Page 60 of I'm Gonna Get You Back
“I know.”
But it wasn’t from the cold. The rumors were wrong. I’d never done this with anyone.
I drew his lips back to mine, clung to him as hard as I dared. Enclosed in that moment, trying to seal it, knowing it was only a matter of time before it shattered. His mouth slid down my throat, and my head fell back, goose bumps rippling down my skin from Reid’s reverent touch.
I let myself get lost in all the sensations jolting through me. Until his hands slowed, light fingertips across my jaw, down my neck, my sternum. My eyes flickered open, and I caught his gaze roaming the same path—my face, my hair, my body above him.
A newfound warmth overtook his expression that dropped mystomach like a stone. Our panting chests rose and fell in tandem as we looked at each other.
“Clara.” He swallowed. The corner of his mouth hiked up. “I—”
I pressed a panicked hand to his mouth. “Don’t.”
He blinked. Once. Twice.
I didn’t know what I was doing, just that I needed to do it. That I didn’t want to hear what he was going to say. There was no part of me that could hear it and still let him go.
Ihadto be able to let him go.
He frowned, and I lowered my hand.
“Don’t?” he repeated, his tone disbelieving.
A heavy silence filled the space as he watched me, waiting for an explanation I didn’t have. All I knew was that look told me we were headed for something I couldn’t possibly handle. Sex was one thing. But this… this was something else. Something that almost overtook me.
I shook my head and slid off his lap, reaching through the pile of clothes for my shirt.
“You were right. We shouldn’t” was all I said.
I snuck a glance at him—his hair mussed, his strong, bare chest glowing in the dim light—and he looked bewildered. Crushed.
“It’s just better if we keep things—”
“Casual,” he finished. “I know.”
He didn’t sound angry, but he wouldn’t look at me. His brow was low, his posture tight just like it had been when I first met him. Everything he had opened to me the past several months had slammed shut the moment I wouldn’t let him finish that sentence.
Wordlessly, I slipped my damp shirt on. He did the same, the muscle in his jaw jumping over and over. The storm outside had calmed, too. Enough to drive, at least. But he didn’t start the truck.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered.
He finally met my eyes again. They were yearning and sad, and I wanted nothing more than to fix it.
But I didn’t know if I could.
Because making promises to him meant breaking promises to myself.
CHAPTER FIFTEENREIDNOW
ONE DAY UNTIL LEGACY BANQUET
@haikuforyou
The sky over the
mountain is still not enough
to hold what we lost
