The time finally came when he was going to do the let-me-down-gently bit, but I couldn’t do it. I’d wanted him to end things, so I didn’t have to, but faced with it happening, I could barely handle it.
Every time I’d let myself look at him during the rehearsal, he smiled.
Every time I’d heard his voice, which seemed to have a hotline directly to my ears, my chest hurt.
Every time I thought back to seeing him flirt with the hotel worker in the front lobby, a painful eye-opener, I wanted to run away. Privately handle what I was feeling.
I had no control over him, no claim. Cord had every right to do whatever he wanted.
Except one thing.
I wasn’t going to let him crush me that night. I wasn’t ready yet.
I couldn’t hide the vulnerability in my voice. Honestly, I’d never heard myself sound like that, and he took pity on me at the bar.
“Well, let me help you then?” he offered. There wasn’t anything to help. I’d brought the gifts in and had the valet guys take the other boxes where they belonged into the ballroom.
“No, thank you. Actually, I’m about to go.”
Obviously frustrated, he scratched his head, looked at Becca and Reuben who were down the bar from us, and relented with a long sigh. “Okay.”
I was off the hook, and it only took me about three minutes to say goodnight to everyone else, grab my gift bag, and get the hell out of there. I rested my head against the wall of the elevator as I rode up to my floor, the dread felt heavy in my stomach.
My eyes burned and I thought I might cry, but I choked the emotion down. I hated that it was over, but I didn’t want to face it—not that night.
After kicking off my heels, and slipping into my slippers, I walked down the hall, peeking around corners like the Ginga Ninja I was, to fill up the ice bin and buy two more Cokes. It was only ten o’clock, but the Captain and I had a lot of things to sort out.
Namely, who was to blame for my stupid feelings about a guy who never was going to be mine? That was a short debate. It was all on me.
Rum put me in my place, and by midnight it had reminded me he was possibly with another woman. A sickening pill to swallow.
New Dana was a lame-ass pussy.
Not to mention lonely and pathetic.
Or gullible and foolish.
I didn’t cry though—even though it was right fucking there the whole time, stinging my nose and making my throat tight. So, when there was a knock on my door, at least I didn’t have to worry about smeared raccoon eyes. Hell, I was still in my strapless bra and underwear, sitting there in the dark looking out the window.
It was him, and I knew it before I even got off the chair. He was what I needed even if it would only make it harder.
If I let him in, I could have him one last time.
As I walked to the door, the Captain brought up a good point: It might be the last time you ever feel like this, ever want someone like this. Ever have them. Period.
One of his stupid Bon Jovi songs rang in my ears. I was going down in a blaze, but there wasn’t anything glorious about it.
I didn’t bother throwing a robe on or turning on the light before I opened the door.
He stood in the bright hallway. No jacket. His dress shirt untucked and loosely buttoned. His blonde hair mussed.
“I’m sorry it’s late, but you have to know, Dana. Things have changed.”
I hadn’t needed to hear it, and I knew what he meant. What was happening, and didn’t wait for him to say anything else before I threw myself into his arms where he caught me and met my mouth with the same intensity as I gave his.
I cherished the flavor of his kiss. The warm lick of his tongue against mine. The audible gasp we shared when our air ran out.
Our chemistry had always been stunning. Shocking how, physically, we were always on the same page. Emotionally, though we said the same things, we spoke a different language.
He was still playing the game I’d forfeited.
I’d known better. The whole fucking time it was going to happen, but I couldn’t have stopped even if I’d wanted to. That was how strong of a pull he had on me from day one.
But, now, it was the last last time.
“Fuck me like you mean it,” I said into his mouth.
If he had to pretend, I didn’t care anymore. It was what I needed, and I wasn’t holding back. I lived in that moment and intended on keeping it forever.
As he walked me back into the room, I slapped the door shut behind him. My feet didn’t look for the ground, how much further could I really fall anyway?
A thump of his kicked-off shoes. A low rumble in his chest when I bit his lip.
He set me down on the floor at the foot of the bed and bent to kiss below my ear as he threaded the leather out of the loops on his belt. After I pulled my underwear off and threw my bra somewhere, I worked on his shirt.
“I’ve wanted you, Dana. So fucking bad.” Then he tore both of his shirts over his head.
I moaned from his words. The way he talked to me during sex always stripped me bare of my modesty. My fingers rubbed over his stomach, and my mouth kissed the center of his chest. His skin was fevered, and I nearly rubbed my cheek against him, but my lips wouldn’t allow it.
His massive hands seized my ass, hoisting me up his body. Dominantly, with me in his arms, he climbed on the bed while holding me.
Nothing would ever make me feel that way. How, when he used his strength like that, it gave me security I’d never experienced before—false as it may have been.
I straddled his waist in the center of the mattress where he sat back on his knees, embracing me with one arm. With his mouth on mine, he tossed and rearranged pillows behind me. Then, when he was satisfied, he lowered my back onto them.
His erection pressed between us, and I relaxed into the soft pile he’d gathered for me. In tandem, his hands spread wide, gripping me rib to rib, ran up my sides. Over my breasts. Over my shoulders. Down my arms. They lifted my fingers to his mouth.
The rum and the moonlight almost made me weep.
“I’ll give you whatever you want, baby,” he lied. If his fingers were crossed, I couldn’t tell.
I want you I confessed in my head.
“Just touch me.” It was all I could ask for. It was as much as I would get.
His lover’s touch at my center ripped my first orgasm from my body with bantam effort. My hips rocked, searching for the rest of him.
I didn’t want to come down. I wanted to overdose on him in my hotel bed and fall asleep with the feeling he left between my legs.
I wanted more. Wanted all of it.
He guided himself inside, yanked the pillows out from under me, and we fell into the mattress holding on for dear life. His weight against me and his breath in my hair, my head fell to the side as a plane flew through the night sky outside my window.
And just like that, planes were added to the long list of things that may forever remind me of him.
His hand turned my cheek back to gaze. “Blue eyes on me.”
Then I panted, as he pushed deeper, and linked my legs behind his back. I watched and prayed I’d forget, the pull of his brow, the stretch of tendons in his neck, and the almost black hunger in his eyes. The feeling of him pressing and driving into me.
If it was the first time, it was also the last. It was the best and the worst, all the same.
He hovered above me, squeezed my left hip in his massive grip, and said, “God, I’m going to come.”
Then I panicked.
This isn’t enough.
“No. Shhh,” I whispered and cupped his cheeks. “Slow down. Please. I don’t want it to be done. Please, Cord. Please.”
“Hey, baby. Hey.” His pace yielded, and I did my best not to move. “Okay.”
I careened my neck, reaching for his mouth. “Let’s just go slow.”
Then we did.
Slow and hard.
Slow and deep.
Slowly, I felt my heart tearing.
But, as the minutes turned to hours, he took his time. Even when I came, quietly attempting to hide it, he’d held my hand and nearly come to a complete stop as bliss washed through me, time and again.
On our sides, his front to my back, somewhere between my dreams and reality, he eventually said my name, and then I fell asleep.
When I woke up to my phone blaring, I thanked God that I’d set the alarm I hadn’t thought I’d needed. I was the only one in my bed, but I could still smell him in the sheets.
For a while, I smiled and thought of Cord and the night before. As much as I’d expected to feel sad and utterly heartbroken, thankfully in my sleepy daze, neither of those emotions had caught up with me yet.
Then the alarm went off again, and I noticed a new message.
CORD: I had to go, but I’ll see you later. We still need to talk.
Why?
Couldn’t we just let it end like that? Did there really have to be a verbal end to what we’d kind of had? Could I even bare it?
It was nine in the morning, and I had to get up and around. Knowing there’d be food and everything in Becca’s suite, and that we were all getting ready there at ten, I took a long, hot shower, and made my way to her room.
Damp hair, purple sweats, white button up shirt, and flip-flops, I carried my stuff through her door.
“Good morning,” Jodi said from the small dining table where she ate by the window.
“Good morning,” I replied, and then stepped out of the way so Jyl could come in the door behind me.
“Dana, is that you?” I heard from somewhere in the suite.
I shouted in return, “Yeah.”
“Come back here. I’m in the bathroom,” Becca hollered.
I hung my dress on a cabinet handle, threw the rest of my stuff in a pile on the sofa, and then knocked on the closed door.
She answered, “Get the fuck in here.”
“Is someone freaking out?” I laughed as I came in and shut the door behind me.
She was sitting cross-legged on the counter with a pair of tweezers in her hand.
“Only because someone’s best friend didn’t tell someone that she was dating someone’s fiancé’s best man.”
Shit.
I plopped down on the toilet lid.
“What?”
It was always possible they’d find out, but I never had any intention of telling. Now, I looked like an asshole—and a fool. I’d earned both.
“Don’t you what me, hooker. Cord told Reuben that you’ve been seeing each other.”
Fuck. Shit.
“It’s not serious.” I huffed and picked at a hangnail. She stared at me in the mirror, and her eyes felt like lasers. “I mean, look at him. It’s me.”
Had I really changed at all?
Wasn’t this exactly where I was before him?
She turned, tan legs dangling off the edge of the long vanity, and pointed her tweezers at me. “Does he know that?”
“Of course he does.”
What else does a man like him want to talk to a girl like me about? He’d even told me how he’d do it. Literally told me, to my face, how he broke up with girls one perfect Sunday over barbecue and beer.
“Don’t worry about it. It’s no big deal.”
“Bitch, you can’t lie to a bride on her wedding day.”
Was that an actual thing? It kind of sounded legit.
“I’m not lying, but I am starving. So, do whatever it is you’re doing in here, and then come out and boss us around like a normal bride. And don’t over pluck your eyebrows or you’re going to be pissed.” I stood up and grabbed the pinchers out of her hand like a good friend would do. “Seriously. They look perfect, and you’re going to fuck them up.”
I marched out, preaching. “Stop while you’re ahead.”
Too bad I couldn’t have followed my own advice.