So she liked it a little rougher. I looked down at her, smiling as I moved my hips against hers with a little more force, hearing our flesh clap each time it met. I needed to be closer, but I couldn’t pump that way if our chests were touching, so I slowed things down and laid my body atop hers, resting my jaw on her brow, feeling her soft breath warm against my throat.
There was a kind of energy between us, surrounding us, that felt solid, like we were grounded by a force outside our awareness. She leaned down and kissed the Mark on my arm softly, closing her eyes as she remembered the first time she saw it by the lake that day—how much she loved me even then.
“Jase?”
“Yeah?”
“I love you.”
I stopped and drew back to look down at her, dead shocked. I never ever thought she’d have the strength to admit that to me—not in a million years. “I love you, too, Ara. For forever,” I said, then quickly kissed her mouth. “And I will die loving you.”
She rolled back, closing her eyes for a second as my words entered her heart and soul, killing her a little. I couldn’t look. I didn’t want to see her suffer for my death, then reason that it was better than losing David. Then again, maybe I deserved to see it.
I looked down to where our bodies connected, watching myself go inside her, the gentle curve of her waist and the soft white flesh on her belly colouring my peripheral. She was so petite; hips small enough to wrap my hands around, her thighs almost too bony, the joints showing where her legs parted—only a soft, small handful of flesh covering it, quivering each time I brushed against her. I wanted to bite her there—could almost taste the memory in the back of my throat; could still see remnants of the scar I left on the night I tried to turn her. But she wasn’t thinking about that. She was ready. Her body getting hotter and wetter. I wasn’t sure if she’d felt an orgasm before, but I was hell-bent on making sure this was one she’d never forget.
I leaned back a little and licked my thumb before pressing it to the most sensitive spot a guy can ever touch a girl. And she swore, her body almost freezing with shock. Clearly, David had never ventured to this realm, either.
“What is that?” she said, way too loud.
I looked over at her door, smiling. “Clitoral stimulation.”
“Oh.”
I laughed. Such a sweet innocent thing she was.
Her eyes met mine, and past the obvious pleasure she was feeling, I saw curiosity. She wondered why I was smiling that way, what I found so funny. But it wasn’t amusement, not at her expense anyway. I was just happy. Happy to be here, with her, feeling her this way.
I felt her tighten inside. And her mind told me to move left, when I knew I needed to move right. I shifted my thumb, making softer circles, pressing firmer each time she groaned, and when the tightening reached the highest point inside her, I let go, thrusting myself toward it, falling down hard on top of her.
Moisture flooded between us, making everything deliciously wet, scented with her sweet smell. She could hardly breathe, hardly focus on anything, and her fingernails went deep into my ribs, cutting, her legs firmly around my hips, pulling me into place, holding me exactly where she wanted me.
And I let go—felt myself release, emptying every ounce of love, lust, desire, pain, sorrow, regret and longing into her, imagining my life force race through, deeper and deeper to a place where miracles happened and life was conceived. We were one.
One soul.
One heart.
One love.
Forever.
A lifetime of eternity folded out in the seconds before us, and she was mine for all that time. I saw it all—the future, the past, the world that could and never would be. I was not in it. And a part of me wondered, as much as it hoped, that she would not move on from me—she would not be okay without me, because I knew that each day that would pass until my death, I would not be okay without her. A threshold had been crossed, and I never wanted to go back to before. Back to wondering what life would be like loving her. I’d tasted it now, and I would never again be the same.
I could feel her fragile body beneath mine, feel her tight and warm around me, feel every move, every twitch inside her, but the only thing my heart focused on was her hand against my chest, placed there so absently; a touch of love, her thin fingers so precious and delicate, so fiery and dangerous, so sweetly and wonderfully mine. I closed my eyes and focused on our last seconds together before all this would end. If I could have taken her life in that breath and given mine at the same time, and it would’ve meant we’d stay like this forever, I would have.
“Ara.” I slipped my hand beneath her spine and rolled her body up, cradling her face to my chest, feeling her soft, lustful breaths brush my bare skin as tears fell past my lashes and into her hair. “I wish I could hold onto you like this forever.”
She kissed my chest, running a finger over the wet spot her lips left, then wrapped herself around me so tightly I held my own breath. I never wanted her to let go, but I knew it was time. I knew the heat would die down any second now, allowing room for regret, fear, concern…sorrow.
“Jase?”
I shuffled back, slipping out of her. “Yeah?”
“This won't make it okay.”
My gut sunk. “What do you mean?”
“I mean…I love him. I really do, and I…I can see his face. I can see the way he’ll look at me when I tell him the baby’s yours.” She shut her eyes around that thought.
“Shh.” I kissed her eye, running my thumb over her lashes. “It’s okay. We’ll tell him together.”
“No.” She looked up at me. “We can't. He needs to be free to have an emotional reaction. He can't do that with you there—with anyone else there.”
I sat back a little more. “It’s his emotional reaction I'm worried about, Ara.”
“He won't hurt me, Jase.”
“Then you don't know him very well.”
“Or maybe you don't.”
I moved back when she shoved me and slid out of bed.
“Stop always thinking the worst of him.”
“Ara, I’ve seen it. I've goddamn well seen him hit a girl before.” I stood beside her, wishing I could touch her, make her see reason. “Why won't you listen to me?”
“Because it’s irrelevant, Jason.”
“Why?”
“Look what we did.” She pointed at the bed. “We betrayed him. We loved each other in his bed. He’d be right to hurt me for that, Jason.”