Page 243 of Time Stops With You

Nardi hadn’t made it easy.

My desperation to woo her was met with an equal desperation on her end to blind me with raw, naked lust.

Still, I persisted.

Did she understand? Did she feel it?

The questions burn me, scald me from the inside out. Tonight was my last chance to spill my secrets, to empty out my heart and pour its contents at her feet. I’m already stealing time from tomorrow. The sun will rise in a few hours. We’ll be unable to hide from the truth. Whatever happens next, our story ends here.

I hover my fingers over Nardi’s forehead, down the slope of her nose and to her cheeks. Carefully, reverently, I inscribe her portrait in my heart and hang it in the gallery of my mind.

Does she know? Can she tell that her fiery presence in my life was the sweetest gift to a dying man? Does she realize how completely I’ve fallen for her?

Every kiss I swept across her body came from a place of gratitude and honor. Had we not met, I would have passed through this life, never experiencing what it means to truly live.

My dad was wrong about me.

I won’t die a failure.

But it’s not because of the wealth I have or the company I built.

Now that I’ve come to the end of my life, I see things clearly. Success isn’t about money or power. I can’t take any of those with me to the grave.

But having a team of brilliant technicians who respect and follow me…

Changing the life of a little boy full of potential just by passing on my possessions…

And having a beautiful, intelligent woman like Nardi Davis love me and be able to love her in return?

That is proof that I lived.

And that I lived well.

Moving as carefully as I can, I ease out of bed. Nardi senses my retreat and her hand grabs hold of my ring finger subconsciously. She’s so deeply embedded in my DNA that it feels like I’m tearing off my own skin when I peel her hand away.

She makes a quiet sound and burrows deeper under the blankets.

Emotions rise to my throat as I watch her. There had been an undercurrent of sorrow in the way she held me last night. It had made for a bittersweet moment as, after one of our times together, she started crying.

All I could do was hold her and kiss her and whisper how much I loved her.

She eventually fell asleep.

But I couldn’t have her last impression of me be one of crying in my arms, so I kissed her awake while the tears still dried onher eyelashes. My lips hunted hers incessantly. I gave her no option to retreat, though that might have been the more merciful path. I knew she needed to sleep.

At first, she woke with frustration and I felt that she was about to beg me to give her a break. But I kept kissing her and she didn’t hold back from me, accepting me as I nestled between her legs and fused my body to hers.

It was a struggle to breathe after that, but at least there were no more tears.

Neither were there any more questions.

Nardi asked me not to disappear, but I can’t handle an official goodbye. I meant it when I told her that I wouldn’t be able to leave.

My eyes slide to the cell phone on the nightstand.

Four a.m.

I should leave now. Before she wakes up.

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