true reality off in my head like an unwelcome enemy.
I should end this now. The cold truth seeps into my soul, hardening all the walls that Carter, Logan, and Quaid have cracked wide open.
I should walk away right now so that they can hate me for leaving, and not hate me for dying.
Wiggling free, I kneel, as if the separation will lessen the sting when it comes. Of all the awful things I’ve endured, this will be the worst.
I love him, I love them, but not with the pureness I did for my father. This is a greedy, needful, brimming with strength, hot and lustful, sweet and crooning love. The kind of love that destroys everything in its path with a promise of a forever that can never come.
I’m dying.
This mantra slices through my feigned calm and lashes against my heart in hurtful strokes. I steady myself with cleansing breaths, one deep lungful after another as I work through the pain. There is no preparation for this kind of realization.
It hurts. It hurts so fucking much, the jabs rip into my veins, it slices at my organs. A sob erupts from my chest, and I close my lips around it.
I cough at the lump that’s built up in my chest and glance at Carter. His eyes are expressionless, unreadable, as if he’s closed himself off to prepare for whatever I’m holding back from him.
“Just hold me,” I whisper finally, because I realize that at this moment, I’m too weak to leave them.
I just have to figure how to leave before the end.
Carter’s heat is potent as he moves behind me, close. Not a second later, he reaches beneath my knees and sweeps me up, tucking me in so my nose is pressed to his neck. And for each sob, the gasp that follows is full of him. He stands up and walks us over to the blanket. My skin is itchy and tight from the sand drying. It’s a testament to how amazing the sex was just now that I didn’t realize how uncomfortable it really was to make love on a beach.
I’ll be getting sand out for days.
We settle down on the blanket, his whispered words lost in my hitching breath and the bouts of crying that come and go, until there’s nothing left. Reaching into the basket, he hands me a napkin, and for some reason, I start crying even harder. I hate my weakness, but I love him more, so I struggle out of his tight hold and stare into his shining eyes. They’re filled with so much compassion, he blurs again under the waterworks that seem endless.
“Baby,” he whispers so softly, I barely hear him over the pounding of my heart. “Don’t cry please, my sweet Valentina.”
I sniff and look at him through wet lashes. I touch his cheek. He nudges into my palm as if he needs me as much as I do him.
“My sweet girl.” He cups my nape, tipping my head with the fingers.
“You won’t want me when you find out,” I tell him through hiccupped sobs.
“I’ll always want you,” he growls, tipping up my chin so that I can see his eyes somehow manage to darken even more with intensity.
Always, he wants me always.
I raise my hand to his jaw, peppered with rough hair from not shaving. My fingers stroke over his cheek and up to his brow. I smooth out the tense lines and then move into his waves. I fist his hair, and as his nostrils flare, I tug his mouth to mine. I’m not chaste or sweet. I want to feel every part of him again, let him take away the reality that is haunting me.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” he murmurs roughly.
“Please, I need you.”
He gives in with another murmured, “Always,” and then he kisses me. So gentle, even when I try to deepen it, he forces the pace and it’s slow, tender.
Taking me back down to the blanket, he worships every inch of my body, with his mouth and tongue, hands and fingers, then finally, his body.
Hard, yet soft at the same time, he takes me with a soothing glide, yet I scream his name as I crash around him.
Tears streak down the sides of my face and into my hair. We stay like that for what seems like hours, him still inside of me, and he whispers words that I once thought I’d never hear again.
“I love you. I love you so damn