My robe ripped open, exposing my naked body underneath it.

“But a body like that…” He leaned down to open my legs and expose my pussy. “A cunt like that.” His eyes found mine. “And you sayin’ you love me.” He took off his pants to show his cock, hard and ready. “I’m gonna have to fuck you until you pass out.”

Then he did just that.

ROWAN

There weren’t many times I was up before Nora. She had an internal alarm clock that defied belief. An energy, a drive that impressed the fuck out of me.

So, the mornings when I woke up, her still sleeping in my arms, knowing I could wake her up with my mouth or my cock, those were some of my favorites.

But I wouldn’t do that right away. I’d spend time just looking at her, tracing the shape of her lips, the freckles covering her nose. She was the most stunning woman in the fuckin’ world. And finally, last night, she’d felt safe enough to tell me she loved me. I knew she did. Nora didn’t hide how she felt about me. She showed me in about a million different ways.

But hearing the words out loud, it was something else.

There were things about her that I didn’t even know I could love in another person. Shit, things I had never even noticed about another human.

Like how she had some crazy skincare routine. With tools and stones and a lineup of products that probably cost a bomb because that was her. She liked fancy shit. Liked her routine. And I fucking loved lying in her bed, with her elegant fuckin’ sheets, hearing her bracelets clang together as she did that fuckin’ routine.

But the thing I loved most was how she’d come out, shiny, smelling good, looking angelic and fresh faced but with a tiny smudge of mascara underneath her eye. How it remained, after all the shit, I didn’t know. But I was so fucking thankful. I loved that little smudge because it was her. After doing that long, fancy routine and not being sparkly and perfect... Having a smudge to let me know that.

I loved that the first thing she did when she tripped over or bumped into something—she was clumsy as fuck, and although I was worried that she’d seriously hurt herself one day, that was another thing I loved—she laughed. That was her first instinct. Not to cry out in pain, even if she really was hurt. She laughed at herself. Because that was her.

Even her health shit… her worrying herself about a blood clot, brain tumor, a brown recluse spider bite. I fucking hated that she suffered, but I understood that was what made her who she was. I hoped that she might one day feel safe enough to feel that worry less and less, but I was more than willing to accept her as she was for fucking ever.

I watched her for a few seconds more, overcome with love and speared with a small amount of guilt. I got everything I ever dreamed of, yet my best friend’s life was a nightmare.