Chapter 9. The Rain Won’t Wash It All Away

Dan slid out of me with a slow, almost lazy movement, and I felt the emptiness inside — not just physical, but as if a part of my soul had been scooped out of me.

I flinched as his cock left me, and the mixture of my own wetness and his come gurgled out of me, running down my thighs, dripping onto the blanket in dark, sticky drops. I felt it spreading over my skin — warm and slippery — and starting to cool in the faint pre-dawn breeze, leaving a thin chill-film behind.

Dan rose and shook himself, the way a wolf does after a hunt — one powerful, short movement that sent a wave rolling down the muscles of his back. He smirked, looking at my trembling, wrecked body, and there was something in that smirk of a sated, contented predator who has enjoyed his kill and is now walking away.

I tried to stand too. My legs refused to obey — they trembled like I’d been on a long run, the muscles cramping, and I sank back onto the blanket with a sigh. Inside, the involuntary contractions were still rippling through me — an echo of pleasure that refused to leave.

Every muscle ached — but it was a good ache, like after a proper, punishing workout. I curled into a ball, hugging myself, trying to hold in the shivering. My skin burned, but the sweat was already drying cold on it, and the morning air made me flinch.

“Lucky girl,” I heard Dan say as he crossed to the edge of the clearing, dousing three more torches. “Sex in the rain is a doubtful pleasure at best — so you’ve got a couple of hours with your ... Grey.”

With that he pulled on his jeans, didn’t even do up the zip, and walked away, leaving me lying on the blanket — broken, spent, hollowed out.

I watched his back, feeling no relief, no satisfaction. Only the plain understanding: I’d served my purpose, and was no longer needed. Although ... what other outcome had I been hoping for, when I agreed? And what did the rain have to do with anything?

Thunder rolled overhead — dull, enormous, as though the sky had split open right above the earth. Dan smirked, throwing me one last glance — cold, mocking, triumphant.

“Enjoy it, sweetheart. But remember — this isn’t the end.” His voice reached me through the roar of blood in my ears. “We’ll meet again.”

And he vanished into the mist of the dawn.

Silence. Only my breathing — heavy, ragged — and the sound of my own heart, pounding in my temples.

I closed my eyes, trying to pull myself together. Inside, the storm was still raging: shame, guilt, relief, fear — all of it tangled into one knot that made me want to scream. I felt his come and my wetness sliding down my thighs, mixing with the grass and the morning dew. Felt my skin tightening as the traces dried, felt the cold working its way to the bone.

And then — footsteps. Quiet. Careful. Familiar.

I lifted my head.

He was coming towards me. Grey. His face was white, his eyes full of pain and guilt. He didn’t say a word. He just bent down and gathered me up in his arms — easily, as if I weighed nothing — and carried me closer to the tree. Every movement was careful, as if I were fragile glass that might shatter.

“Forgive me...” he breathed as he set me down on the grass. His voice shook, breaking into a rasp. His arms were still round me, as if he was afraid I’d vanish. “I couldn’t ... I should never have let this happen.”

I shook my head. I hadn’t the strength even for words. Only the hot, clinging shame spreading somewhere under my ribs.

And then something snapped.

It came from nowhere — or from everywhere at once. The shaking started in my chest, rose up my throat, and suddenly I was sobbing — ugly, choking sobs, the kind that hurt, that shake the whole body, that leave you gasping. I couldn’t stop it. I didn’t want to stop it. Everything I’d been holding in — through the chain, through the bet, through those fifteen minutes, through every touch of his hands and every moan I’d let out — came pouring out of me at once, like a burst dam.

“I said—” The words broke apart, and I had to start again. “I told him he was the best, Grey. I said it. Out loud. While you were sitting there. I begged him — I said please, Dan — I—”

My voice rose into something that wasn’t quite a scream and wasn’t quite a wail. I was hitting his chest — weakly, uselessly, fists that had nothing left in them — and he let me. He just sat there and let me pound on him while I fell apart.

“I liked it!” It came out like a confession, like vomit, like something that had to be expelled. “You heard me. You heard everything. How am I supposed to — how can you even look at me—”

“Sasha—”

“Don’t call me that!” I flinched away from my own name as if it burnt. “Sash is yours. Sash is — that’s the girl from before. The one from the car. The one who—” A sob tore through the sentence, and the rest came out in pieces. “I came on his face and I wanted it. I stood there and I took my knickers off myself. Nobody made me. Nobody held my hands. I keep saying they did, but they didn’t, Grey, nobody—”

I couldn’t breathe. Hyperventilating, gulping air that wouldn’t go down, dizzy, the edges of the clearing going grey. I heard someone keening — a thin, animal sound — and understood with distant horror that it was me.