“Are you still leaving in two days?” My throat ached.
He nodded, looking more regretful than I had ever seen him in my life. His eyes were glassy. “I have to. Even knowing that you’re not with Lance... my own situation hasn’t changed. You wouldn’t love me if I abandoned my child.”
“You’re right.”
When he dropped to his knees, I gasped. He lifted my shirt enough to kiss the tiny bow on the front waistband of my panties. My hands found his hair.
“Let me love you tonight, please, Penny?”
“But what about—”
“Shhh,” he whispered against my belly. “We deserve this. We’ve been waiting so long.”
“I don’t know if I’ll be able to let you go after this.”
“Yes, you will. You’re the strongest person I know.”
When I lifted the T-shirt over my head, he ran his hands up my sides and found the tattoo. “On the ribs? Ouch, that hurts.”
Not enough, I thought. He squinted to read the words under my left breast.
my breath
my joy
Milo Liam
He kissed it. “Beautiful,” he said quietly. “I can’t believe you inked your virgin skin. This is perfect, though.” He kissed it again and made me squirm.
“I’m gonna light you up, Penny. We’re gonna do this and then fall asleep together, and tomorrow, I’ll wake you up gently.”
“Oh my God...” I don’t think anyone ever made me feel that way with words alone.
Pushing me onto the bed, he slid my panties down my legs. He kissed me between the thighs, making me writhe. Reaching back, he turned the dimmer up just enough so we could see each other. “I can’t do this blind. You’re too beautiful. I want to look at you,” he said.
“Take your clothes off. There’s clearly an imbalance here.” I pointed to my naked body and then to his fully clothed self. He chuckled while he kicked off his shoes. A moment later, he was naked. I looked at his tall, tattooed frame: muscular, lean, and painfully turned on. I had never seen Gavin totally naked. He was impressive.
When he crawled onto the bed, slowly moving up my body, I started to panic. He kissed me but I was somewhere else, thinking about what I had done to my life.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“I can tell, P.” He rolled onto his side and leaned up on his elbow.
“Can we just talk for a while? I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize. I understand. I’m scared, too. I’m terrified of everything that’s happening. Here we are, finally being who we were meant to be, but tomorrow we have to go back to pretending... to living like we’re other people.”
“Gavin, why do you always sing that song to me? The Dylan song.”
“ ‘Just Like a Woman’?”
“Yeah.”
He looked thoughtfully at the blank wall across from us, remembering something as he absently traced circles on my belly with his index finger.
“They say Dylan wrote that song for Edie Sedgwick.”
