“I have to go,” I tell Isaac. “I think she’s waking up.”
He wishes me luck before I end the call and hurry upstairs, to see her sitting upright in my bed, tears streaking down her face and her hair in disarray. She looks at me with wide eyes and immediately breaks down into more sobs.
“Sam,” she gasps. She sounds like she's hyperventilating. I rush to her side and drag her into my arms as she shakes her head and continues to cry. “Sam, I'm so sorry. I-I didn't know what to do. And then Jake is…”
Her face crumples.
“Jake is dead, and I-I killed Marissa. I—”
“Shh,” I whisper, kissing her forehead and holding her tightly. “You're safe,” I soothe. “It's all over. You're safe, you're going to be okay.”
Even as I say it, I can't help thinking that that's not the case. Isaac's words whirl around in my head, and I know in my heart that he's right. She needs help—real help, and more than I can give her. I’m a fucked-up mess of emotions myself that is likely going to make things worse for her. She's clearly having a mental breakdown of some sort and I'm in no way equipped to handle it.
I can only hope that this is something she can come back from. Even without knowing all the details, I know she's so strong. She’s gotten through so much in her life. If anyone can get through this, it’s her.
She draws back, sniffling and wiping her face with her sleeve.
“Sam,” she whispers. When I turn to her, she leans in and kisses me. It takes all my strength to hold her at arm’s length and stop it. I want her so badly, I always do, but not while she's like this. Her eyes well with fresh tears, which I'm quick to wipe away.
“I want you to go to the hospital, Chloe,” I tell her. One of us needs to be the fucking adult in the room. My track record for that isn't great, but there's no time like the present. “I know you can come back from this; you just need help—real help—not whatever fucked-up version of it I can give you, okay?”
She just stares at me, her expression blank and defeated. Like she’s given up. She shakes her head, crying again. I cup her face with both hands and force her to look at me.
“Chloe, please. I want you to get better, and I know you can. But you need help. It's alright to need help, everyone needs it sometime or another.Please.”
“I don't want to go to a psych ward!” she cries, pulling away. I don't let her go far, holding her hands instead of her face as she cries and shakes next to me. “I don't… I can't—”
“You can. I know you can,” I say, doing my best to show her how much this means to me. If there's one thing I can rely on, it's that she's as gone on me as I am on her, and she'll see sense eventually. “You're smart, and you're so strong, Chloe. I know you can get the help you need and deserve. The help you should have gotten from the beginning. Please, just do this for me? Just try it? I promise I won't have you locked away. You just need to try and get help. For me.”
She looks at me, her big, beautiful eyes shining in the light of the bedside lamp. She bites her lower lip and looks down at our joined hands.
She sighs.
“Okay,” she agrees. I breathe a sigh of relief. “On one condition.”
“Name it,” I promise. “Anything.”
“Just…make me forget? Just for tonight.” She looks at me, shy and seductive. “I want to feel you inside me again. I don't want to think about what happened, or what's going to happen. I just want you.”
I'm not as strong as she is. I could never deny her that. With a nod, I allow her to kiss me again, drawing me into her arms as easily as she always has. I undress her with reverent hands, her body still just as perfect as it has always been. She's so delicate beneath me, like she could shatter into glass shards at a moment's notice.
“Sam,” she whispers, as I press her down onto my bed and allow her to push my shirt over my head and off, joining her clothes on the floor. She's blushing down to her chest and shaking beneath me, already soaking wet when I put my fingers between her legs and test her readiness.
“You're safe,” I promise her, kissing the words to her pink cheek. “I'm not going to let anything happen to you.”
She smiles shakily, arching up to kiss me again as I shed the rest of my clothes and slide beneath the blankets with her. She's so warm, burning up from the inside; my own personal, perfect woman. Whatever other emotions I feel, I know that nothing feels sorightas when she spreads her legs and welcomes me back inside her, just as eagerly as she always has.
Her fingers card through my hair, holding me close, our foreheads pressed tight together as I push inside her, immediately overwhelmed by how tight and hot andwetshe is. God, she's so perfect for me, she was made just for me.
She'smine,and I'm not going to let anything happen to her.
It feels like it's been far too long since we've shared this, pressed close together in the half-light of the room, nothing else in the world but how we fit together, how perfectly she rests beneath me and wraps around me.
“You'remine,” I whisper to her, kissing her again and again as she gasps and claws at my back, digging red lines on either side of my spine. “I'm not going to let anything happen to you, Chloe. I take care of what's mine.”
“Yes,” she gasps, eyes shining with tears. “I’m yours. Yours,Sam…”
I lower one of my hands to between the sweaty press of our bodies, thumbing her clit to the same rhythm of my cock grinding in and out of her, desperate to feel her clench down and shudder around me. It feels fucking amazing whenever I make her come, proving to me that she's made for me, that we're made for each other.