As I sit up, I can’t stop touching her, my hands roaming over her smooth skin without a purpose, just to feel her. She pushes her hand into my boxers and lifts up onto her knees, sinking onto me.
I hold her still, her head resting against mine. My eyes open. Hers closed.
“I love you,” I breathe into the space between us. Saying it is liberating. The best and worst kind of freedom. Even if I won’t hear it back.
She starts to move. Hot, slow, sucking pulses of her hips. My heart might stop from the force of its beating. She kisses me, long and wet, licking the taste of herself off my lips.
She holds me here, in a purgatory of pleasure, keeping me hot but never going fast enough to get anywhere. I find her clit again, rubbing just barely against the taut and sensitive skin, and she moves faster, pulls more from me until blessedly she’s coming again. She takes my mouth as I groan, moves on top of me, the tiniest, tightest movements, as I lose myself in her.
“What will you do next?” I ask later. The house is still quiet around us, making only the sounds houses make at night. I’ve already decided I’ll be gone in the morning.
Her fingertips leave chills in their wake as they drift over my arm and shoulder. “Wait until I know Mom is okay.” She sighs. “Then go back to Boston and try to pick up the pieces.”
I squeeze her to me in a quick hug. No matter what, she always works so hard. If she has this kind of drive for her career I have to believe she’ll work for us, too.
“What about you?”
“I...don’t know.” My career, our house, my family and friends. I don’t know what I want to do with any of it. “I guess figuring it out is what I’ll do next.”
She kisses me over my heart, holding her lips there as the muscle beats against her. “Where do you think you want to work next?”
I stroke my fingers through her hair. It doesn’t smell like coconut. It’s spicier, like she’s used whatever she could find in her parents’ bathroom. “I don’t know, but I’ll tell you one thing.”
I kiss the top of her head. “Wherever it is, I’m going to make sure my bosshatescoffee.”
I keep my mouth shut when she bites my pectoral. But only barely.
Chapter 46: Corrine
Wesley is gone when I wake up. The whole house is spotless as I make my way downstairs. It probably won’t stay that way for long but it’s a relief, for now. There’s coffee brewing and a note on the fridge. My name written in his looping scrawl.
Wesley and his sister must have a more respectful relationship than I do with my brothers because if they had seen this first they would have read it. I pour myself a cup of coffee and pull the note off the fridge. I sit down at the kitchen island, taking a deep breath and a sip, to fortify myself for whatever this might say.
But it’s not a long letter. It’s not even really a love letter. But it’s very Wesley: honest.
Whenever you’re ready for maybe, let me know.
I love you, Corrine.
—Wes.
I fold the paper over, running my nail over the fold. Hot, silly tears brim at my lash line.
What have I done?
“Morning, Corrine.”
My dad is suddenly standing beside me. He’s strangely quiet for such a big guy. I fold the note over, tucking it under my mug.
“I’m going in to see Mommy. Want to come?”
My smile is wobbly. “Definitely.”
I burst into tears the second I walk into her room. I worried a hole into the inside of my cheek on the drive over here with Dad. But she’s sitting up in her bed, scowling at the tray of food in front of her, not lying there barely conscious like I imagined she would be.
“Why are you crying?” she asks me. “Why is she crying?” she asks my dad, in a tone that suggests he is the reason.
He steps over the threshold into the white-walled room, putting his hand on my shoulder. “I don’t know.”
