As I stroke his cheek he stirs, and I’m overcome by my need to join myself to him again. Come morning, I will lose him and be forced to deal with distance, and worse yet, lasting and permanent absence from him. I must savor every last moment of him I can. And I start stroking his chest, running my fingers through the fine hairs that cover him, and nuzzling his neck. He rouses and pulls me in closer. I kiss his neck and move up to his face. As he clutches my cheeks with his hands and kisses me softly, I know of one certainty: he cares. I mean something to him, and though I can’t guess if it is nearly as significant to him as it is to me, I trust it matters. And he shares my dread of being parted.
My body is still so sore, and his beautiful cock so large and invasive. Yet I can’t let him go without having him again—just once more. I have no idea how to make love to him, but my body, always so desperate for him, will surely figure it out. I raise myself up above him. And as I pull myself to straddle him, his hands clutch my hips and stay my movement. I plead one last time for what I need. And he gives in … one last time.
As her waiting pussy makes first contact with the engorged head of my penis, the sharp inhale of her breath tells me she’s hurting but determined. She slides down my length, failing to restrain her cries as the pain tears through her. I fight the urge to push her off of me and save her any further hurt. She wants this, and I understand why. She takes all of me until she is sitting squarely and firmly against my hips. She stays still for some time waiting for her body to adjust to me. And when she is ready, she slowly begins to make love to me—slowly and sweetly. I hold her body tight to my chest with one hand on her back and clutch her face close to mine with the other. And as she begins to slowly move along the shaft of my cock, I give her the only thing I have left to give her.
I whisper every word she needs to hear and I need to say. I tell her how beautiful she is. I tell her she amazes me. I make sure she knows she is the most precious person in the world to me. I make sure she understands what losing her means to me and how impossible it is to imagine my life without her. She continues to make love to me slowly and surely as I murmur in her ear, clutching her body close to mine as she pushes her pelvis down against my own. I whisper on a hushed breath everything I want her to keep and take with her. Her silent tears drop to my cheek as she rocks our bodies. I hold nothing back from her except the three words that are simply too much for me to say and will bring her nothing but grief. I pray she knows those words even though I can’t give them to her.
We stay firmly together, moving together while her tears touch my skin and I struggle to restrain my own. And when everything I have to tell her has been said, she gives me my release. For the second time this evening, I empty myself deep within her body, wanting to possess her in that incredibly intimate, and quite frankly, inappropriate way. I want her to feel my cum within her body, and I want to leave my seed in her, like some territorial animal. I have no right to be so careless with her body, but it’s too late. As my pulsing orgasm subsides, she takes her own. This moment is quieter, more intimate, and more precious than any other moment I’ve spent with her.
She collapses to my chest, and I stay within her body, not wanting to lose the feel of her warmth. Her tears continue to slowly run to my chest. I keep her fast to my body for many minutes before kissing her warm mouth as I pull my length from her tight sheath. I continue to kiss her warm mouth as I shift her to the bed, enfolding her in my arms. And there we stay, waiting and dreading the morning. My sleep is tortured and agonizing, but the morning does come eventually. And as I wake, I find a note in her stead. She’s slipped out once again. She knows how much I hate that. For the last time, she defies me, and it is bittersweet and so very Rowan. I open the note from her.
Logan,
I’m sorry I left early. I hope you won’t be upset with me. I just couldn’t stay. Thank you for everything you’ve done for me. I know you’ve questioned yourself every step of the way, but I never have. Be happy and well and forget me fast.
-Rowan
Numbness slowly takes over my heart as I read the last words she’ll give me. My new life is standing in front of me. Finally, after so many months of dreading it, it is here, and she is gone. The emptiness is nauseating, the numbness is paralyzing. I have no idea how to continue being a person. My life, so meticulously planned out by me, is suddenly my worst enemy, and I hate myself and pity myself all in the same breath.
I stand in the shower letting the overly hot water scour my skin painfully. Her scent is washing away from me, and as it does, her every last detail flashes across my mind, and every part of my being resists and fully denies she is gone.
Chapter 23
When I return to my apartment, I manage to make it upstairs and get coffee started before collapsing on my bed in misery. I don’t want to think, I don’t want to feel, and I sure as hell don’t want to remember. I try to close out the world by closing my eyes, but all I see is her face. Opening my eyes is no better. I’m surrounded by our space—the bed we’ve spent so much time in, the window seat where she first touched me. The entire apartment has her invisible stamp on it. What was once mine has been so thoroughly taken over by her, and now she is gone. It’s tormenting, and I want to escape. But escape is no better. For every mile I put between us will just break my heart further.
When my family arrives, I mindlessly set about lifting, carrying, un-assembling, and re-assembling, until there is nothing left to do except leave. But leaving is hard. Leaving is always hard. It’s not as if I thought I’d have no feeling about moving halfway across the country, but when this decision was made I hadn’t fallen madly in love with a woman entirely too young for me whose life is moving in the complete opposite direction as mine. So what I already knew would be hard became damn near impossible. But it is time—unavoidably. My mother sobs, Sara is ready for me to leave so she can take over my apartment, and I stand by numbly—unable to cry, unable to do much of anything at all. Once my father and I are on our way, I turn my brain to autopilot and stare mindlessly out the window at nothing at all.
The miles fall away slowly as I continue to stare, brain dead, out the window. When we finally stop for the day somewhere in the middle of Nebraska, my father turns to me and says, “So, are you going to tell me what’s got you so bent out of shape? Not like you to be so out of sorts, but you haven’t said so much as two words to me since we left Grand Rapids.”
I owe him an explanation, but my mind is so defeated that coming up with any appropriate excuse is impossible. I just don’t have it in me to invent excuses. I end up shrugging. “I’m fine.”
He knows better but leaves me in peace. Once checked into our hotel, my father is hungry for dinner, and we end up eating boring food in the hotel restaurant. I try to make small talk, but it is hard to even get words to come out of my mouth. It’s painful trying to pretend to be normal. I eventually give up and sulk like a child. I do my best to numb my brain with wine, but even slightly tipsy I’m miserable. Being slightly inebriated, though, makes calling Rowan seem like a fine idea all of a sudden. But being still slightly sober also gives me enough common sense to know that would just be cruel to both of us—much like developing a relationship that would be doomed to failure. When we return to the room, I collapse on the bed craving the peace of sleep. And before long, I’ve found it.