Page 312 of Mad Girl

You came up for air, hazy-eyed and slack-jawed. “That was…” You stared at me in awe. “I can die happy now.”

I laughed, still breathless. “That’s it? That’s all you needed?”

“God, yes,” you whispered, moving up my body for a kiss.

I pushed you back. “What about you?”

You pressed your forehead to mine. “I’m so close.”

You reached between us to free yourself from those black joggers, and I marveled—because of course, Casey. Of course you were perfect everywhere. Perfect in every way imaginable. I watched you stroke yourself, momentarily lost to the beauty of it. How many times had I dreamt of this? Seeing the deepest, most private, most intimate parts of you?

But I had other dreams, too.

“What do you think you’re doing?” I said, smacking your hand out of the way. “That’s my job.”

You drew in a sharp breath as I took you in my hand, and I marveled again. At the ragged moan I pulled from your throat. At your face, buried in my neck, your lips sweeping urgently across my skin, breath warm as you panted against my pulse. At the way you looked at me when I pushed you back, wanting to see your face: like the world had condensed to this. To us. To a feeling so strong I couldn’t deny it, even if I wanted to. It was there, sparkling hot and bright between us. Three little words. Eight letters. They should’ve been easier to say. But like Chuck—who couldn’t bring himself to say the words to Blair—I couldn’t push them past the growing lump in my throat, either.

“I’m yours,” you whispered—just another way of saying the same thing. “Tell me I’m yours. Say it.”

You were mine. The proof was heavy in my hand, heavy all around us. It wasn’t quite like your fantasy, but so close. Close enough that, for one dangerous second, I let myself pretend I could keep you.

You dragged your lips across my jaw, your breathing growing more erratic with each stroke of my hand. “Say it,” you pleaded. “Tell me I belong to you.”

“You’re mine,” I whispered back, the raw need in your voice breaking through my hesitation, finally coaxing the words loose.

“You can do better than that, darling,” you rasped, thrusting into my hand. “Say it like you fucking mean it.”

Darling spread through my veins like wildfire. “You’re mine,” I said in a deep throaty voice, wishing it could always be true. Because I wanted you like this forever. Falling apart in my hands. Letting go for me. Wholly and undeniably wanting to be mine.

“Yes,” you groaned, coming completely undone, the weight of those words shuddering through you, too.

After you cleaned us up, and I slipped back into my shorts, we lay facing each other: tangled, quiet, your hand caught in my hair, the other one heavy at the small of my back.

“You know what I’m afraid of?” you asked eventually.

“What’s that?” I asked, pushing my fingers through your hair.

“That he’ll hate me no matter what I do.”

“Who?”

“Michael. He’d probably be happier if I just…left.”

“Don’t say that.”

“It’s true,” you said wretchedly. “I had so many chances to open up to him last summer—he kept trying to talk to me about my dad, about how it affected me—but I didn’t want him to see me cry over how shit my life was back home. I didn’t want to look even weaker in front of him, not after he’d spent weeks watching me take the verbal and mental abuse like I’ve always done. Then he found out about my adoption, and he was…” You drifted off with a swallow, shaking the memory aside, as if you couldn’t bear to revisit it. “He tried to leave in the middle of the night—that’s how unimportant I’d made him feel—and it’s been weird between us ever since. He’s stopped texting me, stopped asking to hang out. When I show up at his, it feels like…he’s just waiting for me to leave. He still comes over here, but only to see you—and I know he missed Christmas because of me. I’ve been texting him every day, but he won’t reply. He’s fed up. He’s opened up to me loads since we met, but I’ve rarely done the same for him.”

I stroked your jaw with my thumb, waiting for you to continue, wishing things could be different. Simpler, for everyone’s sake.

“And I know,” you said softly, gaze conflicted as you searched mine, “how to fix it. The best way to show him how much he matters to me is to let you go. To say, ‘Look, Michael, this is how I feel about her, but you matter more. Let me prove it to you.’ But it’s also the one thing I don’t want to do, because I’m always with you. We’ll be at school together in the fall. And someday—if I take Nic up on his offer—we’ll work together at the firm. How can I be near you all the time, knowing I can’t have you? How can I live like that?”

“I don’t know,” I whispered, bringing your hand to my lips. I kissed your tattoo. Repeatedly. Frantically. Reverently. “I don’t know what the answer is.”

Another lie. I definitely knew the answer, but it required me to give you up. To tell you everything. To make the decision so much easier for you. It was something I didn’t want to do, either. For all the same reasons.

How could I see you every day, knowing I couldn’t have you the way I wanted you?

That wrinkle deepened between your eyebrows. “You’ve bitten yourself,” you said, gently passing your thumb over my bottom lip.