He separates my lips and takes a long lick of my pussy. “Christ, you taste so good.”
My head flops back, lengthening my neck, and a moan vibrates low in my chest.
A thick finger presses inside me and curves into the magical spot that will have me coming apart too soon. He pumps his finger while his thumb continues to create its own magic on my clit, each stroke taking me higher and higher and higher.
Another finger joins the first. “Not much further,” he says, his hoarse, deep voice finding new, tantalizing ways to push me closer to the edge. His hot breath brushes my mound.
His tongue flicks my aching clit again, and a tsunami-sized wave of euphoria crashes through me, heat flooding my lower belly with mind-numbing relief.
“Ooooh God, Garrett.” The words fall out on an endless groan.
He kisses my brow after a beat as the euphoria lulls to gentle waves lapping the shoreline. His gesture is so sweet, so tender, it melts me further into my newfound bliss.
He lowers his forehead to mine.
“I love you.” The hushed, unvetted sentence falls past my lips and mist over his with a kiss.
I freeze, the words echoing in my head, my eyes saucer wide. I can barely breathe, almost hoping he didn’t hear them. Almost hoping he did. This wasn’t how I had planned to tell him.
Had I ever planned to really tell him?
But that doesn’t matter now. It’s too late to yank the words back. To hide them away.
I’m not the only one who’s unmoving. It’s as if Garrett has been turned into the stone statue that stands in the middle of his parents’ pond. And I’m sure if I put my hand on his chest, I’d find his heart equally motionless.
But even knowing that, I cannot hold back the feelings I’ve held incheck for so long. “I’ve been in love with you since college. I’ve never stopped loving you.”
I halt the spill of words to gauge his reaction, but what I see on his face is enough to lacerate my heart with a thousand tiny cuts.
His eyes are squeezed closed as if I’m causing him pain, as if I’m the one destroyinghisheart. Behind him, the hum of the refrigerator reminds me I’m sitting on the kitchen counter, too stunned at myself, at his reaction, to jump down. To adjust my clothes. To hide my shame.
Garrett shakes his head, and a long breath hisses from him. It’s only then he opens his eyes.
“I can’t do this, Zara.” His voice doesn’t come out apologetic. Or warm. It’s cold and unyielding. It’s laced with anger…anger that, somehow, I’ve betrayed him.
A sledgehammer slams into my heart, pulverizing it into something unrecognizable, something barely beating. I inhale slowly, gathering the remaining pieces. Taping them together so he can’t see my pain.
Garrett steps away, his face a mirror of the horror spilling inside me. But his doesn’t hold the regret, the grief, the longing twisting through me. Regret I can’t snatch back my words. Regret I can’t tell him I didn’t mean them. Can’t beg him to forget what I said.
I can’t lie to him like I’ve been doing for more than a decade when it comes to my love for him.
So I do the only thing I can to preserve what little dignity I have left. I hop down from the kitchen counter and adjust my clothes.
My movement snaps Garrett out of his stupor. The anger has smoothed off his face, replaced with some other emotion. Annoyance? Agony? Regret?
“I can’t do whatever this thing is between us anymore. I need to focus on Peony and keeping her safe. And happy.” He rubs his side below his ribs where one of his scars is located. “I failed two of my closest friends in the Marines, and they lost their lives. Their kids lost their fathers. Their wives were left widowed.”
He steps back, the canyon between us growing wider, deeper. “I don’t deserve love, but I still want to be friends with you. Like before.”
Like before.
I want to touch his arm, to let him know he does deserve love. But another thought keeps me from reaching out. A toxic thought I can’t shake.
I’m a burden.
I have a chronic illness with symptoms that strike when I least expect them. Symptoms triggered by stress. Symptoms that can make being a mother to Peony challenging.
The husband from the park the other day is strong enough to stand by his wife’s side as they deal with her life-long chronic illness. But not every man is like that.
