I grind onto his growing erection. “Uh-huh. That guy is making a liar out of you.”
He wraps his arms around me and pulls me against his chest. The contact is almost too much. A vicious ache immediately grows, reinforcing my point about our sexual chemistry driving the disaster train of our relationship. I want to soothe the burn, but he tightens his arms and just hugs me. Breathes into my throat and wraps me in reassurance as he urges me to relax more with every exhale.
“Just breathe,” he whispers. “Ignore everything else.”
I close my eyes and try to do as he says.
Within a few minutes my lust has ebbed to a vague simmer, but in its place is something else. An effervescence in my blood.
He strokes my back, and I melt into him. He leans back, and I follow. After a while the rest of the world ceases to exist.
Our universe is the hush of air between his lips and my throat. The brush of his fingers on my neck.
“Do you feel this?” he whispers. “This is what makes us keep coming back, despite everything we’ve gone through. This is why I had to change, and why, despite how much I hurt you, you can’t walk away. The way we sink into each other. The way I can’t tell my heartbeat from yours. We have this perfect rhythm, whenever we’re together, and that’s the essence of us. It’s not just about sex. It’s about this.”
He pushes me back, so I can see his face. “Cassie, I want to be with you. Always. If that involves us being naked and making love in a hundred different ways, every day for the rest of our lives, that’s fantastic. If it involves us sitting and talking, wearing barbed wire and cast-iron body suits, that’s fantastic, too. I just want you. Now. A week from now. A year. A decade. Whenever you’re ready. What I want is never going to change. It’s you. Just you. Naked or clothed, doesn’t matter to me.”
I take in a ragged breath. What he’s saying …
He strokes my arms. Keeps me grounded in this moment.
“That’s why I haven’t had sex for three years,” he says as he runs his hands up my shoulders and caresses the back of my neck. “There were plenty of girls who reminded me of you. Similar hair, or eyes, or smile. If I’d squinted, I could have easily pretended they were you. But I didn’t want a lookalike. I haven’t been able to have sex without emotion since you, and considering you own all of my emotions, who the fuck was I going to have sex with? From the moment I met you, it was only ever going to be you.”
I lean my forehead against his. “But—”
“No buts. If our relationship was only based only on sex, do you think we’d have gone through all the shit we have? Sex is easy. It’s an itch that needs to be scratched, and as much as I love having sex with you, what I want from you isn’t easy. It’s messy and complicated, and it’s filled with so much fucking passion, I don’t have a clue how to cope with it all. But I find a way, because I love you. And love is hard, but it’s worth it. You’re worth it. And I hope one day you’ll realize I’m worth it, too.”
I’m too choked up to speak.
I know he’s worth it. I’ve always known that. I knew it before he did, I just need to stop doubting we can make this work.
“Ethan? Your therapist … would she maybe take me on?”
He frowns. “I don’t know. Is that something you want to try?”
I nod. “I need to change. But I can’t do it by myself. I need help. I don’t want to be … like this … anymore.”
He pulls me into a hug, and his breath is ragged against my throat as I stroke his hair. “I’m sorry.”
“I know.”
“We’re going to get through this. Have no doubt.”
I squeeze him tighter. “That’s the plan.”
NINETEEN
EMOTIONAL EVOLUTION
Four Years Earlier
Aberdeen, Washington
The thing about developing an addiction is that it happens so quietly, you don’t know how much trouble you’re in until it’s too late. It tiptoes through the rooms of your mind and body, gently inserting hooks and strings into every cell, until you don’t know where you end and it begins. And untangling that web is nearly impossible.
By the end of our second year at The Grove, my sexual encounters with Ethan have increased in frequency, but I tell myself I have it under control. Whenever we stray into areas that feel too intimate, I go cold turkey for a couple of days to remind myself he’s a luxury, not a necessity.
It’s not until I go home for the summer that it occurs to me I may be in trouble.
For the first few days, I’m fine. I sleep in. Spend time with my parents. Listen to music and pray for sunshine.
By the end of the first week, I’m antsy. Restless and horny. I think about him way too much. His face. His smell. What I wouldn’t give for just one hit of his smell.