Chapter 10 #2
I should move… back away… say something that puts distance between what just happened and what it means . But I don’t… because my cum is inside of her and dripping down her thighs. I’ve marked her. Claimed her and part of me doesn’t know if I can let her go.
Blakelyn brushes a thumb under my eye, soft like it doesn’t matter I just fucked her first against the door, and then again, on the goddamn table like I’d been starving for it… for her.
Maybe I have.
I pull back. Slowly. Reluctantly.
She lets me but when I step away, I feel it. That hollow stretch in my chest. The ache… like something vital just got torn loose.
I don’t say a word as I grab my jeans off the floor and quickly step into them, my bare feet heavy against the wood.
She doesn’t say anything either. She just watches me with those amber eyes that see way too fucking much. My hand’s halfway to the doorknob when she finally speaks. “Gruene.”
I pause but don’t turn around.
Her words hit me in the chest. “Don’t run from this.”
I close my eyes. Inhale. Hold. Exhale.
My voice scrapes up from somewhere I don’t want to go. “I’m not running. I’m thinking. ”
She sighs. “Think here. With me.”
Opening the door, I step out into the heat that suddenly feels like fucking Antarctica.
I leave her, alone after fucking her like she was the only woman in the world… in my cabin… again. I walk the riverbank… long strides… bare feet with the rocks biting into the soles of my feet. I forgot to grab my shirt.
The light’s low—almost dusk— the mosquitos are rampant, but I don’t care.
I need space. I need quiet. I need to remember who the fuck I was before her. Before amber eyes and brave words and the way her mouth felt when she whispered “ don’t stop” like I was the only man who ever mattered.
I’ve never let anyone get that close. Not since them. Not since the crash. Not since the silence.
Not since the river swallowed everything I loved and spit me out with nothing but scars and breath I didn’t ask to keep.
I told myself no one else would ever get in. I built my whole damn life around that promise. And now… there’s Blakelyn.
She’s inside me like she was born there. And I don’t know if I can survive it.
I end up at the edge of the river near the bend. The spot I pulled her out of the water. Shaking my head, I walk back toward the cabins… toward our dock… the one we share.
The one she sat on like she owned the world the first time I saw her looking at the river instead of fearing it. That dock has teeth in my memory. And now it’s got her, too.
I sink down onto the edge, elbows on my knees, and stare at the water.
I try not to think about her taste on my tongue. I try not to think about the way she opened up for me like trust was a door she chose to unlock. I try not to think about the look on her face when she said she wanted me.
I concentrate on breathing. Just one fucking breath at a time.
I don’t know how long I’m out here.
It’s fully dark when I hear footsteps. I don’t turn.
She sits beside me, silently. Her thigh brushes against mine.
I don’t move away.
“I didn’t follow you,” she says quietly. “I just… came out here.”
“Same.”
We sit in silence.
The breeze shifts, catching her hair and brushing it against my shoulder.
I stare straight ahead. “I wasn’t supposed to want this, again,” I say after a while. Her breath catches. “I told myself I didn’t deserve it. That I couldn’t want it. That wanting it would mean forgetting what I lost.”
“You won’t forget them,” she whispers.
I shake my head. “No. But I forgot how to feel anything that didn’t come with guilt.”
She’s quiet a moment, then, she reaches for my hand, and fuck me, I let her take it.
Her fingers thread through mine. Warm. Steady.
Not demanding. Not saving. Just… there .
She sighs, “Gruene, I’m not asking you to stop grieving them,” she pauses.
“I’m asking if there’s a version of you that still wants to live. ”
It hits like a brick to the ribs because there isn’t . Not one I’ve let exist. But she’s asking and it matters.
I don’t want to lie to her. So, I squeeze her hand. Just once… not hard. And I say, “I want to try.”
We sit there until the sky’s pitch black. The stars twinkle overhead, and the bugs create a chorus.
She leans her head on my shoulder, and I let her. I lean mine back as we just hold hands and breathe in tandem with the night.
When we finally stand, she doesn’t ask if I’m coming in.
I follow her back to her cabin. She opens the door, and I walk in but I don’t stay the night… not because I don’t want to but because if I’m going to do this, I need to do it without pretending it doesn’t matter.
Whatever is between us…
It’s not casual.
It’s not simple.
It’s dangerous.
It’s the first real thing I’ve let myself feel since the night I killed my family with my own goddamn hands.
And if I’m going to touch her again, it’s going to mean something, and I want to do it with a clear head.
I kiss her at the door. Just once. Deep. Lingering. Honest. And when I pull back, she doesn’t look confused or disappointed.
She just nods… like she gets it… like she knows this isn’t the end. It’s just the edge of something we’re both still terrified to actually name.