Page 37 of Monk

My entire body shook with the force of it, as my vision went white and my mind went completely blank. I could feelmyself pulsing inside her, could feel her walls milking my dick for everything I had, drawing out every last drop of cum, and it was too much, too fucking much. Wave after wave of pleasure crashed over me, drowning me, destroying me, remaking me entirely.

For a moment, there was nothing.

Nothing but her. Nothing but this.

And then reality came crashing back.

I was still inside her, still holding her against the wall, both of us trembling, gasping for air. Sweat dripped down my back, and I could feel her heart pounding against my chest, could feel the way her body was still trembling with aftershocks. Slowly, carefully, I lowered her to the ground, my hands steadying her when her legs wobbled. She looked up at me, her eyes wide, her lips swollen from my kisses, her cheeks flushed.

And I saw it. The same shock I was feeling. The same disbelief. The same raw, overwhelming need. I cupped her face with both hands, my thumbs brushing her cheeks, and opened my mouth to speak.

“Mom?”

I blinked, and Lina gasped.

CHAPTER TEN

Monk

The word hit me like a bullet to the chest.

Mom.

A child’s voice. High-pitched, innocent. Calling from somewhere outside the barn.

“Momma!”

My entire body went rigid, every muscle locking up as though I had been frozen solid in an instant. My world tilted sideways, the edges of my vision blurring and darkening, as the barn spun around me in dizzying, nauseating circles. For a second, I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. Couldn’t process what I had just heard. The words echoed in my head, repeating over and over, but they made no sense. They couldn’t be real. This couldn’t be happening. My heart hammered against my ribs so hard I thought it might break through, and my legs felt like they might give out beneath me at any moment.

Mom. Momma.

Lina’s eyes went wide with panic, her face draining of all color. “Shit,” she whispered, her voice breaking. “Shit. John?—”

I stepped back immediately, the loss of contact jarring and abrupt, as if I had been burned. My hands shook uncontrollably as I yanked my jeans up, fumbling with the button and zipper, my mind racing a million miles an hour, trying desperately to catch up with what was happening.

She has a kid. She has a fucking kid.The realization crashed through me like a freight train at full speed, obliterating everything else in its path. The warmth that had enveloped us moments before. The connection I felt building between our bodies. The desperate, raw need that had consumed me completely just seconds ago. Gone. All of it. Vanished into thin air. Replaced by something cold and sharp and suffocating that wrapped around my chest like a vise, making it hard to breathe. My heart pounded against my ribs, but now it was from panic rather than desire.

“John,” Lina started, scrambling to pull her clothes back on, her hands fumbling with her bra and her jeans. “Let me explain. I didn’t know?—”

But I couldn’t hear her. Couldn’t hear anything over the roaring in my ears, the blood pounding through my skull like a freight train barreling through my brain.

She has a kid. She moved on. She fucked another man.

The thought made me want to vomit. Made me want to put my fist through the barn wall until my knuckles were nothing but shattered bone and pulp. Made me want to scream until my throat bled, until there was nothing left of me but raw, howling agony.

I spent seven years mourning her. Seven years tearing myself apart with grief and guilt and the unbearable weight of losing the only woman I had ever loved. Seven years of nightmares and whiskey and waking up in cold sweats, reaching for her in the dark. And she had been out there. Fucking someone else. Building a life with him. Having his kid.

The betrayal cut deeper than any knife ever could.

“You have a fucking kid?” I snarled, my voice low and dangerous, barely controlled. Each word dripped with venom.

Lina froze, her jeans halfway up her hips, her eyes wide and terrified.

“John, please...”

“YOU HAVE A FUCKING KID?” I roared this time, louder, angrier, the words ripping out of me like shrapnel, tearing through the sudden silence that had fallen between us. She flinched visibly, her entire body recoiling from the force of my voice, her hands trembling uncontrollably as she finished pulling her jeans up over her hips, fastening the button with shaking fingers that fumbled with the metal clasp, her eyes refusing to meet mine as the weight of what she’d just revealed hung heavy in the air between us.

“I can explain.”