Page 137 of All Too Well
Pleasure and pain mix in my veins, and his finger moves to my clit. I moan and close my eyes, wanting the pain that will become my constant companion in this world.
“Open your eyes,” he says through gritted teeth. “I want you to see me as you come.”
His dark-brown eyes stare back at me while he continues to hit the spot that’s driving me to orgasm. “I can’t stop it,” I gasp between thrusts. I grip Lachlan’s face, pulling him to me, and kiss him deeply.
The orgasm crashes through me so fast I break away, crying out his name as I come.
Lachlan continues to thrust his hips, a sleek sheen of sweat across his face. He comes hard before collapsing onto me. My fingers move up and down his spine as I fight back tears.
We lie here, spent both emotionally and physically.
After a minute, he rolls to his side, taking me with him so I’m tucked against him.
We don’t say anything for a long while, just wrapped in each other’s arms, staring up at the vast sky.
The stars seem to multiply, and I make a million wishes on them. Each one I ask for the same.
Please don’t let me lose him. Please let him not fight me on this.
“We should get back,” he says after a while. “It’s getting late.”
I pull myself tighter around him, refusing to go. Once we get back to the house, we’ll be one step closer to the end. “I don’t want to leave,” I confess, my heart in my throat.
“I don’t want you to.”
“And what if I didn’t have to?” I toss the possibility out there. I have nothing left to lose. I’m already destined to give him up.
“I’m not sure how you think that’s possible.”
I sit up, crossing my legs. “There are a hundred different ways to make this work, Lachlan.”
“Until there’s not.”
Okay, that hurt.
“You’re giving up without even trying?”
Lachlan sighs heavily. “Fine. Let’s hear your hundred ways.”
“I could come here on the weekends. You could come visit me. Rose would love New York—there’s so much to do and see.”
“And when she has cheer? Or soccer? Or she has a birthday party that weekend and we’re unable to make it work?”
I shrug. “Then we figure it out.”
“Ainsley, you make it sound easy. New York is like eight hours from here.”
“It can be easy! I love you. I’ve loved you my whole damn life, Lachlan. Now I know what it’s like to have you, and I don’t want to give it up. Why are you so okay with this?”
“Okay with this? You think I’m okay with this? God, you can’t be more wrong. I’m not okay. I’m fucking dying inside at the idea of you leaving tomorrow. Of not holding you, kissing you, taking you to these goddamn falls, which you’ve ruined for me now. I’ll never be able to come here without thinking of you.”
“You’ve ruined me, so we’re even!” He pinches the bridge of his nose, and I continue. “You love me and yet you’ll let me go?”
Lachlan’s sigh is weighted with a heaviness I can feel around me. “I’ve seen what happens when you hold on to a woman who is meant to fly.”
I shake my head. “I’m not every other woman in your life.”
“You forget that it was you who walked away four years ago. Not even walked, you ran. You got in your car without a word and then wouldn’t talk to me. I called you and not even a text back. So, no, you’re not every other woman. They hurt me—you’d destroy me.”
