I hear Bel on the stairs and look at her. I can see up her shirt, the little triangle of pubic hair between her legs. Just a glimpse of her pussy, pink and pretty.
The moon rises, and so does my cock.
“Can I help you pack?” I ask, already knowing the answer but wanting to feel helpful.
“Nah. Mom and I pretty much packed up the other house yesterday. I just need to grab a few things here, and then we’ll be set.”
“So, your mom and Larry are going to do the phone sex thing, huh?”
Sniffing, Annabel laughs. “I guess so. For the time being, anyway.”
“I hear your mom has become quite the fisherman. Fisherwoman. Whatever.”
“Yep. And Larry is now a woke feminist who’s been mobilized to help change our sexist, racist, homophobic world for the better.”
I shake my head. “That Lizzie. She’s the best.”
“Isn’t she?” Bel sighs. “The two of us, we’ve had quite the eventful stay.”
“What can I do to make your last day the best one yet?”
Her eyes search mine, and she holds out her hand. “Come to bed.”
“Bel—”
“Save it. Sex isn’t the answer. I know that. But neither is spending our last day pissed off and arguing, which is inevitably what we’ll end up doing. So take me to bed.”
The golden morning light, still soft, cuts through the spaces between the drapes in the bedroom. My shirt sighs as Bel pulls it over her head.
For a breath, the one she takes, time is suspended. I inhale the planes of her back, the twin parentheses of her shoulder blades, and the soft divot of her spine. Wisps of hair escape the messy knot at the top of her head and trail down her neck.
Annabel looks at me over her shoulder, all lips and eyes, and turns around. I let her undress me, stepping out of my sweats. I leave them on the floor beside my shirt. When we’re done, I’ll put them both on. But Bel will be back in her own clothes on the way back to her own life.
Nothing shared.
Nothing sacred.
I growl, hiding the sound of my grief by kissing her mouth. The breath leaves her lungs in a noisy exhale. The taste of coffee—me—and toothpaste—her—mingles on our lips.
Her hands are on my sides, my belly, my chest. I bite her bottom lip when she thumbs my nipple. She knows this drives me wild. She knows.
When was the last time I let someone know me like this?
I cup her face in mine and kiss her, pouring myself into this place where our bodies and minds meet. This I know. This I can do.
This I can claim, before I let her go.
I’m hungry for her, my cock throbbing, pulse urgent. I pick her up and toss her on the bed, my side, and immediately put my hands on the inside of her thighs, parting them.
I duck my head and lick her pussy, pressing the flat of my tongue from the bottom of her slit to the top.
She gasps, trailing her nails across my scalp, and my toes curl on the carpet.
Condom.
I have to put one on now before I lose my fucking mind and do something stupid.
I grab one from the nightstand.
“Please,” I say, handing Bel the condom with one hand while holding myself with the other.
She sits up. Tearing open the packet, she works at it while she leans in and takes my cock in her mouth.
It’s an out-of-body experience, watching the woman you love suck you off.
The center of my chest feels heavy. Heavier still when she takes me all the way in, and my head meets with the soft tissue at the back of her throat.
It’s like a 45-pound plate, the kind we use at the gym, is being heaped on my heart every time Bel does something she knows I like.
Makes it hard to breathe.
“Honey,” I say, voice like gravel. I take her cheek in my hand, and she meets my eyes with my dick still in her mouth. “So beautiful.”
She pulls back just when it gets to be too much—it’s brutal, keeping myself in check, but I’ll fucking die if I come too soon—and rolls the condom onto my length. She cups my balls and gives them a nice little squeeze, just because she can.
“Lie down,” I say, and she does.
The first bottle of lube I try is empty, so I throw it over my shoulder—Bel laughs, the sound adding another plate to the pile on my breastbone—and use the second bottle to coat the tip of my cock with a nice dollop.
Best sex of my life with lube. Who knew?
Climbing on top of her, I hold my cock in one hand and my weight with the other planted on the bed between her torso and arm.
She wraps her arms around my neck and pulls me in for a kiss. I close my eyes and kiss her back. I feel her smile fade against my lips as our kiss deepens.
She’s gasping, the hardened points of her nipples brushing against my chest with every inhale. I kiss her, pouring what’s inside my head into her mouth.
Remember me.
Don’t.
I’m sorry.
I’m so fucking in love with you it’s killing me.
It’s only when I feel the burn of tears do I pull away. Holding myself up, I use my free hand to part her legs. Then I circle my lubed-up tip over her clit.
Her eyes go heavy-lidded. Her chin tips back as the crown of her head meets the mattress. She’s rising, raising her knees to bracket my hips.
I glide my cock down her pussy, then back up, dipping inside her just a little—just enough to get her to moan.
I circle and circle, and she rises and rises, and when I lean down to take her nipple in my mouth, I know she’s close because her tit is hard.
Her hips roll. I circle harder, a little faster, right where she likes it.
But then, just when I think she’s going to come, she reaches between us. Setting my cock at her entrance, she rolls her hips again so that I slip inside.
No, the motion says. I wanna come together.
I look at her. She looks back.
Her eyes well with tears when I buck my hips and surge inside her. Soft, hot, sweet.
So sweet.
So bittersweet.
I close my eyes, and our mouths meet. Noses brushing, tongues tangling.
I give her everything I can. She gives back.
She gives, even though I’m about to rip her fucking heart out.
The weight on my chest is crushing now. I’m getting dizzy from the lack of oxygen. My mind is going foggy, and I hate it; I hate the reminder of why I’m holding myself back.
Why I’m breaking everyone’s hearts now, so I don’t have to do it later, when the tragedy will be that much more devastating.
When it will hurt that much more, the way my whole family still hurts, decades later.
It’s the kind of hurt that echoes across generations.
The kind I don’t want to share with Bel or her daughter.
So I’ll share what I can.
The need in my core burns brightly. Bel reads my body like a book and starts to play with herself, circling her fingertips over her clit. I drive into her with gutting strokes that make me sweat.
Tears fall. Hers, mine, who knows.
I want to come, I need to come, but she’s not there yet.
I growl, and she moans, and I rest my weight on her a little more because my arms—my whole body—is shaking, and I’m not sure how much longer I can hold myself up.
I kiss her neck.
Her body arches, and I feel it: her pussy tightening around me.
No yes no.
Don’t let it be the end.
Please.
But I need. So badly.
I need to let go.
She comes, hands curling into my chest like she’s looking for purchase. Something to claim, claw.
I come with a roar, not recognizing the sound. My body goes stiff at the same time hers goes soft, and if that’s not a fucking metaphor for what’s gone down between us, I don’t know what is.
The orgasm is so intense that for a beat, I’
m positive I’ve finally suffered a cardiac event and kicked the bucket.
I’m in heaven, but it’s dark, and only when I open my eyes and see Annabel, tears streaking down her temples, does the light come in.
“You’ll be okay,” I whisper, kissing the tears away.
She just shakes her head, her lips doing that curling in, flattening out thing when she cries. “I don’t think so,” she whispers back.
I know one thing, I want to tell her. I know you won’t be okay if you stay.
She starts crying in earnest. I try to pull out of her so I can roll us onto our sides and hold her, but she doesn’t let me. She plants her palms on the small of my back and holds me there to keep me inside her.
I touch my forehead to hers. I’m fighting a new deluge of tears like a soulless prick who’s afraid to feel his feelings. But I am.
I am afraid.
I’ve had to say goodbye to someone I loved before I was ready, and it hurt like hell. It still does.
I guess this is my lizard brain’s way of protecting itself.
If I disengage now, it will hurt less later.
If I keep it together, I’ll upset her less. She needs her energy, emotional and otherwise, to get back to Charlotte today with Maisie and her mom.
Sounds easy enough. But my throat aches with the effort.
I manage to hold it in while holding her.
But the deluge—it’s coming.
I just don’t know when.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Beau
I tell Annabel I need to go into the office that afternoon.
It’s not a complete lie. I always have shit that needs doing. But I could’ve easily taken the day off.
Part of me feels like a fuckwad, leaving Bel on her last day to go work. But part of me sticks up for self-preservation. I was tempted to do something stupid in bed, and God knows I’ll be tempted again spending the next handful of hours with my best friend.
I need some air. Time to get my head screwed back on straight.
Then I’ll say goodbye. When I’m myself again.
We pack her up and get the baby ready to go. Then we load up my car—ever seen a car seat in a Bentley? Me neither—and I drive up the hill to Bel’s.
Lizzie and Larry come out to help us carry everything to Bel’s car.
“You need something bigger,” I grunt, shoving Bel’s breast pump bag in the last remaining corner of space in the trunk. We’re packing up what we can now. That way they can hit the road after Maisie’s nap later.
Bel, baby on her hip, just shakes her head. “It has three rows. And it’s a Volvo. Perfect mom car.”
“Would you let me—”
“No,” Annabel and Lizzie reply in unison.
“That’s awfully sweet of you.” Lizzie gently pats my arm, like she knows I’m in a fragile fucking state, and the only stupid way I can think of to make me feel better and Bel feel better and make everybody feel better is to buy her the ninety-thousand-dollar dream SUV of moms everywhere. “But I think we’re all set on the car front.”
I close the trunk, feeling like my heart’s being cleaved in two by the tailgate.
I wipe my hands.
“Welp,” I say.
No one says anything back.
My eyes burn, and I blink hard, sliding my sunglasses from my hair onto my face.
“I gotta run.”
Lizzie eyes me as I lean in to kiss her cheek. “You’re leaving?”
“Beau has to work,” Annabel explains. “He’ll be back. Right?”
“Right.”
But even as I say the word, I know I’m lying.
There’s no way I can put that baby in her car seat and give Annabel one last kiss and not ask them to stay.
So I give them all a quick hug. “I’ll see y’all later,” I say, and I get in my car and I drive to the office.
Yep. Definitely the world’s biggest asshole.
But if being that asshole means sparing Annabel a world of hurt, I’ll do it.
I’ll do it every day until—
Well. We all know how my story ends.
“You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me,” Samuel says, leaping up from the weight bench. “You’re really not gonna say goodbye to Annabel?”
It is—was—my turn to spot him. I couldn’t focus at the office, so I called Samuel and headed to the gym.
He’s standing in front of me, sweat dripping off his nose as he stares me down.
I look away, grab the towel from over my shoulder and wipe down the bar and bench. I’m not using disinfectant, so it does fuck-all to actually clean the equipment.
But whatever. I can’t keep still.
“It’s better this way.”
“No, it’s not.”
“We already said goodbye. This morning.”
“Morning sex does not qualify as a goodbye. No matter how good you think that sex was. What about the baby?”
“What about her? She’s five months old. She won’t remember.”
Samuel just stares at me. “Her mama will. She’ll remember it forever, and she’ll hold it against you for that long, too.”
I sling the towel back over my shoulder and head for the row machine. My least favorite piece of gym equipment. Has been since I first worked out at eleven years old.
Yeah.
Yeah, that’ll hurt.
I crank up the resistance. My thighs scream when I start to row.
Good.
“I’m not gonna let you ignore me.” Samuel comes over and yanks the row bar out of my hands. “I’m telling you, you’re making a big mistake. Do you hear me? You’re going to regret this, Beau. Letting someone you love walk away—”
“I never said I was in love.”
“Pssssh.” Samuel rolls his eyes. “You been looking all pitiful-like with those puppy dog eyes since the day Annabel got here. You’re in love, brother. Whether you want to admit it or not.”
“I don’t. Want to admit it. Especially not to Annabel.”
Samuel tilts his head, his expression bordering on homicidal.
“I’d say you’re not right in the head, but that would make me the asshole, so I won’t. Instead, I’ll beg you to rethink this idiot move before you do something terrible you can’t take back. Hell, I’ll do it with you. Say goodbye. Be there for moral support and shit.”
“I can’t.”
“Yes, you can. I’ll show you how it’s done. You get in your car.” He puts his hands out in front of him and curls them over an imaginary steering wheel. “You get out of your car. You go up to Annabel and say, hey, friend, I’m a jackass and won’t commit to you—”
“Pot, meet kettle.”
Samuel waves me away. “Then you say, but hey, I love you as a friend and probably more than that too, and I’m gonna miss you like I’d miss my left nut if it were gone, and you know what? I’d actually like it if you and your crazy-cute baby would stay. I’d really, really like that, Annabel. So here, let me give you a hug.” Samuel leans down and wraps me in a rough embrace. I struggle, but he holds me tight, laughing. “I ain’t gonna let go until you say yes.”
“Me or Annabel?” I wheeze. “Say yes to what?”
“Say yes to telling your best friend in the world the truth. Which is that you’re in love with her, and you want her to stay forever. It’s that easy.”
Samuel is squeezing my lungs. He’s sweaty and smelly, and it’s all I can do not to gag.
“Let me go.”
“Not until you get up off this machine and go see Annabel.”
“Samuel!” I shout, giving him a savage push, my temper flaring. “Get the fuck off me.”
“Beau—”
“I mean it.” I shove him again with way more force than necessary, my elbow finding a sweet spot between his ribs. He yelps and holds his hand to the sore spot as he falls back on his ass.
The teasing glare in his eyes goes out.
I realize a beat too late I’m out of line.
<
br /> I feel that moon again, clogging my throat.
“I’m sorry.” I tear a hand through my hair, wet with sweat. “Samuel, I didn’t mean—”
“Fuck sorry, Beau. Fuck that.” He lets out a noisy breath, nostrils flaring. Last time I saw him this angry was at Daddy’s funeral. “I know you’re going through some tough shit right now. But don’t treat me—don’t treat any of us that way. Ever. Because that’s a dick move, Beau, and that’s not who you are. Yeah, you might hurt us down the line. But today, you’re ruining Annabel’s life. Right now. Fuck, man, avoiding her—”
“Samuel—”
“Let me say my piece.” Holding up his hand, he rises with a groan, lifting the hem of his ripped-up shirt to wipe his face. “You brought Annabel up here to help her heal, and you’ve done a great job of it. Y’all both looked real happy at the two Sunday suppers Annabel came to. But now you’re letting her go, and I can’t help but feel that y’all are taking one step forward and two giant steps back. Don’t you get it? You’re causing her so much unnecessary pain. You’re hurting the woman you wanted to help.”
I swallow. “I’ll only hurt her more by leading her on. Promising her a future that could turn to shit at any moment.”
Samuel just shakes his head. “Get more help if you need it. See a different therapist. Try different medication. Because that thing you’re so afraid of? You destroying everyone’s lives? It’s already happening, and I ain’t gonna stand by and watch as you light your life on fire.”
I grab the row bar so I’ll have something to squeeze. He’s not right.
He is.
I know he is, but I’m right, too.
“I’m just trying to do the right thing,” I grind out.
I feel paralyzed. I’m squeezing the bar so hard my knuckles crack.
Samuel bends down and gently unlocks my fingers, one by one.
The bar slams back into place. Thwack.
“Let it go,” he says.
And then he walks out.
To: John Beauregard ([email protected])
From: Annabel Rhodes ([email protected])
June 12, 2018 8:30 AM EST
Subject: Turkey Baster
Hey Beau! So I know you’re super busy these days, but I really appreciate you coming to see me this weekend. Although using all that food your brother made as justification for “needing” to use the jet was a little extra, even for you.
Southern Seducer: A Best Friends to Lovers Romance Page 27
