Chapter 4 #2
I don’t. I should. It’s selfish because I’m not ready for whatever this is, and it is something, but I want it anyway.
I don’t answer.
I don’t know what regret feels like anymore. I’ve been stuck in it for so long it’s become the background hum of everything I do.
But this… her… that kiss… no, those kisses… it didn’t feel like regret.
It felt like breathing after holding it for too long.
It hurt, but I crave more. I need more. But I don’t know what I have to give. I can only take.
That’s not fair to her.
“I want to protect you,” I finally say.
Her voice is quiet. “From what exactly?”
“From me.” It’s blunt… honest.
She lets out a laugh. It’s low, tired, and cracked down the middle.
“You’re not the one who broke me, Gruene.”
“No, I’m not. But I can’t give you what you want. What you deserve. I saw it today.”
She inhales and laughs dryly, but she doesn’t speak.
“You wanted more, Blakelyn. You deserve more than I can give.” I growl it.
She exhales. “I don’t know what I want.”
“You want me.”
Her head turns. Our eyes lock. And she says the one thing that ruins me completely. “You want me, too. Don’t lie to me or yourself about that, Gruene. I can’t stand a liar.”
My chest caves. Because she’s right.
I want her. I want more .
I felt it when I kissed her. When I had my hand on her jaw and her thigh was pressed into mine… when she made that sound —half breath, half plea—and my body lit up like a fucking live wire… that was real.
I’m lying. Not just to her. To myself. And I can’t do it anymore.
“I think about you when I close my eyes,” I say, my voice as rough as gravel. “I think about your hands. Your mouth. The way you look at me when you think I’m not paying attention.”
She goes completely still beside me.
“I want to be near you, and I want to keep you away at the same time.”
I do. I want her and I don’t want to want her. I don’t deserve to want her, but I fucking do all the same.
Her breath catches. “I know that.”
“It’s not fair.” I snap, wanting to walk away. But I don’t.
“It’s not supposed to be fair, Gruene. Life isn’t fucking fair.
I fell in love with someone who didn’t actually exist. He was supposed to love me, to protect me…
to cherish me. Instead, he fucking hurt me…
mentally and physically. Over and over and over again until the day I left…
in the middle of the night with eight boxes to my name.
You… you lost your family… your wife and daughter…
your world… because of a freak and tragic accident.
Life isn’t fair. But it doesn’t mean you stop living it.
” Her voice is cracked, broken, raw, and so damn honest, it hits me like a punch to the gut.
I look at her. She stares back and she waits...
For the truth. For the risk. For me.
“I don’t know what I’m doing,” I say. “I don’t know what the fuck I’m supposed to do here, Blakelyn. I’m broken, a shell of the man I used to be. I don’t know how to be anyone else. I’m fucking drowning here. I’m in the middle of the river with rapids pummeling me and I can’t get back in the raft.”
Her lips twitch and she says, “Welcome to the club.”
I laugh. It’s low and broken and completely fucking real. And then, I reach for her.
This time, I kiss her like I meant to the first time.
Not a warning. Not a snap. Not a mistake. A promise .
Her fingers dive into my hair, fisting it, holding my face a willing hostage as her mouth opens under mine, soft and greedy and right.
Her tongue twines with mine in a sensual dance. She tastes like heat and salt and possibility .
I haul her into my lap like I’ve got something to prove and bury my mouth in the crook of her neck. She gasps, and her legs wrap around my waist like she was made to fit there.
I drag my hands up her thighs, under her shirt, along her ribs. Her skin burns. So do I.
I want her.
Fuck, I want her.
But when I reach for the hem of her shirt, she stills. “Wait,” she breathes. I freeze. Every muscle in my body goes tight. “I want this,” she whispers. “I do. But I want to feel it.”
“You will. ” I promise.
She shakes her head, eyes shining. “Not just your body, Gruene. You. All of you.”
My throat clenches and my fingers dig into her sides. “You don’t want that.”
“I do.”
I slide my hand to the back of her neck, drawing her forehead to mine. “Then, you better hold on.”
She pulls my shirt off and reaches for her own.
My hands reach for the clasp of her bra, and I open it, letting it glide down her arms before she drops it beside our shirts.
Our chests are bare. We stare at each other in the moonlight.
My jaw tightens as she traces the scars over my neck, chest, back, and side.
She presses her lips to them, kissing each one, no, worshipping them.
Growling, I palm her breasts. My thumbs flick over her peaked nipples before I close my lips over one, sucking it, flicking it with my tongue, biting it, then, laving it to soothe the ache and moving on to the other.
Her hands are in my hair, holding on tightly as I pleasure her.
She grinds down against me, riding me over my jeans and through her shorts.
The friction along with my lips, tongue, and hands makes her moan.
Her pace quickens, her gasps and her moans deepen, and I know she’s close.
My mouth closes over her nipple, and I bite down on one as I pinch the other.
Her back arches and she screams my name into the night, “Gruene… Ohhhhhhh… Yes…. Mmmmmm…”
I’m as hard as a rock beneath her, but I can’t stop staring at her.
Her chest is flushed, she’s still quivering, and her breath is ragged.
Her thighs and shorts-covered crotch are slick against my jeans.
Her hands still tremble in my hair. With my mouth lost between her breasts and her throat, I grind up against her and come in my jeans, her fucking name on my lips like a prayer, “Blakelyn… oh, Blakelyn.”
We fall apart together, still mostly clothed on the dock. And when we finally collapse beside each other, panting and silent, the sun long gone behind the trees… I realize something terrifying.
I don’t want her to leave.
I want her to stay.
That means I can’t keep pretending this doesn’t matter… because it does.
She does.
God help me.