Chapter 28
SKYLAR
My entire body was shaking as I fell to the ground. I stayed in the same spot, leaning against the wall with my head in my hands unable to handle the enormity of what had just happened. I had finally managed to push him away. The pain in my chest was overpowering.
He loved me, but he could only put up with so much. How could I have told Kevin I loved him while looking straight into Mitch’s eyes?
Kevin suspected something. He was acting uncharacteristically insecure on the phone and kept hounding me to say those three words. I didn’t know what to do because if I didn’t say them, he’d demand an explanation. He would have kept me on the phone all night, and I didn’t want to ruin my last hours alone with Mitch. But that was exactly what happened anyway. I thought I could sweep it under the rug after, but the hurt was beyond repair.
Letting him leave was cowardly. All of the things I wanted to say to him were at the tip of my tongue, but none would come out.
I should’ve been relieved, right? Wasn’t that what I had been looking for…someone to make the decision for me? Mitch giving up the fight now meant I could walk off into the sunset with Kevin sans temptation.
So, why did I feel like my life was over?
My eyelids shut tight as the wind shook the windows on the French doors. It was starting to rain outside. I prayed to God to take this immeasurable pain away. The thought of taking a second chance on Mitch had always scared me, but nothing compared to how scared I was now that I’d pushed him away.
Love can’t exist without fear.
The thought had come out of nowhere, almost as if a spirit guide had whispered it in my ear. Where had I heard that before?
I wracked my brain and remembered the conversation Jake and I had years ago at the engagement party right before the nightmare with Charisma happened.
“If the thought of losing someone doesn’t scare the shit out of you, then it’s not love.”
Throughout all of this, not once had I been scared to lose Kevin. I was scared to hurt him but never scared to live without him. It finally became crystal clear to me. Kevin took care of me and made me feel safe. I cared about him, but there was no fear. It wasn’t love. I couldn’t marry someone I wasn’t in love with.
On the other hand, the thought of living without Mitch made me physically ill. It terrified me. The agony in my chest worsened. Mitch left tonight thinking I didn’t love him when that couldn’t have been further from the truth.
He needed to come back. I reached for my phone and dialed his number, but it went to voicemail. I called the hotel. He should have been there by now. The front desk connected me to his room, but there was no answer.
My heart started racing. The roads were probably slick. What if he got into an accident because he was upset? What if something happened to him, and he never knew how much he meant to me?
I grabbed my keys in a panic. When I ran out the door, the wind blew sand in my eyes. As I was about to get into the car, I noticed a silhouette in the distance by the shoreline.
It was a strong, muscular, beautiful silhouette of a man with his hands in his pockets, staring out at the ocean with the wind blowing through his hair.
Mitch.
Drizzle hit my face as I ran through the damp sand, stopping a few feet away from him.
I was out of breath. “You came back.”
He turned around. “I never left…not for a second.”
I knew he meant that literally and figuratively. He’d always been waiting for me to come back to him.
I walked slowly toward him.
“Don’t come near me,” he said.
I ignored him and put my hands on his face. His eyes were dark, empty, devoid of all life.
I started to cry. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry for putting you through that. It should have never happened. I don’t love him, Mitch. I realize that now.”
He took my hands off his face and held them in a firm grip. “Look into my eyes. What do you see when you look at me? Can you even f*cking see me anymore? It’s still me. Please tell me you still see who I am.”
In that moment, I chose to set aside my fears and truly saw him for the first time since coming home.
My Mitch.
The boy. The teenager. The man. His eyes were the one constant and the window into the soul of all three. I’d loved them all equally.
I sniffled. “Yes. I see you. I see you, and I love you.”
“Don’t f*ck with me, Skylar. I was mourning you out here, like it was the f*cking burial of our relationship. Then, you come out of nowhere telling me you love me. What changed?”
“I chose to let go of the fear and saw the love that lies beneath. It was always there. It never left.”
“You’re serious?”
I didn’t answer him. Instead, I lifted the dress off of my body and let it blow away in the wind. My breasts were bare as I stood before him in nothing but my lace underwear.
“Touch me.” He didn’t move, and I begged again. “Please.”
“Don’t do this if you don’t mean it. Don’t—”
I pressed my lips into his. He groaned down my throat the second our mouths touched as if an endless hunger had finally been satisfied. He put his hands around my face, holding it steady as he slipped his tongue inside my mouth and licked me ravenously. I had never been kissed that deeply. It was like he was f*cking my mouth with his tongue, demonstrating what he wanted to do to my body.
I knew there was no going back now. Guilt was making an attempt to rise to the surface, but it wasn’t strong enough. I couldn’t stop if I tried. I moved back for a moment to catch my breath when he pulled me into him harder. Wetness trickled down my thigh. I was so incredibly turned on by the commanding force of his kiss.
When his mouth left mine, I panted and licked my lips, starving for more. The scruff on his face scraped my skin as he kissed my chin, and ended it with one slow, gentle bite. He pulled my hair back roughly and devoured the base of my neck, sucking so hard that it hurt. There would be marks tomorrow, but I didn’t care. I was all in, wanting the pain, wanting everything he had to give.
He slowly licked a line back up to my mouth. This time, as he pressed his lips against mine, his hot erection also pressed against my stomach.
Misty rain continued to spray my nearly naked body as he kissed me with his palms placed firmly on my ass. The warm, humid air blew our hair around as he kept his forehead on mine. Neither of us moved as the waves crashed around us. He whispered against my mouth. “Tell me this is real.”
I ran my fingers through his hair. “It’s real. It’s not a dream.”
“I’m going to make love to you tonight in that big, white bed upstairs.” I nodded against his forehead in agreement as he continued, “But first, I really need to f*ck you…right here on this beach.”
The muscles between my legs began to rapidly contract. “Please,” I begged.
“Take off your underwear.”
His chest was rising and falling as he watched me step out of the pink lace panties. Metal clanked as he unfastened his leather belt without delay and threw it onto the sand. When he unbuttoned his jeans and lowered the zipper, they fell to the ground. His swollen cock rested against his thigh through his tight boxers. I had forgotten how big he was, and my heart galloped. I couldn’t wait another second to feel him.
He didn’t have to direct me this time. I leapt into his arms. He kissed me harder than before and moaned into my mouth the moment he entered me. In one slightly painful thrust, he was inside of me. My muscles pulsed and squeezed around him in a way I had never experienced with anyone. My legs were wrapped around his waist as he f*cked me with a force and depth I didn’t even know was possible.
He let out a single, intense breath with each thrust. Each one seemed harder than the last, and I’d move my hips to keep up. It was never enough. His eyes were closed tight as if the pleasure were unbearable. I knew with every movement, he was taking me back, taking back everything we lost and at the same time, finally claiming me in every way.
He bit my bottom lip and growled, “Ten f*cking years, I’ve been dying for this.” In a rhythm that matched his thrusts, he repeated, “Ten…f*cking…years. Promise me no other man will ever touch you again.”
I could hardly think straight. “Yes.”
“Say it. Promise me. When I come inside you, I need to know that I’m your last, that you belong to me now.”
I bore down on him faster in an attempt to demonstrate my feelings. “I’m yours. Take it. Take it all.” I remembered something I said years ago that made him crazy and repeated it. “I’m going to come all over your dick.”
My words immediately set him off. “You little shit. You remembered.” He laughed against my mouth, and his body shuddered. “Say my name then when you come all over my dick, baby. Say it.”
“Mitch. Oh, God…Mitch. Yes!”
He screamed out in pleasure as he came, staring intensely into my eyes and pushing me down over his orgasm. I tightened around it as I climaxed, wanting every drop of his hot release in me.
My legs, now limp, were still wrapped around him as he stayed inside of me and kissed me softly this time.
I felt wetness on my face.
I looked at him and realized tears were pouring out of his eyes. “You’d better f*cking mean what you said, Skylar. Because I can’t go back now.”
Neither could I.
The rain picked up, pelting us, but we didn’t move immediately. He pulled out of me and put me down only to lift my naked body back up again and carry me into the house.
Once upstairs, he brought me to the bathroom and turned on the hot water in the tub, checking the temperature. He let it fill for a while before he grabbed my hand and led me in.
We said nothing as he poured liquid soap onto the sponge and ran it slowly down my body, washing in slow circles between my legs and down to my toes. He pumped some shampoo into his hands and massaged it into my hair. I closed my eyes in heaven as the bathroom filled with steam and the smell of mint. He was being so gentle, caring for me as if I were a delicate flower. It felt like he was trying to make up for what he couldn’t give me in the past. It wasn’t my first time, but it was our first time. This was what he would have done for me had we had that chance years ago.
I grabbed the sponge and began to wash his back. The water was still running, but it had nearly topped off, so I shut it. I massaged the sudsy bubbles over his cross tattoo.
“What does the cross stand for?”
“This one is more recent than the rest. It symbolizes the fact that everyone has a cross to bear. Henry has his autism, yours was the cancer and the domino effect that came along with it. Everyone has something.”
“What’s yours?”
“What do you think?”
“It was losing me?”
“Losing you and hurting the person who meant everything to me, having to live with that. You remember when we first met? How afraid of love I was because of my parents’ divorce and what my father did to my mother?”
“Yes, of course I do.”
“You made me believe in love. Then, when that shit happened with Charisma, I essentially became my father. I became the man who got some girl pregnant and devastated the woman who loved him. It was a sick twist of fate. The circumstances were different, but the outcome was the same. Everything I had ever feared had come true. I couldn’t live with myself. I wanted to die. Up until now, Henry was the only thing that saved me. But what you gave me tonight…a second chance to love you…was a gift. I’ll spend the rest of my life making sure you don’t regret it.”
I knew he would, but this night was bittersweet. I wouldn’t be able to just return home and start a new life with Mitch. I had a major loose end to tie up, and his name was Kevin. It wasn’t going to be pretty.