13. Sara
SARA
Garret's hands on my hips were guiding me, but I didn't need the help. My body remembered how to move with him. Every roll of my hips found the right angle and every downstroke pulled him deeper, and the groan that rumbled out of his chest told me he felt it too.
Four years hadn't erased a thing. The way we fit together, the rhythm we fell into without thinking, all of it came back the second I started moving.
I had my fingers curled around the back of his neck and my knees pressed tight against his sides and he felt incredible. But my mind was warring with me, agonizing over how many times I had dreamed of this, so why couldn't I let myself enjoy it?
"Slower," he said through his teeth. "You're going to finish me if you keep that up."
"Maybe I want to," I told him, and I meant it. I didn’t want to rush it to be over but the battle inside my head had me on the verge of tears.
I wanted him—I didn't want this back and forth.
But I also didn't want this to finish and him to pull away and say we couldn't be together again. I couldn’t take it if he did that.
"Not yet." He gripped my hips tighter and forced me into a pace that was agonizing for both of us.
Long, deep rolls that let me feel him drag against every nerve on the way out and stretch me wide on the way back in.
I braced harder against his shoulders and bit my lip, trying to hold the rhythm he'd set, but my thighs were shaking and the friction was building me toward another orgasm.
He slid one hand up under my t-shirt and found my breast through the bra, kneading and squeezing as he filled me. I arched into his palm and the angle shifted and he went deeper and I heard myself moan so loud.
"That's it," he murmured against my collarbone. His mouth was hot on my skin, lips and teeth dragging along the base of my throat while his hand worked my breast and his hips met mine on every downstroke. "You feel incredible. Better than I remembered."
"Oh, God." My whimpers were more than just pleasure.
I remembered him too, and I remembered being so devastated when he pushed me away.
So devastated, in fact, that I kept every other man at arm's length, turned down dates, threw flowers and chocolates away and told myself the whole time that it was because of Kip.
But it wasn't. I'd gotten hurt so bad I couldn't trust another man, and the only one I ever wanted I knew I'd never have.
Now here he was saying all the right things, and it felt too good to be true.
"Every night for four years." He caught my earlobe between his teeth and tugged, and the sharp little sting of it sent a current straight down through my belly. "Every single night, Sara. I thought of you and wanted you?—"
I cupped the back of his head and kissed him hard, swallowing whatever he was going to say next.
His tongue met mine and his hands dropped to grab the backs of my thighs, pulling me tighter against his body.
The new angle pressed my clit against his pelvis with every stroke and I gasped into his mouth and broke the kiss because I couldn't breathe and move at the same time.
"Right there," I whispered. "Don't move, just let me?—"
He held still and I ground against him, chasing the pressure with small tight circles that had my whole body winding up. His jaw was clenched and I could feel him twitching inside me, fighting to hold back while I used him exactly the way I needed to.
"Sara, I can't hold this much longer." His voice was rough and strained and his fingers were digging into my thighs hard enough to leave marks. "You need to get there."
"I'm so close."
"Oh, God… Oh, my God in heaven," he groaned, and I felt him throbbing, pulsing inside me as my body clamped down.
His whole body went rigid underneath me and he pulled me down flush against him and held me there while he came with a groan that started deep in his chest and tore out of him in a way that I felt in my bones.
His arms wrapped around my back and crushed me against his chest while he buried his face in my hair and shook, and I plunged into a second orgasm, stronger than the first.
My core clenched on him hard while I whimpered into his neck and shuddered in his arms. My hips pumped, and my core throbbed as my eyes rolled back in my head and a slew of curses tore from my lips.
It was incredible, better than any orgasm I'd had since the last one he'd given to me, though they were few and far between and one hundred percent all self-made.
Garret's arms stayed around me and my face stayed pressed against his neck and we breathed together until our pulses came down and the cool night air started to register on my bare skin.
I could feel him softening inside me and I shifted my weight but didn't pull away because the second I did, real life was going to come rushing back in and I wasn't ready for it.
But the tears came anyway, and he felt them. I knew he did because his hand moved up to the back of my head and his fingers slid into my hair.
"Hey," he said so gently. "Talk to me." Garret wasn't a "talk to me" sort of guy.
He hated talking about emotions, and he'd pushed me a way a few times when I got too emotional.
So to hear him coaxing the words out of me was another stab in the chest. If only he'd have done this four years ago.
Now I had a secret I could never tell him and a mountain of heartbreak to sort through.
"I was angry at you for a long time." I pulled back enough to look at him and let him see my face, as I mopped the tears with my fingers. "When you pushed me away, it broke something in me. I spent months trying to get over you and figure out what the heck I did wrong."
"You didn't do anything wrong. I was the one who couldn't get out of my own way." He wiped a tear off my cheek with his thumb and left his hand there, cupping the side of my face. "You left because I broke your heart?"
Tony's threat was as real today as it was four years ago, but I couldn't lie to Garret, so I tactfully left out a few things.
"Partly," I said, already regretting having this talk. "I mean, it hurt and yeah, I was mad, but I needed something different. Maybe it's why I pushed you to make a commitment. I wasn't happy anyway. And Dan and Andrew were doing so well. I skipped town, but I honestly wanted a change."
"So you stopped racing?"
"I stopped competing, but I manage their crew now." I swiped at my face and backed away, carefully positioning myself so his cum drained onto the step and not his pants as his dick slipped out of me. Garret acted like he never noticed the shift, but he didn't let go.
"That's impressive, Sara." He pushed some hair behind my ear, but my own inability to be honest with him put a wall up. I wanted comfort I couldn’t ask for because if I told him the truth he'd be hurt.
So I pulled away from him and reached for my jeans and underwear, working them back up my legs while he put himself together. Then I sat back down on the step and slipped my feet into my flats.
"Garret, if my dad comes out of this and finds out you've been hanging around his family, he'll have another stroke."
We both chuckled, but it faded quickly. The truth underneath the joke was too heavy, and we both knew the odds of Dad coming out of this at all were getting worse by the day.
It left a sour taste on my tongue too, joking about something so morbid.
I knew better than to cause my family stress when we were already surrounded by facts that crippled us.
The rumble came from the south end of town as a pack of bikes turned onto the main road and headed north past the diner.
The interruption was probably a good thing.
I knew we both had a lot to say, but I had no clue how to say my part without telling him everything I knew I couldn't. Tony would kill me for opening up about the real reason I skipped town, and Garret would be so angry I kept his son from him—even though it was for his own good.
Garret stood up from the step and everything about him changed. His posture straightened, his shoulders squared, and the softness that'd been in his face got tucked away behind rigid posture and a hard glare. It was the code. When his brothers rode, he rode.
"I have to go," he said.
"I know."
He looked down at me and said, "I'm not finished with this, Sara. You and me, we need to sit down and have a serious talk about things."
"Things?" I asked because it sounded like he was angry with me.
"The future—yours and mine. I didn't say everything I said tonight just to walk away from you again."
He didn't wait for an answer. He walked to his bike and kicked it to life and pulled out of the lot, and I watched his taillight chase the pack that had passed until he disappeared around the bend at the edge of town.
I sat there on the step and tried to make sense of any of it.
Garret had made it clear under no uncertain terms that he couldn't have more with me than just sex.
So what future was he talking about? Because I certainly wasn't going to sleep with him to make him happy all while my heart continued to wrestle and be broken bit by bit.
I locked up the diner and got on my bike and rode toward my parents' house down streets I used to know by heart, but the whole way home, the guilt ate at me, chewing through the warmth of what had just happened and leaving something cold in its place.
Garret wanted a chance to do something different and everything inside me that had missed him wanted to give it to him.
But Kip was at my parents' house right now, asleep in the bedroom I grew up in, and Garret didn't know he existed.
Telling him about Kip would destroy whatever we'd just started, and keeping Kip from him was destroying me from the inside out.
There was no version of this that didn't end with someone getting hurt, and the longer I let Garret believe we had a real shot, the worse it was going to be when the truth came out.
I pulled into the driveway and killed the engine and sat there in the dark.
Pushing him away again would hurt us both. But it would hurt less than watching him find out he had a son I'd kept from him. That kind of wound wouldn't heal. And Garret, for all his strength and stubbornness, wasn't the kind of man who forgave a betrayal that deep.
I'd rather he think I didn't want him than to watch him look at me like I had betrayed him.
No matter how bad it hurt me.