I held Rose’s perfect nude body against mine. My right hand trailing around the curve of her ass. My left hand gently playing with her hair.

“Tell me about your day,” she whispered, her breath against my chest.

“Just another day,” I said. “Something funny did happen.”

“What?”

“Heard from Carl. I get to have a writing session soon. Potential for a hit or two. That would be nice.”

“What’s that like, Foster? Writing music. Selling it.”

“Just like any job,” I said.

“No. I don’t believe that. You’re making something special.”

“You’re something special, Rose.” I pulled at her, holding her even tighter to me. “I’d rather just do this for the rest of my life.”

“Then sell the song about me,” she teased. “Then we can be rich together. Forever.”

I looked down at her. “You think you can put up with me for forever?”

“Why not? It’s all we’ve got for each other. Nothing else is left.”

“Oh, there’s plenty left between us,” I said. “Do you want to live in this studio apartment with me? Or me living in your apartment?”

“So, we’re buying a house now?”

“Whoa, Rose, don’t jump the gun.”

“Oh. Right. We’re not there yet.” She rolled her eyes.

“Hey,” I said. “I’ll give you anything you want, Rose.”

“Yeah, you say that.”

I rolled her to her back and looked into her eyes. “I’m serious, Rose. I’m enjoying this. You and me like this. I’m holding back so we don’t mess things up.”

“We’re really good at messing things up.”

“Yeah, we are. Mostly me though.”

“True. I didn’t want to offend you though.”

“Thanks for that,” I whispered. “I’m serious. We’ve gone through the worst of it all. Just bouncing around. We never got too far apart. We never really hated each other.”

“We just didn’t risk it enough,” she said.

“I know. In some ways, I’d rather have you in my life as a friend than lose you as the one.”

“Wow. Not sure if that’s romantic or not.”

I grinned. “Neither am I. I like this Rose. I mean, I can’t give you a dream life. The life you probably want…”

“There you go, Foster. Just assuming things again. You always do that. Like the night of that party. Faking all that kissing stuff. Why? You assumed I didn’t want to kiss you?”

“No,” I said. “Rose. That night… if I’d kissed you… that would have led to so much more.”

“That would have been a bad thing?”

I inched down and kissed her. I turned and sat up a little in the bed. “I was moving stuff for my father then, Rose.”

“Stuff…”

I looked down at her. “Stuff.”

“Oh,” she said. “I remember that night. With the car.”

“Yeah. That was my getaway. I was moving stuff at the party. Delivering. Then I had to go and take care of other stuff. It was how we survived. If I helped him, he stayed good. Which sounds strange. Breaking the law to not break the law.”

“Foster,” Rose said. She grabbed my hand and opened it. She played with my fingers. “I hate him. So much. More than I’ve ever hated anyone.”

I smiled. I felt the hard lump in my throat. “I know. Just means you love me.”

Rose bit her lip. “I want to say that to you, Foster. Right now. A month ago. A year ago. I don’t know where that will get us though.”

“I want you to live the way you want,” he whispered. “Never hold back. The good. The bad. Anything. I know you hate my father. In some way, I do too. The thing is, Rose, he can’t get to me anymore. It really doesn’t matter. I have everything I want in my life. In my arms. You.”

Rose inched up a little and kissed my chest. “Fine. I love you, Foster.”

I touched her chin, tracing a line from one side to the other. I cupped the left side of her face, my thumb stroking her cheek.

“I know you do,” I whispered. “You’ve loved me for as long as I’ve known you. That really means something to me. You don’t have to believe me, Rose, but it’s why I sort of kept that small distance there. I never wanted you dragged into my darkness.”

“I wasn’t ever dragged,” Rose said. “I followed. Willingly.”

“I know. You stubborn fool of a woman.”

“Love,” she said. “It does things to a person.”

“I know,” I said. “Fuck me, Rose, I know. There were so many times when I would suddenly just think of you. Wonder if you were with someone. If he was treating you good. If he loved you the way you wanted to be loved.”

“There could never be anyone but you, Foster,” Rose said. “That’s the one truth of my life. Everything else just kind of falls into place. Just happens.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I’m not sure anything in my life actually has fallen into place. Other than showing up at the right times. Or the wrong times, depending on how you look at it.”

Rose laughed. “Everything about us is right and wrong. That’s what makes us…”

Rose paused.

“Makes us what?” I asked.

“I don’t know.”

I laughed. “Thanks for that.”

“I’m tired, Foster.”

“That’s your fault, Rose. I planned on going straight to bed. But you…”

“Oh, come on,” she said. “Who goes to bed at nine?”

I winked. “To be fair, Rose, you don’t look very tired right now.”

“I don’t?”

“Nope.”

I moved to my left and wrapped my right arm around her and gripped the bed. My body pressed to hers, I kissed her once. That’s all I needed. I pulled away and gave Rose a second to get ready. She hooked her left leg around my body and I thrust down at her, feeling her warmth exploding with even more heat. I moved between her legs as I kissed her again. Her hands grabbed at my hair, pulling hard. I broke the kiss and inched down her neck. She put her head back with a sigh and thrust her chest up at me.

I slid my hand down the bed and touched her hip, easing up and over her sweet skin and down to her inner thigh. I opened her legs a little more, my fingers cutting up until I touched her silky folds. Curling my fingers, I teased her hips into thrusting, her body tight to mine, under my control.

My mouth kissed down her chest and settled on her left breast. I tasted her skin, the tip of my tongue making circles around her nipple, and I finally closed my mouth and gently pulled, making her groan and making her arch her back even more off the bed.

Between her legs, I moved my fingers up to her soft skin and left a trail of honey along her lower stomach. I moved my body and inched forward, bringing myself to her. With just the slightest of touches, her back crashed to the bed and she purred. Her hips quivered with need as her heart raced with want. I reversed my kisses so that I climbed up her chest, tasted her neck, and kissed to her mouth. The kiss was wild, intense, and I thrust my lower half forward, sinking into her.

She gasped as we kissed.

Her hands grabbed for my back.

She wrapped her legs around my lower back.

I had her. She was all mine.

My body thrusting, pumping, fucking, having her again.

She was right… who the hell goes to bed at nine?

We did.

Because it was now almost midnight and we had done nothing but explore each other’s bodies and hearts.

I grunted as I thrust forward with force. Rose cried out and broke the kiss, burying her face into my neck. Her lips, her tongue, and then her teeth. Kissing me. Biting me. My nose gently touching her hair, smelling her shampoo. It made me grit my teeth.

With Rose, there was no falling in love. There was diving head first into a darkness that never ended the way we wanted.

But it felt…

“It’s so fucking good,” she groaned, her breath touching my neck.

She fought to keep kissing me, working her way to my chest. I put fists to the bed and lifted away from her. She grabbed my arms and pulled herself up, kissing and biting at me.

I moved faster and faster, looking down at her as she tried to ravage me. Feeling her trying to keep pace.

It made me curl my lip.

I felt my cock swell. I felt her beautiful body clenching against me.

Rose kissed up my chest and put her head back again to gasp for air. A few sweaty strands of hair clung to her face. She looked hopeless with eyes burning with pleasure.

That was all I could take.

I lowered down to kiss her.

But before our lips could even attempt to flirt, we both began to climax…

* * *

I wore my jeans and had a beer bottle on the nightstand. I brought a chair across from the kitchen table and put it right next to the bed. I held my guitar and Rose was curled up tight in my blankets and sheets. She stared at me, smiling. I knew that under those blankets and sheets she was naked. I would have much rather been holding her body instead of my damn guitar.

But she asked me to play her to sleep.

When we were younger, right before everything exploded one of the times, she confessed to me that one of her fantasies was for me to play guitar and put her to sleep with it. There was nothing sexual about that fantasy, yet in some way it made me feel wildly ready to have her again.

Maybe that was just the way romance worked. The heart, brain, and body, all trying to find their place and forever bumping each other out of the way for more power. That’s why people were stupid when they were in love. That’s why nothing else in life mattered when they in were love.

That’s why I sat there, playing my guitar, picking at the strings, coming up with the slowest and softness notes I could think of. Almost like a sad song or lullaby written just for Rose. To ease her beautiful body and mind. To send her off into another night of sleep. Because we both knew that tomorrow would be another adventure.

I plucked the strings and moved my left hand up and down the neck. Amazing how six strings and some fancy wood allowed me to do what I was doing.

Rose’s eyes slowly began to shut and I kept playing long after she was asleep.

I hit the final note and bent it a little. I slid the guitar off my lap and placed it on the bed. I reached for my beer and sat in the chair, watching her sleep.

I rubbed my jaw.

There weren’t the words written yet for how I felt about her. I wanted to write those words for her, but those words would lock her into my forever. She’d blindly follow me into that forever. It made me love her even more.

But my forever wasn’t made of fairy tales and castles and princes and all that stuff. My forever had started a long time ago and there was no changing it and no escaping it.

My forever would show Rose a love she would never find anywhere else.

But my forever… would forever hurt her.