Page 82 of What I Should've Said

We’re both looking for comfort—that’s undeniable—but I can tell by the grip of her fingers on my neck and the pounding of her heart echoed in my own chest that it’s more than that too.

This isn’t a mindless romp between two desperate people. This is a connection that’s been at war with the two of us since the moment we met.

She digs her teeth into her bottom lip, and I have the urge to run my tongue along the seam of her mouth.

She moves her hands to my shoulders, and both of my hands are on her hips. I cover her body entirely with my own, and she opens her legs, winding them around my hips and clenching her ankles together until her heels dig into the top of my ass.

I growl and roll my hips toward hers, my hard cock aching to feel her wrapped around me.

It all feels so good, so right.

She whimpers, and my hands find the hem of her pink shirt, lifting it to get a feel of skin.

When I pull back slightly, searching her eyes for permission, a swirl of steam wafts between us. The warmth of our breath, the heat of our skin, and the cool of night mixing together to make clouds.

“Norah?” My hands shake with need as I slide my hands back into her hair. “I want you.” It’s simple and to the point, but for me—for the me I am now, after the guy I used to be—it’s not enough. “Norah, I want to be inside you.”

“I want that too,” she says firmly.

My grip on her hips is strong as I lift her toward me and slam my mouth down on hers. Her hands grab at my face and my neck and dive into my hair as our kiss turns wild, burning and building with each tangle of our tongues.

I reach down with one hand to undo the buckle on my belt, and then her hands join in, ripping at the leather until it releases from the metal that holds it.

I kiss her neck and her chest and rub a hand over her breast as she arches into me, moaning loudly as I skim my other hand down her hip and into her pants to feel between her legs.

She’s wet and hot and smooth, and a fiery rod inserts itself in my spine. God, I need her so badly.

Frantic for more skin-to-skin contact, she grabs for the hem of her shirt and starts to lift it over her head, only to freeze when a flash of headlights passes over the house to our right.

Fuck. “Breezy is home,” I manage raggedly.

“Oh my God.” Norah groans, and her head falls to the blanket-covered ground with a thud. I know exactly how she feels.

Sad, anxious, and completely unsatisfied.

“Bennett, I’m running out of bookmarks,” she whispers as I help her cover up, and a quiet laugh finds its way out of my lungs.

Tell me about it, sweetheart.

Once we’re both dressed and finished cleaning up, I look up to Cassiopeia and pray for a good day tomorrow.

If all is to go well, we’re going to need cooperative friends and family, good weather, a good day for Summer, and if I press my luck, maybe I’ll get to see someone else’s skirt around her shoulders.

Tuesday, August 31st

Norah

“Norah, I mean this with the most love I can muster…but what in the fuck were you thinking?”

Josie’s hands shake, and her chest is a tie-dyed mess of mottled red. When I woke her up this morning to get her help with final touches for the “big wedding,” I kept one of the most obvious details to myself—Josie Ellis, you see, is the bride-to-be in this whole shindig.

As it turns out, a wedding is one of those events that’s hard to just “throw.” You need a bride and a groom and guests. I briefly considered having Bennett and me pretend to be the ones completing our nuptials, but the implications of a dying girl’s father getting married to a woman he just met pushed my moral envelope just a little too far.

Josie looks down at the New York-thrifted dress I snagged from one of the boxes I hadn’t unpacked and fast-talked her into wearing—a white silk A-line with bright pink flowers stitched into the hemline—and glares lasers at me. I suppose, maybe, that when we left the house this morning, she thought she’d be attending as a guest like the rest of us.

“I was thinking that there’s a sad, scared, sick little girl who wants with all of her heart to see a wedding take place today, even if it’s fake, and I hardly know anyone here, so I figured you could play the bride.”

“Oh. I see. You just thought I could play the bride. To Clay’s groom. Are you insane?”

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