Page 36 of Still the One

I can’t stay, I want to shout. I’m afraid of what might happen if I stay here any longer.

“It’s too much,” I mumble. Jamie’s too much for me. She was last night and she is now.

“Mac.” She shuffles closer to me. “I never got over you either. You’ve always been the one who got away.”

“Fuck that.” I shake my head. I’m mostly furious at myself for how I’m letting her get to me.

“We wanted the same things, and I didn’t get them either,” Jamie says.

It’s an open invitation for me to dole out some more blame, but I’ve done enough of that. It’s so easy to see how Jamie hurt herself profoundly as well. I’m not exactly ready to feel sympathy for her in that regard, but I feel a whole lot of other things for her.

“I understand the urge to remove yourself from this situation. It’s uncomfortable and painful, but…” She swallows hard. “No matter how many painful memories are dredged up, seeing you again is so worth it. It’s so…” Oh fuck. She sucks half of her bottom lip between her teeth. Luckily, she’s not done talking, and she lets go. “It somehow feels right. Difficult, but right.”

I try to think of something to say, but my brain has had enough of coming up with more sentences. I really am done talking. Although ‘right’ is the last word I’d use to describe this situation—I’ve fallen to pieces too many times since seeing Jamie again to be able to call it that. But we’re different people. She’s not only the Jamie I used to know. She’s also a woman I’d like to get to know. Most of all, and I might as well admit it now, she’s a woman I’d very much like to kiss. Again.

Her lips on mine are all I can think of. I focus on her mouth. On those exquisite lips. I let my body take over. My most basic urges. The parts of me that still react to Jamie in this way. The parts that never got over her and that I had to push away again and again, but are coming to the fore now. Because I’m sitting in her living room and the distance between us is so small, it would be foolish not to kiss her. I couldn’t pull myself away if my life depended on it. I’m so drawn to her, and I’ve reached the point that I no longer care about the consequences or all the things it could mean. I don’t care what it says about me or my self-respect, that I’m about to kiss the woman who hurt me the most. I’m usually not that much of a sucker for punishment—although this doesn’t feel like punishment at all.

“Oh, fuck,” I mutter under my breath, as I lean in. As I kiss her—again.

When our lips touch, so much of the tension I’ve been holding in my body simply dissolves. And this, our lips meeting, does feel right—and there’s nothing difficult about it whatsoever.

Chapter 20

Jamie

Mac’s kissing me. It didn’t really come out of the blue, but still. Mere minutes ago, she was asking me what sleeping with Cherry was like. My heart goes out to her—in more ways than one. All of this is so confusing. There’s so much left unspoken. Earlier, when I looked into Mac’s eyes, I could see the pain in them. The pain that I caused her. Yet, she’s kissing me and I’m kissing her back. It’s all I’ve wanted since Maui. It’s all I’ve dreamt of. I can hardly blame her for blowing hot and cold. Of sleeping with me one day and never wanting to see me again the next. I have infinite amounts of understanding for Mac.

Over the years, every time I had the urge to get in touch with her, I tried to put myself in her shoes. I imagined how I would have reacted if she had left me for Cherry. How that would have made me feel. How that would have ripped my heart straight out of my chest. Thinking of how Mac must have felt always made me instantly give up on my desire to see her again, because I had no right. When you hurt someone like that, you lose the right to everything forever. Yet, here we are. Just like in Maui, it feels like a miracle. Like life playing the best trick ever on me.

Mac brings her hand to my cheek. Her lips touch against mine again and again, only leaving the briefest of moments to catch our breath. Her tongue slips into my mouth. I pull her close to me. I want her so much. It can’t only be the longing I feel for her in this moment. It must be multiplied by all the residual longing—two decades’ worth—for her that I never got to express. This is not a run-of-the-mill kiss either. It’s magnified by all our history but also by what it means for us today. For Mac to kiss me like this, she must still have feelings for me. She told me that she never really got over me. Although that could mean a number of things, to me, it means that, at the very least, she wants to sleep with me again. Because this is not the kind of kiss that will just fizzle out. It’s the kind that’s going somewhere.

Mac’s hand slides down, finding the hem of my top. She slips her hand underneath, her fingers hot on my skin. I moan into her mouth. I have to rein myself in because what I want to do most of all is get all her clothes off and have my tongue between her legs as quickly as possible. I want to feel her thighs clasp against my cheeks as she comes hard for me. But I must restrain myself. I have to let her take the lead.

Because we’re not in Maui anymore. This is no longer the first time we’re seeing each other again. This means something different. Something more. And I need Mac to set the pace for whatever this is—and what it might become. Just as I need to give her space to stop this if she wants to, although judging by the intensity of her kiss, and the speed with which her hand slides into my bra, Mac does not want this to stop at all.

Her fingertip brushes against my nipple and I’m starting to lose it already. My body is no longer attuned to her as it was before, but it sure does still respond to her touch. To think that I nearly ruined the afternoon when I claimed earlier that she was the one that got away. I get that Mac can’t deal with me saying things like that, but it’s the absolute truth. I’ve known love since we split, but none of the women I loved after Mac felt as though I let them slip from my life too soon, too rashly, too recklessly. Only Mac does.

With our lips still glued together, we maneuver so Mac can unhook my bra. Then we do have to give our lips a break. My sweater and bra get tossed into the room somewhere, then Mac comes for me again.

I sneak a quick glance at her face. Our gazes meet for a split second and it has the same effect as the hottest kiss. I melt under her gaze and I really need to get some of her clothes off now, but she doesn’t let me. She opens the button on my jeans and I have no reason to protest. I let her do to me what I so desperately want to do to her. I let her take off all my clothes and push me back onto the couch.

Before she starts kissing me again, Mac hoists her top over her head. There’s too much fabric covering her breasts to my liking, but I can hardly complain about that. Then her body is all over mine again and I certainly don’t have any complaints. If her being here felt right, albeit difficult, earlier, her body in my arms feels as if the universe is realigning after decades of disarray. Every atom in my body is finding its right place.

I breathe in her scent and it’s the most divine smell in the world. Tears prick behind my eyes, but I don’t intend to break down as I did in Maui. Of course, I’m emotional. I loved Mac for much longer than the ten years we were together. I still love her now, although it’s a different kind of love. It’s wrapped in all the guilt and shame I carried around for years, and that I can finally let go of—some of it, at least.

“Good god,” I groan, when Mac wraps her lips around my nipple. I run my hands through her blonde hair. She sucks my nipple deep into her mouth and I’m about ready to explode. I want to give myself to her so badly, so eagerly—as though it can make up for what I did. Mac cups my other breast with her hand and a tiny teardrop escapes my eye. I can’t possibly hold back my emotions when Mac is doing this to me. When she is giving me this level of relief—and I haven’t even climaxed yet. But so what if I cry? So what if she sees how much she means to me.

Oh fuck. She’s moving downward, pushing my legs apart. She kisses my inner thighs and I brace for the divine touch of her tongue on my clit, but she keeps me waiting. Then, instead of giving me the sweet release I’m craving, she crawls back upward. She positions her body next to me and I’m afraid she might tumble off the couch, but she holds on close to me.

“I want to see you,” she whispers, sounding out of breath.

Oh, sweet Jesus. If this wasn’t actually happening, if I wasn’t looking up into Mac’s gorgeous blue eyes, I wouldn’t be able to believe any of this. Not that she’s back in my life and certainly not that she wants to look into my eyes as I come for her.

Her hand dips down. Her fingertips skate along my thigh, drawing circles, ever closer to where I’m about to explode. It isn’t just my desire for Mac I’ve had to keep bottled up for so many years. I’ve had to hide my pain more times than I can count, because not many people believed I had a right to it—including myself. I will always be the woman who hurt Mac, but I’m not only that woman. I’m also just a human who made a terrible mistake—the most human of human things to do. I’ve had to find a way to forgive myself and to live with myself after I left her.

When Mac’s finger edges along my clit, it’s a hell of a lot more than sexual desire being released. It’s the remnants of the existential crisis I had to shepherd myself through. Of having to live with hurting the woman I loved in the most excruciating way.

She keeps staring at me, as though she’s looking for something in my eyes that can’t be said in words. I’ve already told her I’m sorry so that can’t be it. Unless she needs more apologies—or something more than an apology. Complete surrender in this moment is all I can give her. I try to keep my eyes open because I want to see her as well, but I’m in too much of a state to read anything in Mac’s eyes. All I know is her expression is kind and merciful and, just as my eyes fall shut, I’m also convinced that there’s something akin to love in her glance.

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