Her eyebrows pinched. “No.”
“Are you alright?” I finally asked, and maybe that was the question I wanted answered the most. Or the one behind it.
Are we alright?
She hesitated, only slightly, but I noticed it. And instead of answering with her words, she nodded weakly.
It cleaved my chest.
“Fuck,” I bit off and leaned forward to press my forehead against the cool wall for support. For several long breaths, we stayed there. My head on the wall, her face pressed against my chest, our breath matching. Then I pushed back and looked at her, shaking my head. “I’m sorry—”
“Don’t be. It’s okay, I—”
“I need to go,” I announced before she could get the rest out.
She jolted, standing up straighter and looking alarmed. Her hands came about my waist, grabbing onto my shirt and holding tight. “What? No! Con, no.”
“Just—” I caught her hands, because their soft touch was burning me. “Just for a little bit. I need some air.”
Leaning forward, I pressed a soft lingering kiss to the top of her head and barely refrained myself from cursing again as I pulled up and pushed away.
“I’m sorry,” I repeated as I exited the bathroom without even looking at her.
The beach. That’s where I went. That’s where I always went, hoping it would somehow fix me. It never did. The only person who ever actually fixed me, who even knew when I was broken was also the one unknowingly doing the breaking. Even more ironically, I had maybe just broken things more than she ever could.
Marching far enough on the sand that I came right up to the split of the shore, water kissed my feet in its up and back motions. The waves were loud as they crashed over themselves, but I somehow wish I was under them.In them, so the sound could be louder.
Fuck. Why had I done that? I raked a hand over my head and groaned. Her body just felt so good,too goodpressed close to mine.
But still…Fuck!
It wasn’t worth it! It wasn’t worth having to hear those words.
Stop. That word, it rang through my head and clanged against my mind like a caged animal, even now. Even after she insisted she was okay. She still wanted me to stop. And the slice of that word, what it meant, had not been worth the fleeting feeling of her body finally being on mine. Not even if it did feel fucking amazing.
Who cared how good it felt then if I could feel like this after? What the hell was it even all for if I ended up losing her in the end?
Stop.
I needed to fucking stop. Needed to get a grip on this strange feeling that was crawling up my spine and taking hold of my control center. It started a long time ago, but truthfully, it had only grown since then. And now, ever since the possibility of her being taken from me, I couldn’t control it from slipping out. Whatever it was, it was steering me over and over in the wrong direction. In the direction of pushy, and needy, and too damn much for her. Too much right now.
I had to back off. Had to. Even though the sadist in me kept wondering why, after all this time, wasn’t it enough for her? Why wasn’t I?
I shook my head.Stop, Connor.It’s time to stop. Before you fucking lose her.
I don’t know how long I was out there or how many times it took to convince myself not to drown myself under the thrashing waves, but eventually I made my way back inside.
I found Ceci dry and comfortable, tucked up against the headboard of my bed. She held the little ball of fur in the cradle of her arms, and she wore my clothes from top to bottom.
Mine.
My mind emphasized the point as my eyes skittered around her form, looking for any sign she was unwell. There were none. She looked content tucked up close with her new baby. And she looked serious as she raised her head and assessed me. Her eyes moved about me the same way mine moved about her. Hers was a special sort of look.
For most, Ceci was a hard person. She was harsh and stubborn until you until you found the secret parts she protected.Hid. And then she was like Jell-O. Never quite soft, but bouncy, flexible, fun, and never quite as serious as she was with those she doesn’t know or trust.
She had only ever been that hard, serious Ceci with me once when we first met. Sometime between mistaking her for my sister in bed and that very same day when we went out to get pancakes, she had trusted me. And for every second since, she’d been “Jell-O Ceci”. She rolled with the punches, absorbing the hard stuff and bouncing the soft stuff right off her back.
Her looking at me so seriously now, like she wasn’t sure who I was standing in front of her—like she didn’t know me, and she had to size me up like we were meeting for the first time. Her looking at me like I wasnewto her, it broke me.
