“I drive you crazy?”
He guffaws. “You have no idea.” He takes a second and just looks down at me, his face all a mingle of strange, conflicting emotions. “And then tonight … thank god I came after you. I almost … we almost …” he’s choking something back, and though he can’t finish his sentence, I know what he means.
I can’t do anything but stare at him as hot tears roll down my cheeks too. Everything he’s saying to me sounds like a dream, but it’s real. I know it’s real. I can feel his warm body against me, his strong arms around me, and his wet tears that I’ve swept from his face on my fingers.
“Why in the world would you try and drown yourself?” He shakes his head as he tries to let go of all the pain he’s been carrying.
“It was an accident,” I say, but as soon as I do … I know it’s a lie. I promised myself no more lies, so I force myself to tell the truth. “I didn’t see an end to it all,” I admit. “It all just kept going and going … getting worse … and for a moment, it just seemed like it was the only way.
He crumbles in my arms. He pulls me close to him once more, and my cheek is against his chest.
“Don’t ever try to do that again. I couldn’t bear it if I lost you for good. I lost you once. I’m not going to lose you again.”
I can hear his heart race and his breath catch in him. He looks down at me and I can see that he’s the one drowning now.
Wills touches my cheek gently with his fingertip, and then leans close and kisses me soft and slow. My lips part, and as our tongues meet, heat flows into me from him and all through me. Our kiss deepens, and I slide my arms around his neck, holding him to me.
“I missed this so much. I missed you so much,” he tells me in a husky whisper as his mouth leaves mine and trails down my neck.
We grow breathless and I realize that I’m laying nude in his arms. He draws his hand down my arm and his eyes drop to my bare chest, and he leans close to me, resting his forehead against mine as he speaks in a hush.
“I wanted something romantic for you; something perfect.”
My own breath catches, and I find I’m surprisingly sober. “I think we’re past that now,” I say, and I kiss him again. I know he feels the need in me, the willingness, the desire.
He takes my hand and weaves his fingers through mine as he kisses me softly again. When he breaks away, he’s looking into my eyes like it’s the first time he’s ever really seen me.
“I won’t do it if you don’t want to,” he says quietly.
I keep my gaze fixed to him as I bring his hand to my breast. He gasps and kisses me again, and I start to peel his wet, white cotton pirate shirt off of his sculpted form.
“Trust me,” I say. “I want to. I want … you.”
Wills has a tender touch, slow and almost methodical. It’s like he wants to take his sweet time getting to know every inch of me, and not miss any of it in a heated rush. The more he touches me and kisses me, the hotter my blood rushes through my body until I need him so desperately that call out his name, pleading with him to be one with me, and he does.
He makes love with me the same way he touches me; savoring every moment of it, holding me and kissing me, and with every touch he heals the deep hurts in me. It’s like a miracle, and it’s precious and perfect.
We hold tight to each other for a long while, and when we are finally laying peacefully in each other’s arms, he traces the lines and curves on my face and looks at me seriously.
I must be betraying some of the emotions I’m feeling, because he sits up suddenly and asks me what’s wrong.
“Nothing,” I say, reaching to pull him back to down to me. “I just,” and here I have to look away. “I’m afraid you’re going to just forget me again. I can’t go back to the way things were.”
He holds me even tighter and doesn’t look away.
“I promise you, Teddy, that I’m not going anywhere ever again. I don’t care what anyone else thinks. It’s you and me, and no one is getting in the way of that again.”
Chapter 12
When I go back to my room much later, Dana is sitting in bed with a book, waiting for me.
“Oh God, there you are, I was so worried!” She pauses in her tirade for a moment and her eyes move over my face. “You are okay, aren’t you?”
I’m wearing a spare pair of sweats and a tee-shirt that Wills kept in his swim locker, but my arms and feet have scrapes on them from the earlier exposed run. I see from the way she’s looking at me that she’s more than a little curious. Dana takes my arms in her hands and looks over them carefully and then raises her eyes to meet mine again.
“Where have you been? What happened to you?” she presses insistently.
I know that there’s no getting out of it. Not when she’s going to see the obvious change first thing in the morning, when Wills comes to walk me to class as he promised. That sort of change isn’t going to go unnoticed—and I don’t want it to.