My arms remain wrapped around his neck, stretched to their fullest capacity as his fingers dent deep into my stomach and hip while he fills me with the hot, scorching bursts of his release. Somehow in the midst of his madness, he finds my clit again and strokes me exactly how I need it until I’m writhing and coming right along with him. It’s too much. My body strains against itself, wanting to push away from him and meld to him permanently at the same time.
It’s burning hot inside me as I feel my soul tear into two equal pieces. One half accepting that this is all we’ll ever have and the other hissing and gnashing its teeth angrily, refusing to settle, demanding more. Always more.
His eyes meet mine in the mirror and I see the same greedy demon whispering to him.
“I’ve never—” He interrupts himself to kiss my shoulder. “It’s never been like that for me.” He kisses my neck, wrapping his arms around me tighter. “You okay, Dixie Leigh? I didn’t hurt you, did I?”
My logical mind is still shattered and doesn’t fully understand his words but my body and soul do.
“You set me on fire, Gavin,” I whisper. “I’m nothing but ashes now.”
The first conscious thought I have is that he tucked me in. My exhausted sex-and-sleep-muddled mind has a vague recollection of him taking care of me in the shower, getting on his knees with a washcloth and washing me gently between my legs. I’d nearly blacked out and he’d rinsed me and carried me to bed wrapped in a towel, which it feels like I am still wearing. Partially, anyway.
Gavin’s solid muscled chest is beneath me and his heat is making me sweat. I lie still for a few minutes, absorbing the moment, memorizing it and listening to his even breaths.
Our night together has been a lot of things, but we haven’t spoken about what comes next. If anything. Propping up on one elbow, I stare at Gavin’s sleeping form, admiring his masculine profile and perfect mouth. A familiar ache rakes across my chest, reminding me that no matter what happened between us tonight, he is not mine. He’s not anyone’s. Gavin has always been a lone wolf, he just decided to allow Dallas and me to join at his flanks temporarily from time to time.
Watching him breathe, and feeling a heck of a lot like a creeper, my mind recalls the first time I ever got the chance to watch him like this. It was our second summer living in Amarillo. Nana and Papa had ordered pizza and let us eat outside. After dinner, Dallas had been doing something in Papa’s shed, restringing the guitar Papa had bought him at a secondhand store most likely, and Gavin and I had sat on the ground, sated from dinner but hungry to make the day last longer. Lightning bugs, as I called what he and Dallas called fireflies, had begun to dance in the yard as darkness fell, calling to each other with flashing glows of neon green in the night. It was hot, and despite the breeze, I still felt the sting of the day’s summer sun on my skin.
Leaning back on his arms stretched out behind him, Gavin stared up at the stars unabashedly. My eyes trailed his long black shorts, pants he’d cut off at the knee either because he’d outgrown them or because it was hot as Satan’s balls outside according to the boys. His iron-flat abs rippled and flexed when he spoke about the Big and Little Dipper, but I barely heard him.
Sitting with him, watching him look at the expanse of stars in the broad Texas sky, I realized something that night, something it had taken me this long to actually learn, to absorb and fully understand.
Heartbreak is an actual physical thing.
Falling in love with Gavin Garrison happened without my permission; as inevitable as a Popsicle melting down my chin in the middle of a heat wave, Gavin cracked my heart open and seeped into me slowly and all at once. My feelings for him consumed me, worked their way into my genetic makeup, and became an intrinsic part of who I was without my actually realizing it. Even when I was dating Jaggerd, it was there. Even if I grew up and got married to someone else and had children that I loved with all my heart, my love for Gavin Garrison would still be there. Like my blue eyes, my brown hair, and the freckle to the left of my nose, it was a permanent part of me.