“It’s just a dream,” I say again, believing he’s awake, but he looks right through me. “JAKE,” he says again. “I’m sorry.”
“TYLER.” I’m firmer this time, using my other hand to touch his face. “Tyler. Wake up.”
He blinks, still holding me tightly enough to bring tears to my eyes. It takes him a few seconds to come to, and when he does, the first thing he does is to focus on the place we’re touching. My hand is released like it was molten against his skin, and then he closes his eyes, his jaw ticking as he grits his teeth.
“Tyler, it’s okay. It was just a dream.”
“Not a fucking dream,” he says, and a tear leaks from his eye, running into the shell of his ear. It’s a crazy instinct to brush it away with my finger, the heat of his skin so intense against me that I let out a puff of air. His eyes find mine, and I’m locked in place. He seems to stare into me and through me all at the same time, searching for something intangible. At least, that’s what it feels like. My heart races like it always did in the moments before we kissed, with anticipation and desperation and a deep, deep connection. Before I say anything, his hand is in my hair, the brute force of him pulling my mouth to his.
The kiss is rough and unchoreographed, a clash of lips, teeth, and unfamiliarity. My heart pounds as my body primes for more. Tyler’s hands hold me firm, and I brace myself on his muscular chest, palms feeling the pounding of his heart beneath. His tongue forces its way into my mouth, and I whimper as a flash of our past passion blasts into my mind.
That was filled with connection.
This is not.
I ache for Tyler. The Tyler who felt like the other half of my soul, but this man isn’t him. This man is broken by events that he can’t share with me, and the fierceness of his need is shattering me too.
But I can’t stop.
I can’t break the spell.
His desperation is what I want. The harshness of his touch is easier to bear than softness and sympathy. Like this, we’re two different people than we were. Two people so changed by our past that we no longer fit together.
Except, when he hauls me onto the couch, rolling until he’s over me, it feels like it used to. The thickness of his cock grinds against my pussy, and my body reacts in just the same way. His hands are up under my cami, squeezing as he kisses me deeply. Muscular thighs push my softer ones apart, and all that is between us is a tiny pair of satin shorts and his cotton underwear.
Everything feels like a dream; the darkness around us a comforter that fogs my mind so I can push aside all the reasons that this is a terrible idea, and I can forget that we’re in a communal part of his shared house, and anyone could stumble upon us.
There was a rhythm to the way we were together that beats so deep in my soul that fighting it is impossible. My fingers dig into the firmness of Tyler’s ass, and his hips shift until the blunt head of his cock notches at my entrance. The barriers are still there between us, but the intention is plain.
And I want him. I want him so badly that tears leak from my eyes and trail into the hair at my temples. My chest hitches with a sob that builds so fast I can’t hold it in. But Tyler doesn’t notice. In a second, his cock is free, and the slip of fabric between my legs is shoved aside. I brace for the stretch that I know is coming, and when he pushes deep inside me in one thrust, I don’t even care about the sharpness of the friction or the way my cervix aches because this is meant to be.
I’m sure of it.
My car has always been reliable.
I’ve never driven out this way before.
Something bigger than both of us put us in the same place at the same time, of that I’m certain.
Tyler’s face is buried in my neck as he fucks me so deep and hard that I’m whimpering and grasping at his back. There’s a new precision in the movement of his hips that tells me he’s had other women in the past four years. But none of that matters because this is us.
Sandy and Tyler.
We were always meant to be together, like the moon and stars or like ice cream and chocolate sauce. My heart knows his heart, and when they’re pressed together, they synchronize as though they become one.
His teeth nip at my neck, then his kisses soothe, and I stroke over his broad, strong back, needing to ground myself against him because while this is happening, we are both okay. But when it’s done – when he’s torn us both open – we won’t ever be the same.
There’s a tidal wave coming that is so tall it’s going to knock us both off our feet and send us spinning into the churning waters.
A tidal wave of our own making.
Between my legs, the ache turns into a well of pleasure that’s ready to overflow. His rough hands palm my breasts and pluck at my nipples, and I’m lost in the sound of his desperate breathing by my ear. When I come it is a slow slither into darkness, interspersed by a flash of bright light, and the waves of contractions must trigger something in Tyler too because he shouts, swelling inside me, curling into my body so that there isn’t a part of us that isn’t touching.
My neck feels wet where Tyler’s face is buried, and I’m just about to turn to touch his cheek when feet thud at the bottom of the stairs. There’s no time to disentangle ourselves. No time for Tyler to come around and realize what we’ve done.
It was all a dream of a time in the past when things were so easy.
But when Greg appears around the door and his eyes meet mine in the darkness, everything becomes difficult.
7
GREG
It takes a couple of seconds for the sight of Tyler on top of Sandy to come into focus. Her legs are wrapped around him, and his face is buried in her neck.
Shit.
I knew this was going to happen. From the moment he brought Sandy’s car into the repair shop, and I realized who she was, I knew.
Life has taught me enough to know that some people are drawn to each other like moths to a flame. It’s impossible to keep them apart.
I’ve had to work hard in my own life to stop getting dragged back down by my family and my neighborhood friends. Distance has been the only thing that has kept the old part of my life, the part where I ended up back in jail every few months, from taking over. My brothers at Deep Repairs have kept me on the straight and narrow. They’ve given me a chance to build something that is worth fighting for. They didn’t give up on me, even when my choices were bad enough for them to leave me behind.
But Tyler is getting dragged down.
I know Sandy doesn’t mean to do it. She might have an idea of what has happened to Tyler since they parted company, but she doesn’t know. She’ll never be able to imagine the full extent, even if he tried to explain. You had to be there to see it.
Her being here is a bad idea.
I told Andrew, and he agreed, but what could we do? There was no way that Tyler was going to push Sandy away. Not when everything in him remembers how good things were between them.
Sandy shifts, sliding her fingers into Tyler’s hair. “Tyler.”
I turn my back, but I don’t leave.
“Tyler,” she says again.
“What’s going on?” From his bedroom door, Andrew’s line of sight catches me standing in the kitchen, but he can’t see Tyler and Sandy yet.