Ignore the large penis pressed against you. He’s not even hard. See, you don’t do anything for him. Not. A. Thing.
My mind went back to a few hours ago, when I’d walked into the bathroom and found him butt-ass naked. The man had a body to die for. His abs had abs. He was toned in all the right places. His chest was broad, and his muscles . . . I was getting warm just thinking of them.
Let’s not forget his dick—Lord Almighty, he was thick and long. The way it got so hard, so fast, and then jumped against his stomach had my panties instantly soaking wet. It had been a long time since I’d been with a man, and I’d wanted to drop to my knees and taste him so badly, I hadn’t been able to think straight. Good thing my tailbone hurt like a bitch and I hadn’t totally lost all my senses in that moment, or I might have.
“Are you okay? Lying like this doesn’t hurt you, does it?”
The concern in his voice caused tears to fill my eyes. I forced myself to keep my voice calm and steady as I answered him. “I’m good—it doesn’t hurt.”
He held me a bit tighter, and this time a tear did fall. Then another. I squeezed my eyes shut and wished more than anything that Ty felt the same way about me as I did him.
“Good night, Kaylee,” he whispered in the softest voice.
Determined not to let him know I was upset, I spoke clearly. “Night, Ty.”
He soon drifted off to sleep, his breathing slow and rhythmic, me in his arms, tucked nicely against his body. It was a terribly romantic moment, one you would read about in a romance novel. It might as well have been fiction.
I cursed myself for being so foolish. There was a man out there willing and ready to have a relationship with me, yet I couldn’t seem to let go of my feelings for Ty.
I willed myself not to cry again. Instead, I closed my eyes as sleep overtook me and soon got lost in a dream.
A dream that would soon turn into a nightmare.
John stood before me, a gun held in his hand.
“I’m not happy, Kaylee. I haven’t been for a long time.”
Tears streamed down my face. “John, please, we can figure this out.”
He shook his head. “No, it’s too late.”
I wrapped my arms around my body and cried harder. “It’s never too late. Please don’t do this. Please!”
The sound of the gun firing caused me to scream. I covered my eyes and prayed it wasn’t real. I hadn’t just seen my fiancé take his own life. It was a dream. Please, dear God, please let this be a dream.
“Kaylee? Kaylee, wake up.”
My eyes shot open and I gasped for breath. Ty was crouched in front of me, concern etched all over his face. His beautiful blue eyes were looking directly into mine.
“You had a nightmare. A very intense one. Are you okay?”
I reached out and placed my hand on the side of his face. Was this a dream still? I was so confused. Pain engulfed me. Both physical and emotional. My head, my lower back, my heart. It felt all consuming.
When his hand covered mine, tingles zipped through my body, and I knew in that moment that I wasn’t dreaming.
“I haven’t had that dream in a long time,” I finally said.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
Normally my answer to that question was no. But I was tired of saying no. Tired of keeping it all inside. Tired of being alone and pretending that my life was completely normal when it was so far from normal.
I slowly moved to sit up, my lower back still hurting something fierce, but it wasn’t as bad as it had been earlier. Ty moved back, still crouched down, now looking up at me.
“I have this dream that I’m in the room with John.” Ty had a confused look on his face at the mention of him. “John was my fiancé. He took his own life a few years ago. Anyway, I’m in the room when he kills himself. It’s so vivid, and there are moments I can’t tell if it’s a dream or a memory. It’s really odd, because I wasn’t there when he killed himself. But in the dream, I’m right in front of him, begging him not to pull the trigger, and it feels so real. It’s unnerving.”
Ty took my hands in his but didn’t say anything, which, oddly, I appreciated. I hated when people said they were sorry or that it wasn’t my fault. I just wanted someone to listen. Someone other than the therapists.
“I had been out of town when John shot himself. My parents had this benefit dinner in the Hamptons, and they had asked me to fly to New York. I had no idea John was so tormented. So unhappy. A few months before he took his life, he had mentioned splitting up but then changed his mind. I didn’t see any signs. No one did. For the longest time, I blamed myself. My thinking was that I wasn’t good enough for him, didn’t pay him enough attention. Maybe he’d met someone else, someone who loved him better than I did. I still don’t know why he did it, because he didn’t say much in his note. Not knowing has been the worst kind of torture.”