“Nothing,” I said. I looked at her. “What are you working on, love?”
“Nothing,” she said.
She brought the beer bottle to her lips.
I grinned as my mind flashed images of where those lips had been.
I was hooked on Amelia. And not just from tonight. It was from a long time ago.
I scribbled a few more lines and then stuck my thumb to the paper and started to rub. It made a blurred black line that could work.
I stopped halfway across the page and realized what I was doing.
In a subtle and subconscious way, I was avoiding Amelia.
I stared at my black thumb and shook my head.
I was in love with her.
A real sense of love.
I had felt love before in my life. But it wasn't like this.
There were a few times when I had teetered on the line after meeting what could have been the right person. But I never moved over the line.
With Amelia, there was no line. It was just feeling.
All feeling.
I stood up and turned to face the bed.
There were words lingering on my lips that I never thought I would speak.
Amelia had always been my secret. My girl. The one I protected and the one I wanted to save.
Now she was in my bed.
And I loved her.
Except now she was sleeping.
Her head tilted to the right, her hair in her face.
I’d never seen anything so beautiful in my life.
I snuck across my apartment and got out my camera.
Maybe I would catch some serious hell for taking a picture of Amelia sleeping, but so be it. Maybe there would come a day when we’d sit together and look at this picture and remember the night. What happened. And what it meant.
The camera clicked silently, and the image was forever captured on the memory card.
I put the camera on my dresser and carefully moved to the bed.
I took the drink out of Amelia’s hand and put it on the nightstand. I carefully slipped my hands under her body and eased her down to the bed. She let out a purring groan and sighed. I was instantly hard. I had to smile because I couldn’t believe what she was doing to me.
I tucked Amelia in.
I kissed her forehead.
With the back of my fingers I moved her hair out of her face.
She let out the same sound and I had to kiss her forehead one last time.
I slithered off the bed without her waking up.
I stood there and began to sift through a lot of thoughts.
I thought about Delaney crying at night. Picking her up and cradling her. Or when she lost her hair when she was sick, and I shaved my head to show her hair meant nothing. She told me my head looked like a crooked toe. I told her she looked beautiful.
I thought about Lilah living next to me. That first real gut punch of emotion and how losing her right after Delaney set the tone for what I figured was going to be the end of my life. I chose the path. I chose the ending. I just needed to get there.
The path became clearer when Gram got worse with Parkinson’s.
She cried when I had to feed her.
She cried when I showed her my artwork, wanting to make her smile.
I wanted the end to come sooner rather than later.
And that was the moment a girl appeared from nowhere.
A girl who was hurt, scared, feeling alone… a girl with blue eyes, curly hair, and a look that reminded me that my heart was still beating.
That girl was now a woman. And that woman was now in my bed.
My life was once again forever changed because of Amelia.
Chapter 34
The Touch of a Heart
NOW
(Amelia)
I was going to crawl over Josh to make coffee and ready myself to tell him about the letter I found. Somewhere in the back of my mind I wasn't sure I was physically going to be able to crawl over his body without craving what he had given me the night before.
Plus, I was naked.
And my clothes were on the floor, on the other side of Josh.
He was sound asleep on his back, looking like a wild dream.
I gently eased my left leg over him.
I could have crawled down the bed and off… but… you know…
Slowly, I lowered down and felt the bulge under the blankets.
I gasped as quietly as I could and started to move when his hands came to life and he grabbed my hips.