She stilled at my touch, affected by my kiss the way I was, like it brought her to life in the exact same way. She stopped eating, even stopped breathing. She subtly turned her cheek my way.
I pulled away and looked down into her face, seeing the single most beautiful woman in the world, the woman I would lay down my life for in a heartbeat, the woman I would sacrifice everything for…because there was nothing more important.
The connection we used to have was still there, as if everything that had just happened never happened at all. She looked at me the way she used to, like I was the tinder to her fire, the dynamite to her explosion, the sunlight to her flower petals.
I lay in bed and watched her undress.
She pulled the sweater over her head, her back to me. Then her arms reached behind her back and unclasped the black bra before she placed it on my dresser. She bent over and pushed off her jeans, giving me an incredible view of her ass.
I’d been thinking about that ass every single day.
Her bag was on the dresser, so she pulled out her little shorts and soft cotton tank. She put everything on, her silhouette so sexy in the dark. She held her small frame with such strength, deepened the arch in her back as she stood straight, stretching.
It was practically foreplay for me.
She moved to the nightstand and put her phone on silent before she took a drink of her water. Her makeup was gone because she’d washed it off when she brushed her teeth. Then she pulled back the sheets and finally joined me.
Man, I could not wait to fuck her again.
My body was still too weak to do it right, to hold myself on top of her without wincing. And I didn’t want to do it half-assed, a compromised version to accommodate my injury. I wanted to be the man she remembered, the man I still was.
So, I had to be patient.
She turned on her side and faced me, so small in my bed. She pulled the covers to her shoulders then stared at me, her hair pushed behind her ear so it wouldn’t be in her face and tickle her nose. She closed her eyes.
I stared at her, watched her eyelashes spread down her cheeks, watched her lips soften as she relaxed. When she didn’t touch me, she kept her knees to her chest and she took up almost no space, like a dog at the end of the bed.
“Come here.”
She opened her eyes.
My hand reached for her wrist and gave her a gentle tug. “Closer.”
“I don’t want to hurt you…”
“You’re hurting me more by staying over there.”
She must have wanted to be close to me too, because she shifted toward me, coming as close as she could without actually touching me. She brought the pillow with her, leaving her face just inches from mine.
It wasn’t exactly what I wanted—but some of her was better than none of her.
My hand grabbed hers and held it on my chest, on my left pec where my heart was. The weight didn’t hurt me since that was one of the few places where I didn’t ache. I interlocked our fingers and stared at her.
She watched me too, looked into my face with her beautiful green eyes, eyes so gentle that she could never hurt anyone who didn’t deserve it.
Her beauty was more powerful than all the pain killers I took. She took away my pain just by looking at me, just by loving me. She brought me peace, brought the stars to my ceiling, brought the summer meadow right into my bedroom. “I love you.” There was no specific moment that those feelings had dawned on me, that she’d said something that suddenly made me feel that way. It had just happened, and when it did, the feeling was infinite, like I’d always felt that way, even before I met her. I couldn’t remember what my life was like before she walked into it, even though it had only been a few months ago that I was fucking whores and picking up strangers at bars. It was like…when your life suddenly became so complete that you didn’t want to remember what it was like to be incomplete.
Her fingers lightly pressed into mine, as if she was saying it back with her affection instead of her words. Her eyes lit up slightly, like she still wasn’t used to hearing me say those words, and she wasn’t used to saying them back. “I love you too.”
Two
Catalina
I decided not to tell him the truth.
There was no point when I wasn’t sure what I was going to do about it.
My heart wanted to stay, wanted to be with the man who made me feel things no one else ever would. But I was also a smart girl, and I knew this high wouldn’t be enough to keep myself happy forever. Someday, I would want more.
Heath could never give that to me.
It was selfish to ask my father and brother to like someone they had every right to loathe.
So, I chose not to think about it, chose not to dwell on it, to live in the moment…until that moment was gone.
I walked upstairs and looked through the glass doors, seeing Heath work with the physical therapist who came to his place to help him. His ribs were broken and wrapped tight, and they would heal on their own in time, but he needed to keep moving if he wanted to keep his strength, to minimize the pain.
Heath dropped onto the bench and sat there, taking a break because the pain was too much. With his head bowed, he breathed hard, like he’d picked up a monster truck tire over his head just seconds ago.
The therapist held the resistance bands and waited, giving him a moment to pull himself together.
I felt wrong watching him struggle. I knew he wouldn’t want me to see him like that, not at his full capacity, so I turned away and headed back downstairs. I looked out the large floor-to-ceiling windows and tried to clear my throat, to drain the water that formed in my eyes. Seeing him in pain was unbearable. I tried to focus on his progress rather than his pain, because he was doing so well. Just had to be patient.
My phone lit up with a text message from Anna. Hey, I stopped by your apartment to say hello. You aren’t home?
I guess that meant Damien didn’t discuss me with her much. I’m at Heath’s.
Well, you want to meet for lunch?
I looked up the stairs like I expected Heath to be standing there, but I knew he would be occupied for the next hour. He didn’t need me right now. Sure. Where do you want to go?
We shared an appetizer while we waited for the food to come out. We also shared a bottle of wine, even though she had to go back to work when this was over.
“Sofia is gone.” She answered my question about the hotel. “She went on maternity leave a week ago and had the baby. He’s healthy and super cute.”
“Aww, that’s great,” I said. “What’s his name?”
“Demetri.”
“Demetri Lombardi,” I said. “Sounds like a king or something.”
“Well, Sofia and Hades love him like he is,” she said with a chuckle. “I’m happy for them, but I do miss having her in the office.”
“Do you think she’ll come back? She’s got two kids now.”
“I think so. Her mother lives with them, so she watches the kids while Sofia’s at work. She likes working.”
“I used to have a crush on Hades when we were younger.”
“Really?” she asked before she took a drink from her wine.
“Yeah, but this was like…” He’d been in my life a long time, since I was young, because they were so much older than me. “When I was eighteen, nineteen, so a long time ago. Now I just see him as another brother, sorta.”