THE ACHE HE LEFT

**Chapter 10**

**The Ache He Left**

I didn’t move for a long time after the door clicked shut.

My back was still against the wall. The torn nightgown hung off one shoulder, the cool air kissing my bare breast. My thighs were slick. Every pulse between my legs throbbed with the orgasm Richard had deliberately stolen from me. I could still feel the stretch of his fingers, the rough drag of his palm, the way his voice had wrapped around the words *scream my name*.

I pressed my thighs together and almost moaned at the pressure.

This was worse than anything Josh had ever done. Josh took. He used. He left me shaking and full and marked. But he never left me *empty* on purpose. Richard had. He had wound me up, pushed me to the edge, and walked away with a smirk, knowing exactly how desperate he had made me.

I hated him for it.

I hated how much I already wanted him to come back and finish it.

I finally pushed off the wall on unsteady legs, peeled the ruined nightgown the rest of the way off, and climbed into bed naked. The sheets felt too rough against my oversensitive skin. I curled onto my side, squeezed my eyes shut, and tried to ignore the steady, demanding pulse between my legs.

Sleep didn’t come.

Every time I started to drift, I felt his hand again. Heard that low, controlled voice promising he could ruin me deeper than his son. My hips shifted restlessly against the mattress. I slid a hand between my thighs once, just to ease the ache, but the second my fingers touched my swollen clit I yanked them away like I’d been burned. I refused to give him the satisfaction of making myself come while thinking about him.

I don’t know how much time passed before the door opened again.

No knock this time.

Josh stepped inside and closed it quietly behind him. The hallway light briefly outlined his broad shoulders and the messy dark hair falling over his forehead before the room returned to shadow. He was in black sweatpants and nothing else. His gray eyes found me immediately in the dark.

“You’re awake,” he said. Not a question.

I stayed silent, heart already picking up speed for an entirely different reason.

Josh walked to the side of the bed and looked down at me. The covers were only pulled to my waist. My bare breasts were visible in the thin moonlight coming through the curtains. His gaze dragged over them slowly, then lower, to the way my thighs were pressed tightly together.

Something flickered across his face. Suspicion. Heat. Possession.

“You’ve been different all day,” he said quietly. “Quiet. Jumpy. And now you’re lying here naked and wound so tight I can practically smell how wet you still are.”

I swallowed. “I’m fine.”

“Liar.”

He pulled the covers the rest of the way off me in one smooth motion. The cool air hit my damp skin and I shivered. Josh’s eyes darkened when he saw the glistening wetness already coating my inner thighs.

“Fuck,” he muttered. “Look at you.”

He shoved his sweatpants down just far enough to free his cock—already hard, thick, the head flushed and leaking. Then he climbed onto the bed, pushed my knees apart with his own, and settled between them. The blunt head of him dragged through my folds once, twice, coating himself in how ready I still was from Richard.

Josh didn’t tease the way Richard had.

He slammed into me in one deep, brutal thrust.

I choked on a cry, back arching off the bed. He was thicker than the memory of Richard’s fingers, stretching me wide and filling every inch. Josh didn’t give me time to adjust. He set a hard, punishing pace, hips snapping against mine, the wet slap of skin on skin filling the quiet room.

“This is what you needed, isn’t it?” he growled against my ear, one hand pinning my wrist above my head. “You’ve been walking around all day looking like you needed to get fucked properly.”

I turned my face into the pillow, trying to muffle the sounds he was dragging out of me. Every thrust rubbed against the still-sensitive places Richard had touched. The dual memory—Richard’s controlled fingers and Josh’s rough, relentless cock—made the pleasure sharper, almost unbearable.

Josh noticed.

He always noticed.

His free hand gripped my jaw and forced me to look at him. Those stormy gray eyes searched mine while he fucked me harder, deeper.

“Who were you thinking about?” he demanded, voice low and dangerous. “Because you’re taking me like you’re imagining someone else.”

“I’m not—”

He drove into me particularly hard, cutting the lie off with a broken moan.

“Don’t bullshit me, Ellie.” His thumb brushed over my bottom lip, almost gentle, while his hips kept slamming forward. “You’re wetter than usual. You’re shaking differently. And you keep making these little sounds like you’re surprised it’s me inside you.”

I clenched around him involuntarily. The accusation, the jealousy, the sheer possessiveness in his voice only pushed me closer to the edge.

Josh’s mouth curved into a dark, humorless smile. “Yeah. That’s what I thought.”

He shifted the angle, hitching one of my legs higher so he could grind against my clit on every thrust. The new friction was too much. My orgasm crashed over me without warning—violent, messy, my pussy fluttering and squeezing around his cock as I cried out into his shoulder.

Josh fucked me through it, chasing his own release with short, deep strokes until he buried himself to the hilt and came with a low, guttural groan. Hot pulses of cum filled me, overflowing around where we were joined.

For several long seconds the only sound was our ragged breathing.

Josh stayed inside me, forehead pressed to mine, eyes still searching my face like he was looking for proof of something he already suspected.

“Whatever’s going on in that head of yours,” he said quietly, voice rough, “you’re still mine under this roof. Don’t forget it.”

He pulled out slowly, watching the way his cum leaked from me onto the sheets. Then he tucked himself away, pressed one last hard kiss to my mouth, and left as silently as he had arrived.

I lay there in the dark, thighs sticky, body still trembling, the ache Richard had left only partially soothed.

And for the first time, I wasn’t sure which of them I wanted to come back through that door next.