Breaking by Claire Kent - Free Book Online

he
noticed her watching him anxiously, he would rouse himself enough to ask about
the novel she was writing or talk casually about his research. He couldn’t
sustain any discussion very long, though. It took more focus than he possessed.
    He was angry
with himself as they finished and Lori picked up the dishes.
    She was worried
about him—that much was obvious—and he was the one to blame.
    He wanted to
give her everything, and instead he’d given her this .
    He breathed
deeply to dispel the fog of fatigue and then went to stand behind her as she
rinsed dishes out in the sink. He wrapped both arms around her waist, pushing
his front into her back.
    “Yes?” she
said, stretching the one word out as a question.
    He tilted his
head down to kiss the side of her neck.
    She set down
the bowl she’d been rinsing, turned off the water, and pulled out of his arms,
turning around so she faced him. Her expression was sober as she said, “We’re
not going to do that again tonight.”
    “Do what?”
    “Have sex.”
    Defensive
anxiety rose up, more quickly than normal since he had so few defenses left,
but he did his best to keep his voice light.  “I thought you were enjoying my
excessive horniness.”
    “Of course. To
an extent. But there’s something not right about it.”
    Ander froze,
briefly paralyzed at the realization that what he’d always been the best
at—sex—wasn’t something Lori wanted from him.
    “I love having
sex with you,” she continued, as if he’d actually spoken a reply. “You know I
do. But, ever since you’ve gotten back, it’s started to feel like it used
to—when I was your client.”
    Waves of
confusion and fear slammed into him. He must have damaged their relationship,
when all he wanted to do was hold onto it. “What do you mean?” His voice
sounded strange, stiff, stilted.
    “I mean it feels
kind of like it did back then, with you completely focused on pleasing me.”
    “What’s wrong
with that? I want to please you.”
    She shook her
head, emotion contorting her features. “I mean it feels like your focus is only
on pleasing me physically, like you have some mission to accomplish. It’s not
what we’re doing that seems wrong—it’s how we’re doing it. It’s like
you—like you —aren’t really there.”
    “That’s absurd,”
he objected, sounding angrier than he felt. What he felt was on the verge of cracking.
“Of course I’m there.”
     “I’m telling
you what it feels like, and I’m not making this up. I’ve been thinking about it
all day. I thought at first it might be…be just me, but it’s not. I know I’m
not imagining it. It’s like you’re hiding yourself away somehow—the way you
used to, when we weren’t…when we weren’t together.”
    Ander froze
again when her voice cracked and a tear slipped out of her eye.
    Her shoulders
shook with suppressed sobs. “I don’t need another orgasm, Ander. I need you .
I need you back with me again.”
    More tears
streamed down her cheeks, and she swiped them away impatiently.
    And Ander
couldn’t stand it. He couldn’t stand that he’d hurt her, when she was the most
important thing in his life.
    And he couldn’t
fix it. He had nothing in him that could fix it.
    He was breaking
for real.
    Breaking right
now.
    He opened his
mouth to speak, to sayanything, but no words came out.
    He felt that
deep shuddering inside him, impossible to control now, impossible to stomp out,
impossible to deny.
    He hated it. Hated it. That he wasn’t the man he had thought he’d become after all.
    But he wasn’t.
He turned on his heel and headed for the only place he could escape in their
apartment.
    He went to take
a shower.
    After turning
the water on as hot as he could tolerate, he tossed his clothes on the floor and
stepped under the spray.
    For a minute,
he just stood there, the water beating down on him so hot it almost hurt.
    The shuddering
rose in his chest again, and he pressed both hands against the tile