A bitter laugh slips out and tears cling to my lashes, blurring my vision. My eyes are swollen and puffy, my cheeks splotched, my lip trembling. I look anything but okay.
The morning sun cuts across his profile, catching on the stubble at his jaw, the faint crescent-shaped scar above his eyebrow. His usual baseball hat is flipped backward. He looks so at ease, steady. Everything I’m not.
I don’t want to think about going back. Back to the cabin. Back to the emptiness of my old life. Back to who I was before. I just want to stop thinking altogether.
“I’m just so tired of pretending,” I whisper.
The corners of his mouth turn downward and his eyes hold mine, searching. I shift, leaning closer to him, my voice barely above a whisper.
“Make me forget.”
There’s no hesitation. No teasing smirk or clever remarks.
His fingers slide into my hair, tightening until I gasp, and then he pulls me into him. His mouth crashes against mine, and it isn’t soft. It isn’t gentle.
It’s a desperate freefall.
It’s everything I’ve tried to bury clawing up at once, bleeding into the space between us. His lips move over mine like he knows this won’t fix anything—but maybe it can numb the ache for a while.
I climb onto him, straddling his hips because I physically cannot be anywhere but pressed against him. The need is feral and dizzying, swallowing me whole. His hand slips under my shirt, slow but claiming, dragging up my waist until he pulls me flush against him. The swing groans beneath us, rocking with the movement, but the world could collapse around us and I still wouldn’t stop. Every nerve in me sparks to life, electric and greedy.
My thin sleep shorts ride up as I sink against him, only a whisper of fabric separating me from the hard length straining behind his jeans. His breath shudders out, rough and ragged, and his hands lock around my hips, guiding me like he can’t help himself.
My head tips back as I grind against him, shameless. His mouth is everywhere—my jaw, my throat, the edge of my shoulder—biting just enough to make my breath stutter. I yank his hat off, fingers sliding into his hair, holding him to me like I’m afraid he’ll pull away.
Our clothes disappear in frantic, graceless movements—his shirt ripped over his head, my tank top shoved down, the coolmorning air kissing my newly exposed skin. He cups my breasts, thumbs teasing until I’m desperately gasping into his mouth.
He fumbles his jeans open, pushing them low enough to free his cock, thick and flushed. My panties are shoved aside and I can’t help it—I roll my hips once, slowly, needing him to feel exactly how badly I want him before he’s even inside me.
I lower myself onto him slowly, a soft, trembling gasp slipping out as my body molds around him inch by aching inch, until he fills me completely.
“Fuck,”he groans, head falling back, throat bared. His fingers dig into my hips, possessive, almost punishing. “Sadie…”
I move, riding him hopelessly, trying to smother the emotions rising in my chest. The swing rocks under us, the wood creaking with every frantic grind of my hips. His chest heaves, sweat gleaming along his collarbone, eyes locked on me with a kind of starving reverence that only makes everything hurt more.
“Wesley,” I breathe against his mouth, the word half-moan, half-prayer.
My forehead drops to his shoulder. The world smears at the edges. My pulse hammers so loud it echoes in my bones.
“I love you.”
The words tear free before I can stop them, raw and unguarded.
He stills, his body tense beneath me. Just for a breath. Just long enough for my stomach to plummet.
But then he drags me back onto his mouth, kissing me hard, like he can swallow the confession right from my lips.
Still, I can’t stop moving. Can’t stop needing him, even as my heart fractures in slow, grinding pieces. Even as my mind spins and I burn from the inside out.
Appetency and heartbreak collide so violently it feels like I’m coming apart. I move faster, harder, chasing oblivion, the rush, anything but the hollow echo of those unreturned words.
The swing rocks beneath us, wood groaning under every roll of my body against him. Then he takes over, gripping my waist and thrusting up into me with a brutal and relentless rhythm, like he’s trying to prove something. His hand slips between us, thumb circling over my clit until I’m crying out, breaking apart in his arms. He follows, hips jerking, groaning my name against my throat as he spills into me.
And then it’s over.
We stay there. Joined. Breathless. A tangle of sweat and heartbreak and everything I shouldn’t have said. The swing slows, swaying in soft, dying arcs until it goes still beneath us.
Only then do we separate.
