THE CRAZY GOOD SERIES - Rachel Robinson Page 0,229

feel his tongue against the hollow of my neck.

“It will go by quickly and then I’ll be right back here with you,” he says, kissing behind my ear. With one hand he holds me tightly, while he draws the other more skilled hand between my legs. My panties are long gone as we’ve been in non-stop sex sessions since this morning. Tonight is the grand goodbye for six months. A lump forms in my throat.

“What if you don’t though? What if you don’t come back?” I breathe out, closing my eyes. His hand stops moving. It’s a rhetorical question asked just for reassurance, but I realize he’s pondering his response and I immediately regret asking.

“Then you wake up, you drink your coffee, and you go on.” At his candidness, I push him away a touch so I can see his eyes and try to rearrange my lust-hazed thoughts.

“I drink my coffee? That’s your proposal? You die and I drink coffee? I know that your euphemisms are usually pretty solid, but not this time, Stoner.”

His smile is sincere. “I’m not going to tell you to stop using creamer, baby. I’m just saying it’s simple. You wake up and live life. It’s too short not to. If I don’t come home, it’s a perfect example of that. Brevity forces passion. Passion fuels life. You have passion in spades. You’ll use it.”

My eyes start to water and an unexpected anger rears. An anger I can’t control, a fury that pokes holes in my armor. How dare he put these thoughts in my head. No one has that right except for me.

“I don’t want coffee with creamer, Stone. I want you. I want longevity, not brevity. You are the only person who can make me feel this way. You are the person that I love, that I chose to be my forever.” He cradles my face, his smile turning wistful when he sees his words affecting me. “I want your passion,” I say as a tear slips down my face—an angry tear laced with spite and dread. My heart beats on at a ragged, dreadful pace as scenarios spin through my mind.

I realize that these horrible scenarios are actually a possibility. The bones in my chest feel like they’re caving in. This conversation puts a face next to the word deployment. A face I don’t like, that I don’t want to familiarize myself with. I can’t reply, I don’t know what to say. I’m out of my element. Sighing, I wait for him to speak.

“I don’t want to upset you.” He kisses the tear off my cheek. “You have to know what I want for you in case though, right? I want the world for you, Morg. I want love for you. I want a life so full of passion that it exceeds your wildest dreams. If I’m not giving it, someone or something else needs to.”

Another heavy tear moves down my face. With his pointer finger, he wipes it away. Cocking his head to the side, he examines me from head to toe, eyes narrowed, mind working overtime.

“I want to remember you just like this. Exactly like this—with the sun shining down on you. Your lips pouting, your hips taunting, your eyes begging, your mind trying to make amends with your heart. ” He smiles again, his eyes a touch glassy.

“You’re being so morbid that I can hardly stand it. You don’t have to remember me like this, because you’re coming home to this,” I explain, motioning toward my body and face, choking on my own words.

He quirks a manly brow. “I do have to remember you like this so I can jack off late at night and annoy Maverick.”

I laugh through my tears. He knows how to turn a conversation around quickly, his humor making everything a little lighter. It’s why I’m drawn to humorous people. Or maybe it’s because I lack a side of humor myself. The need for humor is a weakness I never realized I had until my first best friend blazed a trail into my life.

“That is so disgusting, but I’m not going to veto the idea.” When my lips melt with his, residing there is the passion he’s speaking of. There is love blistering so bright that I know for a fact no one can ever extinguish it. Try as I might, this fire and love that we share will never die.

Until, well, it simply does.

Morganna

Present

He parks his truck in front my house and honks the horn