Page 110 of Forbidden Hearts
“I’m sorry, what?”
“Please.” Her soft plea is the only reason I slide forward, and then she slips in behind me. She wraps her arms and legs around me, and I suddenly see the appeal. “Lie back, Asher.”
I do, feeling her breasts against my back as my head settles right at the base of her neck. “Not what my plan was.”
“I want to hold you tonight,” she says while her hand cups water and pours it on my chest. “I want to just sit like this with you.”
“I like holding you.”
She kisses the side of my head. “And I like being held, but this is really nice too.”
It is. I sink into the embrace, trying to remember the last time anyone held me. I don’t think it’s ever happened. Phoebe’s legs tighten around my middle, and her head rests against my neck.
I close my eyes, loving how she clamps onto me like she never wants to let go, and God knows I never want her to.
I hear a soft hiccup, and I feel her chest shake. “Phoebe?”
“I’m sorry,” she says, and I try to sit up, but she keeps her grip.
“Are you crying, sweetheart?”
“No.” She tries to cover it, but I hear the ache in that word.
Forcing her arms to release their death grip, I get free enough to turn. There isn’t much room, so I am basically now on top of her, but I see the tears going down her face. “No tears, Phoebe. Talk to me. Why are you crying?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“You can.”
She shakes her head. “I can’t. Don’t you get it? I can’t. I can’t admit the words. I can’t tell you because I can’t take them back if I do.”
She doesn’t have to give voice to them because I know. I feel it between us, and I am grappling with the same thing. She’s right, if we say them out loud, then there’s no denying the truth between us any longer.
“I don’t like seeing you cry.”
“I don’t want to cry. I’m stronger than this, but when I got in here and put my arms and legs around you . . . I just felt . . .”
I put my finger to her lips and then wipe away the tear that is moving down her cheek. “You don’t have to say it, sweetheart. I feel what you can’t say.”
“Leaving is going to hurt.”
Her leaving is going to kill me. Watching her drive off, wanting her to turn around and turn to me but knowing that’s not fair to ask and selfish to desire. So I will have to take the pain because it’s what’s best for her.
“I won’t let anyone hurt you. I will destroy anyone who hurts you.”
Even if that person is me.
twenty-eight
PHOEBE
“Hello, Phoebe, it’s great to see you again,” Dr. Schwartz says as she enters.
She’s one of my favorite doctors ever. She’s warm, friendly, and she radiates the kind of energy you want to be around. I’ve spent so much of my life with her around thanks to my parents’ friendship with her and her husband. Plus, our town only has one doctor, and Dr. Schwartz does pretty much everything. The office treats infants to elderly to everything in between. I’ve been a patient here since I was in my mother’s womb.
“It’s so good to see you, Miss Lucy! How are you? How are the boys? And Jerome?” I ask, missing Jerome terribly.
He and my dad taught me to play Blackjack when I was little. They had a standing card game every Sunday, and while they played, Lucy and my mother would drink wine on the porch as her boys ran around. I was much older, so I hung with the men.
