Page 92 of Forged By Sacrifice

“One night. When it’s done, we don’t have to continue. We can stop. No regrets. No feeling bad about calling it quits. No hard feelings,” I said quietly, chest heaving. And I couldn’t tell if he was disappointed or approving. Uncertainty wavered in his eyes. He nodded and moved as if to take me back in his mouth, but I pulled on his hair. “Say it.”

“One night, Georgie. But I mean one full night. All night. Not just once. Not twice. I’m talking all night.”

My body quivered as his hands moved across me. I smiled, moving my hand over his underwear again, and his eyes closed. I teased, “Exactly how many times do you think we can get in then?”

He groaned. “Stop talking, and we’ll find out.”

And we did, moving together as if our bodies knew exactly where to touch and kiss and suck and bite and surrender. As if we’d done this many times before. As if fate and the stars were laughing at our promise of one night. I tried to keep my heart tucked inside my body, but Mac’s caresses slowly tugged my skin apart, leaving it open and raw.

When he finally reached for the bedside drawer and the condoms that were stored there, I felt like I was more exposed than I had ever been before. When he rolled the condom on, and my hands went there automatically, smoothing it on with him, pulling at him, eager to have him inside me, his moans were echoed across me. When I looked into his eyes, I saw nothing that spoke of the one night we’d agreed on. I saw, in his eyes, a future he wanted, and I still wasn’t sure it could happen. I saw pain and the idea of love that might never come true.

But we continued, bodies pleasing each other, souls breathing into each other’s hearts. Morning was going to be painful, but it would have to wait until we were done with the pieces of us that needed this. The touch that we’d feel for a long time after.

? ? ?

I woke to a smell that was unfamiliar. Masculine. Salty. Like the sea. A scent as intoxicating as coffee, but this was full of promises I couldn’t have. My body was wrapped in muscular arms that held me so tight I was afraid to breathe in case I woke him.

My heart leaped, and I told it to go away. To hide back in the cavity of my chest.

I opened my eyes, Mac’s face inches from mine. He looked peaceful. Younger than the twenty-eight years we both showed on our driver’s licenses. My body was sated and sore all at the same time. The challenge of one night that I’d laid down had been more than fulfilled as we’d savored each other over and over again.

But it was morning now. I could see the light beginning to filter in behind the gray blinds that covered the windows that I knew looked out toward Capitol Hill, because they faced the same direction as the windows in my loft.

Descartes was wrong. Dreams and reality could be the same thing. In this one brief moment, they were. They were a truth. The problem was, I couldn’t make the moment last. The reality would drift apart from the dream. This was just a glimpse of a point where the x- and y-axis crossed briefly before journeying back along their own lines, the reality and dreams going their separate ways.

I moved slowly, testing to see if it would wake him. But it didn’t. He was out cold. Our “night” had barely ended, but I was unaccustomed to being in someone’s arms. Even when Jared and I had spent the night together, we’d always had our own sides of the bed. We’d never been so entangled?so exhausted from the passion?that we’d just fallen asleep where we’d stopped moving.

I continued my measured moves, not wanting to risk waking him.

Eventually, I’d removed all of my body from his, and I skirted to the edge of the bed, picking up my underwear and shoes. Then, I turned back for a last glance at him. His skin still bore the deep bronze of the ocean from his weeks of sailing just as his body still bore the mark of his military career. Toned and unforgiving in many ways. His dark hair was mussed from my hands. His blue eyes were hidden behind closed lids. He was more gorgeous than any man I’d ever shared a bed with. Jared may have been on magazine covers, but this man was built in a way that was both real and mesmerizing.

Last night hadn’t felt like anything I’d experienced before now. It had felt like it was full of emotions that I’d never let out. Emotions that I’d always resisted. It felt like my life was now forever going to be known by a series of moments that included before and after. Like the lock sliding shut on my storage unit in July. Like the before and after that had defined my life from when my dad had been arrested. I would forever be looking at my life as before and after this night with Mac.

I tore myself away, walking out of the room.

I picked up the green dress from where it had pooled on the floor by the kitchen. I’d known when I bought it what I was doing. I’d known exactly where the dress would lead us. But I hadn’t been able to get out of my head the idea of him unzipping it once I’d put it on.

I moved to the loft to retrieve clothes before going to my bathroom to shower. When I came out, the apartment was still quiet.

I grabbed the bag that held my research for Theresa and left the apartment, shutting the door quietly. I needed time and space because I didn’t know if I’d be able to look him in the eyes and stick to what I’d said the night before. I’d said we could walk away with no regrets. That it was just one night. But the truth was, I wasn’t ready for that. I wasn’t anywhere near ready to walk away, and yet, I had to give him the chance to do so.

I spent the day at the law library, reading my textbooks, taking notes, and working on Theresa’s research. I succeeded in keeping my mind off Mac as long as I didn’t move, but once I moved, the glorious aches from the night before would return, and my heart would speed up to a traitorous pace, reliving our moments…our kisses.

My phone vibrated on the table.

DANI: Mac is acting weird.

ME: Are you back from your night with Russell?

DANI: Yes. Why aren’t you here?

ME: I’m at the law library. Like always.

DANI: Why aren’t you here?

ME: I just told you.

DANI: This is why Mac is acting weird. You slept with him and left. Was he really that awful? I mean, I don’t want to know, really. He’s my kid brother. But I did have more faith in him than that.

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