An Australian Surrender. Maisey Yates

      He was her first lover. That … well, that meant something. At thirty he was well past the age where he expected to run across a virgin. He’d even avoided them in high school, mostly by choosing to have sex with older women. He’d never really fancied the idea of being a corruptor of innocents. His life was just too … raw. He’d never had true innocence himself.

      It was impossible when the cupboards in his kitchen had more prescription pills than they did food. Impossible when he overheard loud fights and sex between his parents every other day. Impossible when he simply felt invisible in his own home.

      His upbringing had been privileged financially, but bankrupt in every other way.

      But what had just happened between him and Noelle hadn’t seemed corrupt at all. Far from it. It had been the best sex of his life. And it had meant something. Had altered something in him.

      He wasn’t sure if he liked that, but it was the truth.

      It wouldn’t last. A fact that made his chest feel like it was filled with tiny shards of glass, evil and sharp, impossible to remove.

      It couldn’t last. That was the one thing he was certain of. Because she would never be happy with him. His stomach suddenly felt too tight. It was very hard to breathe. It was a hard admission to make, but it was true.

      He’d never managed to bring happiness to anyone in his life. There was no reason Noelle would be any different.

      He would never be able to make her happy, not in the long term. He would ruin her.

      No. That wouldn’t happen. He wouldn’t do that to her. They would have their affair, and they would both move on.

      Even if there was a small, insidious part of himself that wished things could be different. They couldn’t be. And he would have to accept it.