Page 65 of My Sweetest Obsession
And every moment since then, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it.
The look in her eyes when she asked me to do it. The plea in her voice. The way her body trembled under my touch and how she came apart on my tongue. The wash of her release coating my mouth and filling me with an ecstasy I had no right to feel.
I’ve obsessed over what happened with her, and after my talk with Dale, I’ve put all that angst and uncertainty onto the canvases that now line the walls of the studio.
Images that depict not just her pain—that I was so adamant I didn’t want to show—but the raw beauty I saw in it and in her as she fought to stay above water and avoid drowning in her misery. As she asked for my help and accepted it.
Has she been thinking about it this entire time?
Considering taking me up on my offer?
How many times did she press the keys, then delete, only to retype it again?
Likely as many as I’ve started the car and thrown it into drive to head back home tonight, only to lose the nerve, put it in park, and shut it off again just to sit and stare at her house.
I move my hand to the ignition button to start the car, to do what I should have that night. When she opened that door and I stood there in the rain, in the gloom of the storm that had surrounded the house without that damn porch light, I should have walked away.
But as soon as I saw her face…the moment I witnessed how the same dark cloud that consumed me was swallowing her whole, I couldn’t leave.
I couldn’t let her wither and die with him.
That same need to save her, to offer her anything that might keep her afloat in the raging tempest I have made her reality finally forces me to ignore Dale’s warnings.
To pull my hand back from the ignition.
To open the door.
To take that first step across the pavement toward the house.
It is what pushes me up the front walk and to the porch and makes me knock.
I can’t use my key tonight.
I can’t just let myself in like I have so many other times.
Not for this.
Ivy doesn’t answer, and maybe it’s a sign I should turn around and go. But my phone dings, and I pull it out of my pocket and find a message from her.
Come in
Those two little words, coupled with the one she sent earlier, are enough to shatter any resolve I have left to walk away before this goes any further.
I made her a promise.
One I intend to fulfill.
My whole body vibrates in anticipation as I step inside, the thought of why she asked me to come over making every nerve in my body tingle while simultaneously causing my conscience to recoil.
Don’t do this, Cam…
She may want it now, but she’ll regret it later.
That little devil on my shoulder whispers louder the farther I move in, trying to drown out any thought about why this is so wrong and all those reasons Dale gave me only a handful of days ago.
Give her what you both want…
I shake my head, trying to stop the warring voices, but they’re both still there as I make my way back to the bedroom.
