Page 111 of Worth the Fight

Does Dylan want more?

Fuck.

I slide out of the truck, grab my workbag, and head into the house. The television’s on. I can hear it from the back door. It’s a low hum, but I realize why it sounds so different. There’s no Dylan singing. No random strums of her guitar. No laughing as she talks to Petunia as if she’s a person. The foreshadowing of what my life is going to hold in the coming months without her.

When I clear the family room, I drop my bag with a thump and that’s when I hear her startled gasp.

Dylan whips her head over to face me, and I can see the tears coursing down her cheeks and the grief in her eyes.

“What’s wrong? What happened?”

My thoughts fly as I walk toward her. Did something happen to her family? Her brother? To I don’t know who?

My hands are on her arms, and I bring her into me. She clings to my back as she hiccups out a sob. I don’t know what to say, but I have to say something.

Then I see the television. The images. The running headlines across the bottom. And I get it.

“The city of Boston is in mourning tonight after four firefighters died when the roof of a Boston factory collapsed. Two more are in critical condition.”

Just when I think I can do this, reality slaps me in the face and reminds me why I can’t.

Goodbye, Dylan.

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

DYLAN

“Turn it off,” I murmur against his chest as he pulls me in tighter against him.

“This is my reality, Dylan. My choice. This is my life.” Make me your choice. “I’m so sorry.”

He doesn’t meet my eyes. He doesn’t see the devastation in mine. Instead, his lips find mine.

I taste the salt from my tears and beer on his lips as they slant over mine, and I welcome the taste. The comfort. The reassurance they provide that he is home now from his shift. Safe. Whole. Well.

I’m not sure how he knows this is what I need, but he does. Maybe he needs it too. I don’t know. All I know though is I’m devastated. For those firefighters’ families. For their brothers who had to rescue them. For me, because I know he’ll think my reaction proves what he’s said all along.

So I start the process of saying goodbye to him.

In soft sighs and sips of lips. In the slow intimate entanglement of my tongue with his. In the gentle thud of my heartbeat against his chest. In the quiet urgency of our hands as we slip our clothes off where we stand so we can feel each other’s skin one last time.

We come together, and there is no frenzy, only the need to connect, to memorize the feel of each other.

There are no fancy words. No dirty talk. No empty promises as we drink each other in. The feel of his dick sliding into me. Satisfying me. Marking me with his indelible touch. Worshipping me one last time.

It’s such a contrast from the times we’ve had sex before.

Maybe because this is so much more than simply sex.

It’s soft sighs and measured moans when it’s normally carnal groans and desperate demands.

It’s whispers of touch instead of the nails down his back free-for-all.

It’s silent words but screaming hearts.

It’s a goodbye not an invitation to stay.

And later, when I lie in his arms and hear his even breathing, I cry some more. Tears slide down my cheek and onto my pillow. For the man I do love but know I’ll never be able to tell. I can’t hurt him any more than he’s already been hurt. And telling him would hurt him . . . not because he doesn’t want it but because he can’t give it to me in return.