A touch of sadness wrapped around her. She could hear the resignation in his voice. Even though the idea held some appeal for him, it had been too far out, too much. The demons were bigger. And somber reality settled in. It didn’t matter how they felt about each other. Some hurdles were too high. He couldn’t take that leap, and she couldn’t be a secret. Where could they go if those two things were immovable? Nowhere.
She needed to accept that. Had to. Otherwise they’d both be hurting each other even worse—over and over again. If they weren’t right for each other, they had to move on. Stop holding out, stop avoiding other relationships. She would make herself let go. She should be good at that by now. She’d done it enough times in her life.
She grabbed his hand and kissed his knuckles, letting the heartbreak move through her. “Hey, it’s okay. Some things just aren’t meant to be, right?”
He closed his eyes. Defeated.
“Let’s not think about any of it anymore, okay? Not right now.” She was grateful her voice sounded ten times stronger than she felt. “Remember what we said yesterday. Real life can’t touch us here. This is the magic house where that can’t interfere. So right now, this moment, is still ours.”
“Baby.” He said the word like it hurt, his eyes opening to meet hers.
Her throat burned.
No. No, they wouldn’t do this. She didn’t want to cry. She didn’t want to say good-bye. She didn’t want to feel this way tonight. Later. She would deal with it later. Alone. Not now.
“Come on. No more heavy stuff.” She tugged his arm and rolled onto her back, forcing him with her. “Let’s not give away these last few hours before the sun comes up. Make love to me, Gib. Like you offered in the bar. No roles, just me and you. Cool sheets and hot skin.”
He braced himself on an elbow, looking down at her, lines deep around his mouth. That pirate smile replaced with the gut-wrenching look of longing and loss and inevitability.
“Let’s give ourselves this. One more great memory.” She swept her fingertips along his jaw. “But when I wake up again, I need you gone. I promise I’ll call a friend to come out here and stay with me. But I don’t want good-bye. I have my own hard limits.”
His expression twisted into anguish, but she didn’t want that, didn’t want this to be a sad moment. She’d learned in life that sometimes things just weren’t meant to be. She’d accepted that long ago when she’d lost her mom and then her grandmother, when she’d seen those around her get adopted, when she’d seen kids with their happy families. Just because you wanted something, didn’t mean you got to have it. The universe was random and often cruel. So she’d learned to enjoy the fleeting moments of joy, those days, hours, minutes when things were wonderful. She wanted a few more minutes of wonderful with Gibson. She’d hold on to that. That would have to be enough.
So she lifted her head and kissed those lines of pain off his face and then found his lips. Once her mouth was on his, he relented. Maybe they weren’t meant to be, but their connection was electric. Anytime they touched, everything else seemed to fall away.
So though she rarely had vanilla sex anymore, she didn’t try to make this more complicated. Right now all she needed was him inside her, joining with her, giving her a piece of himself. Being there in the moment and knowing that on some level, they would always be connected in this way.
Gibson kissed her and braced his body over her, pressing his hot skin to hers. Hard against soft, rough against smooth. His hands roamed her body, her hair, her face, this undercurrent of desperation to every touch, like he was trying to memorize every part of her for safekeeping. She let herself get swept away in it.
“Sam, Sam, Sam.” The murmuring of her name was a steady plea on his lips, a prayer of reverence. And as he kissed along her throat, his cock grew hard and thick against her thigh.
She let her hands move along his back, through his hair, over his ass. Then finally, when she couldn’t wait any longer, she reached between them, taking the smooth length of him in her palm and stroking, rubbing her thumb over his slit and spreading the fluid there.
He groaned into her touch. “Need you.”
She shifted beneath him restlessly and positioned him against her, trying to convey the same words with her body. Need you. Need you. Need you.
He rocked his hips, dragging his length against her, driving pleasure up her spine with long, purposeful strokes, his body huge and hungry above her. Back and forth, back and forth. The heat of him grazing her clit with every thrust.
She writhed beneath him and finally pounded his hip with her fist. “Please, Gib.”
He nuzzled the spot behind her ear and nipped at her neck, the crescendo of his thrusts building. He shifted his weight and she thought he would enter her, but then he stilled. Tension rippled through his muscles.
“What’s wrong?”
“Condom.”
Fuck. They were in her bag on the other side of the room. She didn’t want to break the moment, didn’t want reality to encroach. Everything felt so fragile, the moment built on brittle, thin ice. She didn’t want to plunge into the cold waters beneath. Not yet. “I’m on the pill and just got tested last month.”
His breath puffed against her throat. “You know how long it’s been for me. I’m clean.”
Relief moved through her. Not until that moment did she realize how much she craved him bare, skin to skin, his release pulsing inside her. Even though this would be their one and only time, she could mark him and he could do the same to her. “Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Please, Gib. Fuck me before I flip you over and take it from you.”
“Well, don’t be tempting me like that.”