Page 164 of Never Let You Go

I’m totally fucking awake and in near panic. I try to sit up, but she won’t let me. “Well, we should get tested. Also, you should take a pregnancy test.” I run my free hand through my hair. “Just in case.”

“Um. Okay, sure.” She rubs her eyes and looks at me, squinting. “You need to get tested?” she says, hurt suddenly registering in her eyes. “I guess… I guess we didn’t get too much into our histories. I was under the impression… Well, I mean, I shouldn’t have assumed… Right… Also, I mean, you don’t need to worry too much about me. Should I be worried?” There’s a little shock there, a hurt that’s not just about the remote risk of an STD. “Like I said, I’m on the pill, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

Her face is falling apart.

I lean over and pull her in my arms. I’m such a jerk. “Come here, beautiful. I’m sorry. This came out all wrong. I just—I just didn’t think I’d lose control like that. I’m supposed to always be doing the right thing, and I didn’t. But, tonight, seeing you like that, I needed you.”

“I needed you too,” she murmurs. She relaxes in my arms, and I do too.

“God, you felt so good, Alexandra. I’ve never had sex without protection, and it was—It was magical.”

A playful grin plays on her lips. “Liar.”

“It was, I swear! Couldn’t you feel the difference?”

“Technically, you must have had unprotected sex at least once in your life… Skye?”

It takes me a moment to understand what she’s saying, and when I do, it’s a punch in the gut. “One too many drunken parties during a summer with too many parties. I have no memory of that. Might have been a faulty condom, for all I know.”

“Well, that’s a shame. Or maybe not. I’m your first naked sex partner,” she says, cuddling inside my arms.

“You’re more than that, beautiful.”

She lifts her face to me, and I read hope in her eyes.

I kiss her lips lightly. “So much more,” I say against her mouth.

“Christopher,” she murmurs against my mouth, her body snuggling tighter against mine.

I pull back from her, hold her chin in my fingers so she’s looking at me when I say, “I love you, Alexandra.”

Her body jerks and she shuts her eyes briefly. When she reopens them, I read a mix of emotions. Did I come on too strong? Too fast? Too late? But how am I supposed to tell her I love her? What is going through her mind right now? I don’t want her to feel pressure. “You don’t have to say anything.” I dip my head to kiss her again, going for a light kiss, but my heart starts beating like crazy, and I pull her closer to me, kissing the hell out of her, as if it’s our last kiss. She kisses me back, wrapping her thighs tighter around me, fisting my hair in her hands, showing me with her body what her mind can’t express.

It’s not our last kiss.

That answer can tide me over. I pull us gently apart, needing to have some sort of closure over what just happened. Some sort of plan. “We have a lot going on, you and me. You have your exam. I have the competition. We don’t need heavy conversations right now.” I rub my nose against hers, and a soft smile spreads across her face.

“Just promise me we’ll have a talk after all this is over. After your exam, after my competition. But before you go back to New York.”

She’s full on smiling right now, a fucking sunshine, and she gives me a full body squeeze. “I promise.”

forty-seven

Alexandra

“You’re glowing,” Sarah tells me. “Never seen you in love. It suits you.”

We’re sitting at an outdoor café in Burlington, sipping white wine to wash down the crêpe we’re sharing. She finally managed to take a few days off, and after her visit, she’ll be hiking a portion of the Appalachian Trail. I offered to pick her up at the airport, and we decided to spend the night so she could visit the Queen City before her trek.

I smile at her. “I feel… at home in Emerald Creek.”

“How about Christopher?”

I take a deep breath and look away. After Christopher told me he loved me, I decided to give myself this day with Sarah to think through it. To make a decision. “I never thought I’d say this, but he’s the one for me.” Even if I didn’t say it back, I love Christopher. I want to make a life with him and with Skye.

I don’t know yet how I’ll make it work. I don’t think details matter when you’ve met the one.

Sarah’s eyes water, and she squeezes my hand. “What’s your plan? Work-wise,” she asks after a minute passes.

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