My hand was around the back of her head to protect it. I was pumping into her so hard, taking all of my frustrations from the past several weeks out on her body. I kept having to remind myself it was what she wanted as I let go of all inhibitions and fucked her in the rawest way imaginable. Her pussy felt so tight wrapped around my engorged cock.

Nothing seemed to be enough for her. “Please, Sevin. Harder.”

It was easier to fuck her mercilessly when I focused my thoughts on her alienating me these past several weeks. As much as I understood why, it still pissed me off and made me desperate for her all at once.

Thrusting into her over and over, I spoke into her ear, “You think you can just pretend that we never happened? You’ll never be able to forget me now. Is this hard enough for you? Huh? You want more?”

She gripped my ass and pushed me into her even deeper. “Yes.”

My orgasm suddenly came on fast and hard as I felt her muscles spasm around my cock. I always knew exactly when she was coming, but this time was the most intense. It was the most earth shattering orgasm of my life, my load shooting into her in a seemingly endless flow.

Her legs stayed wrapped around my waist. Her body was limp. It was the roughest sex I’d ever had. When I looked up into her eyes, they were dark. Instead of some kind of post-coital bliss, Evangeline just looked tormented as if she’d been hoping that the sex would take care of something that was bothering her.

“Come on, lie down with me.”

“I really should go back.”

“Lie down with me, Evangeline,” I demanded.

I held her tightly, afraid to fall asleep and find her gone, or worse, discover that the beautiful angel-witch who appeared in my room was just a dream.

I eventually nodded off. It was noontime by the time I woke up. My instincts were apparently correct, because while Evangeline was nowhere to be found, in her place was a note.

You’ll always be my truth. But sometimes, the truth hurts too much.

I love you.

The paper shook a little in my hands. A feeling of intense fear and dread overtook me as I tried to interpret her words.

Getting dressed as fast as possible, I ran to the main house to try to find her. Lance and Olga were on the phone, yelling at someone. Something was going down. Elle was sitting in her wheelchair in the kitchen, her face buried in her hands.

“Elle? What the hell is going on?”

“Something horrible has happened,” she said.

Adrenaline started to rush through me. “Is someone hurt? What?”

“Evangeline is gone.”

My head was spinning. “What are you talking about?”

“She left a note this morning. She ran away. Apparently, she’d been seeing some guy behind all of our backs, someone that my parents wouldn’t approve of. No one knew about this. It’s all in the letter, but she basically says she needs to go find herself away from us, that she’s really sorry but that she needed to go away for a while and that she’s not sure when she’s coming back.”

Too shocked and dazed to form a sentence, I simply said, “What?”

“I think she left because of me.”

Still processing everything, I repeated, “What?” Elle must have thought I was going deaf.

“I said I think she left because of me, Sevin. I think she can’t handle what happened to me. I know it in my heart. She couldn’t stand to be around me anymore.”

I was too devastated to comfort her and address her last statement. “Where’s the letter?”

“It’s on the counter.”

My hands hadn’t stopped trembling since reading the note she left earlier. Now, they were full on shaking as I picked up the letter written on paper ripped from a yellow legal pad.

The explanation was exactly what Elle described, a bullshit story concocted by Evangeline about having connected with someone who was not a God-fearing man, someone she wasn’t supposed to love but couldn’t help wanting to be with. Evangeline’s lies continued as she went on about needing to find a purpose in life and how she didn’t feel badly about leaving Elle because she knew her sister had me to take care of her. It was all a crock of shit. If I wasn’t so goddamned heartbroken, I could have killed someone.

Seeing as though I couldn’t remember the moment that my mother died, her death didn’t impact me the way it did my father. So, it was pretty safe to say that this moment, standing in the kitchen knowing that the woman I loved had abandoned not only me but her entire family was the single worst moment of my life.

Elle continued to talk. Unable to process anything but the vivid images in my head from the night before, I simply wasn’t hearing her. The terrified look in Evangeline’s eyes as she asked me to ravage her now made sense. Last night was a goodbye fuck meant to numb the pain of what only she knew would be happening today.

One thing was clear: wherever she went, she was hurting badly. A frantic desperation to find her consumed me. The only person whom she might have told was Addy. I needed to go to her house and grill her for information.

***

My knock was loud and abrupt.

“Addy! Addy, let me in.”

The door swung open. “Sevin? What’s wrong?”

Letting myself in, I huffed, “Don’t act like you don’t know.”

“What in heaven’s name are you talking about?”

“Evangeline and her disappearing act. Where did she really go?” I frantically searched the house. “Wait…is she here?” Things were falling all over the place as I weaved in and out of the rooms.