Everything.
Breaking off the kiss, I buried my face in her neck, letting her peach scent wash over me, and tenderly kissed the spot where her pulse beat, fast and strong. At the same time, I thrust my hips against hers, cursing the clothes we hadn’t yet removed. I hadn’t lied or exaggerated. I needed her. But even as I did, I knew it wasn’t right, me needing her like this. It wasn’t fair. “I’m sorry, darlin’. So fucking sorry.”
“I know.” She locked her ankles behind my back, holding me still. “But I need you, too, Lucas. I need you so bad. I . . . I care about you, Lucas. A lot.”
Instead of the surge of satisfaction I’d expected to feel, it felt like she’d shot me and I was bleeding out. She cared about me. Actually cared. What the hell was I doing, making her care whether I lived or died? She didn’t deserve this.
She didn’t deserve any of this.
And I’d remembered that way too fucking late.
“Don’t,” I said, my voice hard and yet still somehow broken. I gripped her hips. “Don’t care.”
“Too late.” She gave me a sad smile. “But don’t worry. I know how this ends. It ends with you leaving, one way or another, and me staying in my bar, doing my thing. This thing we have, it’s not for the long haul, and we both know it. We’re not going to live happily ever after, and that’s just how it’s going to be.”
Everything she said was right. We wouldn’t ride off into the sunset in my car, holding hands and smiling at our bright, sunshiny future. More than likely, this would end with me dead and her crying while identifying me at the morgue . . .
This, right here, was everything I should have never let happen.
Just a few days ago on the Freedom Trail, I’d sworn to myself that I’d never fool myself into thinking that I could have a “normal” life. That I wouldn’t corrupt someone into caring about my dark, blackened soul—and just as important, that I’d never care back.
I was beyond hope in this world. She wasn’t. This was getting too real. Too fast. She didn’t need this shit in her life. Didn’t need me.
“Shit, darlin’,” I managed to say through my suddenly, oddly tight throat. “I’m not gonna be a dick, or try to scare you away, but this thing we have between us? It’s gonna hurt in the end. We both know it.”
Something flashed in her eyes. Pain? Maybe something deeper. Harder. Darker. Whatever it was, it made me want to cling to something that wasn’t meant for me.
My very own happy ending.
She nodded once, her gaze never wavering from mine. And no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t look away. “So what are you saying? That it should end now?” she asked.
“Yeah. It should.”
She swallowed hard. “What if I don’t want it to?”
“I don’t want to hurt you, sweetheart.” I kissed her shoulder, my lips lingering. “I don’t want to make you cry.”
“Then don’t.” She buried her hands in my hair and tugged till she had me where she wanted me—nose to nose. “Kiss me instead.”
Shaking my head, I tried to resist, but it was futile. With a groan, I did it. I kissed her again. And this time, I didn’t stop. Heart thumping hard, I yanked her panties off, tossing them over my shoulder, and slid down till my head was between her legs. The second my tongue touched her, she fell apart in my arms. Her thighs trembled, then clamped down on either side of my head as she let out a long guttural moan.
She rocked her hips against my mouth desperately. “Lucas. God, harder. More. Yes.”
Moaning, I dug my fingers into her soft ass cheeks and deepened the intimate kiss, tasting her impending orgasm before it even hit her. Her whole body tensed, she lifted her hips, and she cried out unintelligible words.
She managed to make that hot as hell, too.
As soon as she crested, I dropped her to the mattress, let my pants hit the floor, took care of protection, and thrust into her before she even had time to come back down. She screamed and dug her heels into my lower back, thrashing beneath me, her hot * clamping down on me until I was sure I’d died and gone to heaven. And if I had, I never wanted to go back.
The harder I thrust my hips, the more she cried out beneath me, chasing the pleasure I could give her. My own orgasm crept up my balls and into my aching cock, and something unfamiliar, warm and strong, rolled through me, starting somewhere in my chest until it all centered and became something I recognized more . . .
The carnal needs of the flesh.
But even after that familiar need took over, there was still that warm, sinking feeling that after I finished making love to her I’d never be the same again.
And strangely enough?
I was okay with that.
CHAPTER 24
HEIDI