Page 22 of Age of Shade

I don’t need to try to remember any of this, though. For how determined I’ve been to ensure she’s never free of me, I somehow failed to recognize that I wouldn’t be free either.

When I finally have the strength to lift my head and lean back, Adina follows me. Her warm hands find my face, and then she’s kissing me again. Not with the wild desperation of earlier, but tender and slow. Being kissed like this feels like someone has taken a knife to my chest and cut me open. There’s nowhere to hide, and I couldn’t resist if I tried.

The bedroom is through the door behind us, and I pull back only so I can get to my feet and hurry across the room to wipe my cum on the abandoned towel. When I turn back to her, I find Adina watching me, leaning back on her elbows with the city sparkling through the window behind her. She looks exhausted.

Something inside me pulls taught, tugging me back to her, and I don’t fight it. I cross the room to lift her into my arms, loving the way she twines her arms around my neck and the warm weight of her naked body against mine.

“Stay here tonight,” I plead.

I am not ready for this to be over. How could I possibly watch her walk out the door and into the cold night, knowing it will be the last time I ever see her? Even Adina’s quiet acceptance does nothing to soothe the vicious point of pain that’s appeared in the center of my chest. Even if it’s not now, I’ll still have to say goodbye soon. Reminding myself that this is my own doing, thatit’s better this way, only makes the pain sharpen as I lay her back on the bed.

She moves over, and, like we’ve done this a thousand times before, I follow. We don’t speak as I pull the covers over us both and curl my body around hers.

Adina’s fingers dance over mine. “Tell me a secret.”

Her voice is sleepy, and my answering laugh ghosts over the bare skin of her shoulder. “What kind of secret?”

She hums, her hand drifting to play with the hair dusting my forearm. “Any kind.”

I want you for more than tonight.

The room is dark. Even the city’s light is blocked out by the heavy, rich drapes covering the windows. I close my eyes, breathing her in, savoring every little brush of skin and the feeling of her back rising and falling steadily against my chest. It’s strange to be utterly content while still dreading something so deeply.

“My mother lives in Florida. I went to visit her for the holidays this year.”

“Why is that a secret?”

“It isn’t.” My throat is tight. Of all the things I could have told her—sordid events from college, things that make me look interesting or funny or cool—this is what I choose? “It’s that I didn’t have anyone to pick me up from the airport.”

A second passes, then two. I’m scrambling for some way to laugh this off, to play it off as nothing, when Adina moves. Turning over in my arms, her hands cradling my face in the darkness. I realize too late that my eyes are wet. When was the last time I cried? Christ—I can’t remember. Lindsey leaving was the biggest, supposedly devastating moment of my life, and I didn’t shed a tear. Even sitting in that airplane, hollowed out with loneliness, I kept myself together.

I don’t have time to be embarrassed, though, because there’s a quiet sniffle through the darkness.

“Sorry.” Adina laughs sadly. “That hit close to home.”

“Angel—”

“No! It’s okay!” She nestles a little closer, her soft legs brushing against mine. “Things are okay for me now, but I get it. That feeling. I’m so sorry, Asher.”

Not as sorry as I am. I would take feeling that way forever if it meant she never again experienced that gaping chasm inside her. Everything about this woman isgood. She deserves to be cherished. She deserves everything.

I have no right, none at all, but—fuck me—I want to give it to her.

CHAPTER NINE

ADINA

Time’s up.

I knew this was coming, obviously, but my heart still feels heavy as I slide out of the warm hotel bed. Asher is still sprawled out on his stomach, sound asleep, and his heavy breathing is the only noise in the room apart from the muffled sound of traffic eight floors below us. There’s a pleasant soreness between my legs, a reminder of the three—no, four? Who knows how many—orgasms he wrung from my body before I fell asleep in his arms.

Sleeping beside someone was yet another first for me. I didn’t set my alarm. For once, though, the constant, gnawing exhaustion that usually plagues me is nowhere to be found.

Last night wasn’t what I expected it to be. I all but offered myself to Asher Roth on a silver platter, fully prepared to lose my virginity to him, and he chose to spend our first and only night together entirely focused on makingmefeel good. Granted, my experience with one-night stands is pretty limited, but I do know that sex is usually involved.

Exhaling raggedly, I scan the spotless room, which looks so much fancier during the day than it did last night. At some point while I was sleeping, Asher must have gone out into the living room to clean up, because my clothes are folded neatly on thechair beside the door with the new purse from Ruby resting on top.

My throat tightens as I stare at the pile. There’s no reason to read into it. He was probably trying to be nice.

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