Talk to me. I want to help.
"I told you," I said with a sigh. "I was the kind of girl who reeked of vulnerability and chronically bad choices. I was like a special blend of catnip, the kind designed for deviants and people with flexible morals. I didn't know any of that at the time. God, I didn't knowanythingat the time, but I definitely thought I did. And if you know my sister, you're probably aware that she prefers to be the one who knows everything. Clearly, you don't need my assistance to spell disaster. We had some disasters. That's what happened."
Nick laughed, and I felt curls of his warm breath on my neck.
"I'm on your side, Skip, but I don't buy that you can't sort this out. Talk to Shannon in the morning," he said.
"Matt specifically requested that we keep our issues out of his wedding weekend," I said, and that earned me a skeptical gaze from him. "That's how I ended up with a Navy SEAL babysitter, remember?"
The festivities were coming to a close, and no one would give a damn if I stole some time with my sister. But even if I did reach out, I wasn't the fixer in this relationship. I didn't know how to tear down the wall we'd erected between us—even if I wanted to—and I didn't have the words to make any of this right.
"I never pegged you to take the easy way out," Nick said.
"It's not easy," I said. "That I can promise you."
"But it's a way out," he said, and I nodded. "That's not going to work for me."
His cock was hard on my leg. It was an affliction he couldn't seem to shake, and that gave me a flush of pride. I didn't think I'd taken credit for a man's arousal before Nick. I reached for him, and grinned as he moaned into my hair.
"What's not going to work for you?" I asked, stroking him slowly.
He closed his eyes and breathed deeply. For a second, I thought he was going let me run this show, but then his palm was pressed between my breasts and I was on my back.
"This isn't over," he said. "You can leave but it's not over, lovely."
There was a furious scramble to kick the blankets away, grab a condom, surrender to each other. My hands were balled around the sheets as he drove into me, like that fabric was the only thing keeping me from floating off into space. Maybe it was.
"Say it, Erin," he growled, his fingertips digging into my hips. It stung with the promise of a bruise to come.
I'd asked him not to make it hurt. Pleaded, really, and he'd agreed. But this wasn't the hurt I'd long associated with sex. It was a hug that made your bones creak, a kiss that left your lips swollen, an ache in your chest that was only the product of your heart wanting to tunnel its way out because it belonged to another.
But I knew who I was, and I knew that the spot inside me created specifically for the purpose of loving and being loved was gone. Amputated, like a limb damaged beyond repair in the bloodiest of battles. In its place was a thick stump of scar tissue that had no business feeling anything at all, but that didn't stop the phantom pains.
"Not over," I said. I reached for him, wanting my hands on his body and not these starched sheets because even though I knew who I was and I knew I'd never be the woman Nick deserved, that didn't mean I couldn'tpretendto be that woman.
Even if only for a few more hours.
Chapter Nine
Nick
"You could stay,"I said, my lips on Erin's back. She had a tattoo there, that stray bit of Latin I couldn't stop kissing. Her body was a map written in scars. The splice in her eyebrow, hidden by a platinum ring. The uneven gashes on her legs and back. The fine crinkle on her cheek. The lines on her inner thighs, the ones on her wrist. I kissed every scar I could, and then I kissed them again. "You could come back to Boston, and we could—"
"I can't, Nick," she said, her voice heavy with remorse. She wasn't running because this was edging past her comfort zone. It was our reality. "You could come to Iceland. I'm sure Iceland needs doctors."
The theory was great but the practice wasn't an option. Getting into this fellowship had been impossible, and staying in it was brutal, but walking away with five months to go was ludicrous. I was nearly finished with the requirements for gaining another board certification, and all of this was nine thousand percent more complicated than the vows we exchanged only twenty-four hours ago. But I didn't feel an ounce of regret. Maybe I should've, or maybe that was a reminder the vowswereeasy and everything we did after could be as easy—or difficult—as we made it.
"The hospital owns my ass right now. My schedule opens up in late November," I said. "I can treat kids in Iceland then, or at least spend some time with you."
Her head bobbed. "I didn't think I'd like you this much when I married you."
"That's not true," I replied. I squeezed her ass for emphasis. "You knew everything that needed knowing."
"Maybe," she conceded. "I mean, Matt has been telling me your secrets for years."
"That's good of him," I said through a yawn.
We'd been up all night. Nothing could stop me from wanting to kiss, talk, lose myself in her, and she was right there with me. I knew exactly what it looked like when Erin wasn't ready or didn't want something, but I hadn't seen those expressions in a good twenty-four hours. She was just as hungry as I was, and equally aware that we didn't have a comfortable solution to the distance between our lives.
