My mind raced. Was it Ryan? Erectile dysfunction? The thought sent a twisted thrill through me—imagining him failing, night after night, Hina's legs spread and waiting, only to be left aching, unsatisfied.
Or was it her? Some hidden barrenness, a cruelty of fate that had turned her bitterness inward, then outward, like a blade unsheathed?
I risked another look at her face. Her lips were pressed into a thin line, her chest rising and falling just a little too fast. Kerry's words slithered back into my mind—"Hina gets irritated, angry…"—but it wasn't just anger.
Not just frustration. It was hunger. The kind that gnawed at you, that made you claw at your own skin when no one else would touch you right. The kind that turned love into something sharp and ugly.
And Ryan? He knew. Oh, he knew. The way he refused to look at her, the way his fingers twitched at his sides like he was fighting the urge to reach for her—or maybe to strike her.
