“This isn’t fair,” I whisper into his mouth. “None of this is fair.”
His forehead presses to mine. “I know.”
I shift my hips forward, and his breath stutters—his hands tightening around my thighs, thumbs dragging along my skin. I press myself closer, chest to chest, trying to brand the shape of him into my body. The tattoos on his chest. The soft give of his waist. The way his heartbeat slams against mine like a warning bell.
Every time I touch him, it feels like an apology. Every time he touches me, it feels like a goodbye.
I don’t want this to be the last time. I don’t want to forget any of it—the way he exhales when I slide my hands under his shirt, palms skimming over the warm lines of muscle. The way he lifts it over his head like it’s the easiest surrender in the world. The way he cups the back of my neck like he owns me.
I want to remember the way he always breathes my name like he’s saying it for the last time.
I kiss him deeper, slower, dragging my mouth across his jaw, down his throat, along the slope of his shoulder. I reach between us, fumble with the button of his jeans. He exhales like it’s painful, helping me. Then his hands move to my waist, slipping beneath my panties, and when his palms find bare skin, he stills—just for a second, forehead dropping to my shoulder.
He whispers something against my skin, too quiet to catch. But his voice cracks halfway through, and it undoes me.
I guide him to me like someone reaching for a ledge while falling, and the room is silent except for the rustle of fabric, the stutter of breath, the soft slide of skin against skin. When he finally presses into me, we both go still. One breath. One heartbeat. One unbearable second when everything inside me splinters.
I bury my face in his neck. “Rafael.”
He presses a kiss to my temple like he’s sealing a promise. “Scarlett.”
I love you.
I don’t say it out loud, only in the way I move against him. In the way I meet him, over and over, fingers curling in his hair, his breath breaking against my mouth. In the way I fall apart with his name on my lips, my body arching into his, my whole soul wrapped around the gravity of him.
He holds me through it, one hand tangled in my hair, the other splayed at my lower back and we fall together, breathless and aching and broken open.
Even when the shaking stops and silence falls, we stay wrapped around each other.
There’s a heaviness in the air now, a sadness that wasn’t there before.
This is the end, isn’t it?
Finally, he pulls back. A hollow ache settles in my chest as I stand and straighten my clothes, trying to compose myself.
When I look at him, I see the same grief I feel reflected in his eyes.
Immediately, he walks over and wraps his arms around me.
“It’s okay, Freckles.” I shake my head against his chest, but hesoothingly shushes me. “Yes, it is. You can do for him what nobody did for me. You can help him, guide him, make sure he becomes the best version of himself.”
He knows this isn’t what I want, but I feel the need to tell him anyway. That I wish there was something else I could do, some way to keep him with me. “I’m sorry,” I whisper. “You don’t deserve any of this, and now—”
He grips the back of my neck with one hand, his mouth lowering to my ear. “I don’t regret you for onesecond, Scarlett. Do you hear me? Not one.”
My crying intensifies, my arms wrapped around his neck so hard I’m probably hurting him.
I’ll never feel love again.
I know everyone says it, but Iknowit. In fact, I don’t even want it. If the last five years have taught me anything, it’s that it’s Rafael or no one at all for me.
“Thank you,” he says quietly, not looking at me. “For everything. For… you. And Ethan.” His words are a knife to my heart, the way his voice shakes, the way he doesn’ttrulymean any of it. “You know where to find me, okay? If you need me.”
“Okay.” We both know I won’t go to him for anything. That I can’t, though I’ll most definitely need him. “Thank you.”
He leans over, pressing a gentle kiss to my forehead. When he pulls away, he walks away without looking back, like he knows that if he doesn’t go now, he never will.
The door closes behind him, and once the weight of it all finally crashes down on me, I crumble.
