Chapter Twenty-Nine
MATO
“brEANNA.”
I reach out and grasp her wrist as she walks by me, and she stops. Lifting her chin to look up at me, she doesn’t try to pull away.
The soft lines of her face are glowing in the moonlight, the cheeks she used to hate because she called them chubby are just as round as they were when we were kids. She was the most beautiful creature I’d ever seen back then, and she’s just as beautiful now.
She wants me to believe that she’s not still grieving, that she’s come to terms with it, but I can see the sadness in her eyes.
“I would have loved our baby more than life itself.” Her chin wobbles and her eyes fill with tears at those words. “But I came back for you.”
Her voice breaks with her words. “I can’t give you that life. Ever.”
Sliding my thumb under the cuff of her jacket, the pad moving over her soft, warm skin. “I didn’t come back for children that don’t exist, I came back for you.”
Her chest rises and falls, and she presses her lips together as a shiver moves across her body. I’m not sure if it’s because of the cold or me.
“I know you don’t trust me, and I deserve every bit of anger you give me, but you need to know that I’m not going anywhere.
I know you think I walked away and never looked back, but I didn’t.
” I lower my chin as her eyes move between mine.
“Even though I watched you from a distance, I was proud of you when I watched you walk across that stage for your bachelor’s, and I was proud of you at your licensure ceremony when you got your hood. ”
Her eyes grow wide as she listens. She needs to know I didn’t turn my back on her. I may have ghosted her, but I never stopped watching her.
“I came back when your father had his first heart attack because, if the worst happened, I wanted to be close just in case you might need me. When he told me about the groundbreaking for your hospital, I was so fucking proud of you I wanted so bad to call you and tell you congratulations.”
She sucks in a surprised breath as her eyebrows move up her forehead.
“I convinced myself that I’d blown it, that you’d tell me to fuck off if I called you, but no matter how hard I tried, I could never get you out of my head or my heart.
You are the only woman I have ever and will ever love, and I am going to do everything I can to win you back.
” I suck in a breath of cold air. “And I won’t stop until you tell me you never want to see me again.
All you have to do is say those words and I’ll never bother you again. ”
It’s a risk, and maybe too early to give her the easy out, but as we stand there in silence, her breaths coming faster and her eyes locked on mine, I let every word I’ve said to her sink in.
More tears slip down her cheek. “You were at my graduation.”
Huffing a laugh, I give her wrist an affectionate squeeze as I reach across her to wipe the moisture from her cheek. “Yeah, I wouldn’t have missed it for the world. It was the reason I put myself through hell for almost ten years.”
Silence stretches for long moments as she stares at me, I would give anything to know what she is thinking. She sniffs and pulls her wrist from my grasp, her icy fingers wrap around mine for just a second with a small smile before she looks away and continues her walk back to the house.
Thank fuck, she didn’t say the words.
Watching her until the gets to the house up the hill and the sliver of light disappears when she closes the kitchen door, something I did so many nights before.
I turn and look around the place we used to sneak off to.
The fact that she chose this place at a time like this says a lot.
Even if she hasn’t admitted it to herself, she wants to be close to me. She still has feelings for me.
Turning, I stare out over the lazy stream and consider what she just told me.
We had so many conversations about our future back then, including children.
It never occurred to me that I wouldn’t have children of my own; it’s the natural progression of life.
You grow up, get married, and have children.
What does life look like without any? So many big and little dreams that appear unbidden in a man’s mind: going to school events, taking off training wheels, learning to drive. It was always a given that those rites of passage would be my experience someday.
I choose Breanna. I don’t care if it’s just me and her for the rest of our lives; I choose her. If I have to reassure her for the rest of her life that she’s enough, that she’s all I need, I will.
We spent so many nights out here, but the most important night was when she gave herself to me.
We fought against it for the longest time.
I don’t remember the exact moment it changed, but I’ll never forget the night she was straddling me and it was killing me to feel the heat between her legs pressed against my cock that was so hard I thought it would bust through my zipper.
She broke the kiss and leaned away from me, her lips were kiss-swollen in the moonlight, and I could see in her eyes that she wanted me as bad as I wanted her. The heat of our connection and the smell of her arousal perfumed the air between us. Fuck, I wanted her so bad.
“I want to do it.” Her whispered pant rushed out as her fingertips dug into the bare skin on my shoulders.
The spaghetti strap of her tiny tank top was off her shoulder, the top of her breast exposed, barely hanging on her hard nipple. Her skin was so soft as I slide my hands up her back, my fingers bumping along the small hills of her spine under her shirt.
“Are you sure?”
Her beautiful eyes were shining in the moonlight, it was a full moon that night, the cicadas were chirping all around us, and the summer heat had us both sweating. But we didn’t feel anything outside of the heat we were creating together.
She bobbed her head, making the curls of her ponytail bounce around her head. “Yes, I love you, Mato. I want this.”
I had started bringing condoms with me just in case, because we had started going further and further every night, and I didn’t want to be unprepared. “I love you, too, Nudo.”
I let her take the lead that night, and my eyes never left hers. I watched every emotion that crossed her face as she slowly lowered herself onto me, every fucking one was beautiful, and they were mine.
She gave herself to me freely, her heart, her love, her trust, everything.
It was after we stepped through that door that she told me she wanted to tell her father she wasn’t going to college. We fought about it so often that I sometimes wished we hadn’t crossed that line because I knew that was what tipped the scales.
She was so scared of being away from me, and when I left, I fed that fear. I broke us. Deep down, I knew that, and that was partly why I was afraid to call her. I knew we wouldn’t be the same. If only I’d known just how broken she was.
She came here, to this spot, to be close. To be reminded. Even if she doesn’t realize it, she came down here to be with me.
Sucking in a deep sigh of relief, I know I’ve lowered some of her defenses. I won’t stop until I’ve shattered them all.