We leave today, and all I can think is how much I wish we could stay.
Not just because the sex has truly been remarkable. I’ve had her in ways I didn’t even think about, but she did.
After we had sex again about two hours ago, I scooped her up from the hot tub and carried her to bed.
She immediately fell asleep, and I’ve been staring at the ceiling.
My thoughts go in circles. Usually it starts with me justifying why this trip was a good idea and then looping around to all the damn reasons it was stupid.
And there are hundreds of those.
The one thing I keep coming back to, though, is that I like her.A lot.
She makes me happy. I’ve had a hell of a lot of shit times, and it’s nice to finally have something to smile about.
My life isn’t bad. I have an amazing daughter, I love my family, and I’ve known true love. But since losing my wife, I’ve been alone.
Now I have Lark. She’s what I look forward to. What I crave. What I find myself smiling about randomly when I have no real reason to even think about her.
So this trip may have been stupid, but I don’t regret a second of it.
To have her like this, freely, without worry that we’ll be found, has been exactly what I hoped for.
“Hey,” her sleepy voice croaks. I look down to find she’s staring up at me.
I smile. “Hey.”
“Why are you awake?”
I rub my fingers up and down her spine. “Just thinking…”
“About?”
You.
I hesitate, and she catches it.
She lifts herself up on her elbows. “About us?”
I nod. “Us. You. Me. Leaving. All of it.”
A wash of sadness fills her eyes, and I hate it. “Okay…”
Fuck, I said the wrong thing. “Not like that, sweetheart. I just mean…I don’t know. I guess I just wish it could be different. That I was a different man.”
“I don’t want that.”
“You should,” I say quickly.
She huffs. “I had the best day and night of my life, Tristan. Don’t ruin it by telling me or yourself all the reasons we shouldn’t have done it. We’re adults. We know the rules. We came here to escape bug bites and nosy people. I loved what we did. I loved our dinner, the talk, the sex, the cuddling. Every minute of it, so please don’t dull it.”
I lift up, taking her face in my hands. “That’s not what I mean. I loved it too. Having you here, like this, has been even better than I imagined. That’s the issue. How the fuck do we go back now?”
There. I said it. My biggest worry.How the hell do I go back?
She shakes her head, wrapping her fingers around my wrists. “We don’t. We just go forward. We go back to Infinity Ridge. We go back to meeting at night. We had this trip, which is what we knew it would be. So we go forward, and we can remember the one time we spent the night at the Grand Canyon and then I couldn’t walk after.”
I laugh, pulling her to me. “We go forward.”
