Page 15 of Fifty First Times (Sharing You 0.40)
He kissed me, long and slow, his hands behind my neck, combing through my hair. And then just as he pulled away, he whispered the words softly against my mouth, “Marry me.”
I thought he was playing a game, like the hypothetical move to NYC and Broadway school acceptance. I laughed and rubbed the tips of his ears, a habit I’d developed recently. “Sure, okay.”
Jack pulled himself upright, reached under the blanket, and held a tiny black box out in front of me. I stared at it, stunned, my heart pounding as I sat up quickly.
“It’s my grandmother’s ring.” His hands shook when he opened the box. “I already asked your father’s permission but that doesn’t mean you have to say yes, Audrey. It just means that I needed to know that he approved.”
My mouth fell open, but nothing came out.
Jack looped the beautiful ring around his pinky and set the box aside, bringing his hands to my face, “I love you. You brought me back to life. You and your family. And I want you to be my wife even if it’s only for a week or a day or an hour. There’s nothing I want more.”
There was nothing I wanted more.
I tugged the ring from his pinky, my own hands now shaking, and held it out for him to place on my finger. “If I say yes, you’ll still have to leave?”
He nodded, his face somber.
I swallowed hard and tears fell down my cheeks. “Yes.”
“Yes?” He brushed the tears from face. “Really?”
“Really.” I smiled and leaned forward, pressing a kiss to his lips. “I love you, too, Jack.”
He slid the ring down my finger and pulled me close until I was straddling his lap. And then we were kissing. This time without nearly as much caution.
“Promise me,” he whispered against my neck, “You’ll go after what you want, no matter what? You won’t let yourself get stuck waiting for me, forgetting your own dreams?”
That was the moment I knew his departure was looming in the very near future. How had five months already passed? How could I love him so hard, so quick?
“AM I HURTING YOU?”
I focus on Jack and his body on top of mine. He’s barely pushed himself inside me and already he’s stopped to check on me. “I’m fine, it’s okay.”
He lifts one hand to brush tears from the side of my face. “If you’re fine, then why are you crying?”
There’s a strain in his voice that makes me smile. He’s using every bit of willpower he has to stop. “It’s very easy to make me cry. You should know that by now.”
“Keeping going?” he asks again.
“Yes.”
Jack’s mouth collides with mine, kissing me so hard I melt right into him. His arms are tight around me as he pushes the rest of the way inside me, his kiss swallowing any involuntary cry I would have made, and then the pain is over and we’re connected in a way I never thought possible. Then it becomes desperate and swift, both of us clinging to each other as we move locked together like two pieces of a puzzle. No longer two bodies but one.
A few minutes later, we’re both breathing hard, still wrapped in each other’s arms, but all the tension is gone. All that’s left is love. Love way too big for this tiny apartment. Love that I can only hope will stretch whatever distance comes between us.
Jack rolls onto his back, pulling me against his chest. We lay there drunk in the moment and half asleep for nearly an hour until Jack’s voice startles me from my dozing-off session.
“Thank you,” he whispers into the dark.
I turn my cheek and kiss his bare shoulder. “For what?”
“For saving me, Audrey.”
My muscles freeze up. This is the third time he’s said those words to me—the first time was on my nineteenth birthday, a couple months after we’d been dating, the second was when he proposed. I pull myself up on my elbow and study his face from above. “What do you mean by that?”
The way he draws air quickly into his lungs—nostrils sinking in from the force—then swallows hard, I know he’s finally going to explain. Because he might not be able to after tonight.
Stop. Don’t think about that.
