“We really could have had six years,” she says through tears. “Six years of us.”
“I know.” The regret is a living thing inside me, heavy and constant. “And I’ll regret that for the rest of my life.”
She pulls back to look at me, eyes red and fierce. “I don’t want to live in regret about that night. Let’s put that behind us.”
“Can’t.”
“What?”
I take a breath. “The day I pushed you away… I can’t put that behind me. I don’t ever want to forget what a stupid fucking decision that was.”
She laughs and kisses me, and I taste the salt of her tears. Tears I caused. Tears I get to kiss away. We hold each other there in the quiet.
“The time we spent apart,” she begins, “it’s like I said—I don’t regret anything that gave me Mason. Even the heartbreak and the failed marriage, all of it. So, I’ll hang onto that part of it. All the parts of life, even the shitty ones, they come together in ways we can never predict to give us the best of life.”
“My grandmother used to say life gives us roses and thorns. Maybe that’s what this is.”
“So, am I a rose or a thorn?”
I laugh. “You’re cheeky, that’s what you are.” Then I kiss her again, and this time, I don’t stop. I never want to stop kissing Harper.
I roll her over and end on top of her, pulling her leg over me as we make out. Harper’s sweet whimper drives something in my spine, and I can’t help but grind against her when I hear it. Her back arches, pressing her tits against my bare chest through her sweater.
The sweater she stole from me. The one she looks too damn sexy in.
Between kisses that become bites, she wriggles beneath me, and I make room for her when I realize why she’s wriggling. She flings her panties across the room, as I shove my pajama bottoms off in a hurry.
We both need this. We need each other. We always have.
She’s wet and hot, and when I stroke her pussy, her moans become mewls. “Please, baby, don’t make me wait.”
“Never,” I promise as I thrust halfway inside. Ragged sounds come from us both. But when I look into her eyes, I slow down. Even my breathing slows. Time stops. This moment is the one all the poets write about.
I don’t know how she does it. All I know is that she does.
She reaches up for me, pulling me to her mouth for another kiss, and soon, our bodies take over. Bodies are impatient things, unwilling to wait for a moment to settle. Always craving, always yearning for more. She rocks beneath me, and I do everything I can to slow things down, but it doesn’t stick.
I have to force myself to slow. I need to say this. Need her to hear it. I dive as deep as I can go inside of her and hold still.
When she moves to meet my next thrust and I don’t move, worry lines her brow. She pants, “What’s wrong?”
“You are everything to me. Everything.”
Her worry line melts away into relief as I start up again, and this time, she lets herself go in my arms. No more tension, no more holding back. She has to hold a pillow over her mouth to muffle the sounds she makes. But I throw it aside and kiss her to take that worry away, too.
Her sounds will live in me for the rest of my life.
I pull out and turn her over, letting her bury into the pillows before I thrust into her from behind. Our bodies smack together—me shoving forward, her shoving back. Until I reach around her hip and play with her clit.
Her body milks me, and her voice goes high and sharp. Those tiny hands fist the bedspread, as she shakes. “Oh my God, Aiden, yes!”
I feel it. Every throb, every gush. Her orgasm sends a shockwave to my balls, and before I can stop, I’m coming, too. I collapse onto her back, kissing whatever bit of skin I can reach as we slow to a stop. She rolls over beneath me and wraps herself around me, kissing and licking and biting me until I lay my head on her breast. Then she holds me there, stroking my back.
Harper’s voice is quiet. Contemplative, maybe. “For a long time, I told myself you didn’t give a shit bout me. It was easier than believing you were scared.”
I swallow hard. “I cared too much. That was the problem.”
She pulls back enough to look at me, her eyes searching my face like she’s recalibrating every memory she’s ever stored of me. “You should have trusted me.”
