Page 94 of When Hearts Collide

I press a soft kiss on her lips as she wiggles her luscious bottom against my cock.

“Stop driving me crazy, my little lark.” I punctuate the statement with a thorough kiss, my fingers gripping her long hair, curling it around my hand as I taste her once more.

She sucks and licks, kissing with fervor, and a newfound euphoria pulses through my veins. I soften my kisses with gentle pecks and suctions, tasting every drop of heaven I can reach until I’m dragged back into the real world.

Shifting her in my arms so she’s sitting upright, I reach for the shampoo and gently lather her strands, followed by conditioner, then spread body wash onto her body, massaging the tender globes of her breasts, her soft belly, my mouth pressing kisses onto every scrape and wound I can see even though pride streaks through me at the visual claim of ownership.

She turns around to face me and grins at whatever she sees on my face. “Feeling proud of yourself?”

My tongue swipes over my teeth and I smirk before responding, “Very much so.”

Her fingers trail over my face, caressing my jaw, my nose, my lips, as if memorizing me by touch. I close my eyes, enjoying her gentle touch on my skin, feeling her light seeping into my body with her healing grazes. Her hands trail down my neck, over my Adam’s apple, to my chest, and then she pauses.

I open my eyes, finding her staring at the pendant in her fingers, her thumb grazing the tiny diamond studded key within the silver lock.

“It’s beautiful,” she murmurs.

Mom’s words float to my mind.

“Someday, you’ll want to give your heart to someone else. That’s what love is, you know? To have your heart live outside of you. It’s scary…but beautiful.”

Visions of her wearing the key around her slender neck, her eyes reflecting love toward me, flood my mind and the lump grows in my throat.

Dreams. These are dreams within the utopia of today. Only for today.

She’s the glorious bird who has just learned how to spread her wings to take on the world. The skies are her limit.

Some birds are too beautiful, their feathers too bright, to be kept imprisoned. I can never be the one to take that away from her, to lock her in a gilded cage, to ensnare her in a trap she can’t escape from.

A more selfish man will say fuck it and be with her like this forever. In the shadows until she graduates and afterward, as a man and a woman together in love, no marriage, the ultimate middle finger to the terms of the trust. But the gentleman in me can’t. It’s not right to string her along if I can never marry her. It’s not honorable.

Dad tried this before, with Grace and Taylor’s mom. The relationship ended in heartbreak and my half-sisters were raised in poverty. Their mom died years later pining after Dad and the love they lost. It was a tragedy.

It is also a lesson for me. Don’t do it.

If I can never give her the Anderson name because if I marry her, she’ll have to give up her dreams and be trapped in the same prison with me, then isn’t the right thing to do is nip this in the bud?

But for today, I can pretend there’s no tomorrow, that this one moment will stretch endlessly until the end of the galaxies, until the last grains of sand run out in the hourglass governing the world.

This memory can sustain me for the rest of my life, especially on the lonely days and nights when I’m peeking out from behind my gilded bars and staring at the glorious meadowlark soaring in the endless skies, singing the most beautiful song.

“It was my mom’s. She bequeathed it to me before she died.”

Her fingers freeze over the pendant, her large eyes lifting and staring at me. Her nose flares and her delicate brows furrow with sympathy. “Oh, Ryland.”

“She was the most wonderful soul. Vibrant. Happy. Patient. She had so much love to give and I was blessed to be on the receiving end of it when she was alive.” I can drown in the depths of the passionate pools of blue in her eyes.

“This pendant symbolizes eternal love, the key being the only thing that can unlock the padlock of the heart,” I rasp, my voice thickening. “I think she had hoped, someday…someday, I’d…I’d…”

I can’t speak. The words won’t come out of my mouth.

Millie’s eyes glitter with unshed tears as she shifts closer and presses her soft lips against mine in a tender kiss. “She hoped you could find someone to love and unlock your heart as well. Of course she would.”

She pulls back and clasps the pendant in her small hands. “You deserve to be loved, Ryland Anderson. You deserve to be filled with light and to live for yourself.”

I curl my hand over hers so our hands are both wrapped around the pendant, the pendant I desperately want to pull apart and see the key hanging safely around her neck.

Dropping my forehead against hers, I whisper, “How can I when Maxwell won’t ever experience the same love? How can I listen to my heart and leave the burdens to my siblings?” How can I take away your dreams? How can I make everyone I care about lose everything?

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