WATCHING THE STREETS and houses pass me by out the passenger window of Carter's car, I can feel his stare. I don't want to talk about anything, I'm too mentally and physically exhausted.
“What the hell has happened to you since I last saw you?”
“Don't, Carter. I'm not up for hashing anything out tonight. Please. I appreciate you getting me out of there, but can we not talk?”
“Where do you want to go?”
“Can you take me to your place? I don't want to go home. He’ll come and find me and I'm not ready to face him either.”
I look over to him and he silently nods, and I just see the passing lights cross his face as we drive. He looks serious, and I know he's overthinking.
“I'll take you there tonight, but tomorrow you need to be straight with me. I can't protect you if I don't know what I'm protecting you from.”
“That's fair.”
I put my head back and just close my eyes, letting the rocking of the car ride and the purr of the engine lull me to sleep. I'm numb.
***
I'm laid down gently on a soft bed, the smell is so familiar, so comforting. Carter. I'm surrounded in his smell, in his warmth and it calms my rapidly beating heart.
Opening my eyes slightly, I see him sitting on the end of the bed with his head in his hands. He's still the most beautiful man I've ever laid my eyes on it hurts my heart. I know he's hurting after hearing the news of my baby. I know that hurt, it was the hurt that drove me to the hurricane that is Trent Zito.
“Carter,” I whisper into the dark.
He turns his head my way but I can't see his dark eyes, I only feel them on me.
“Will you lay with me? I know I have no right to ask this of you, I just need to feel your calm. Please,” I say as my voice cracks with unshed tears.
“Shhh, don't cry, Starfish,” he silently tells me as he pulls himself to lay next to me, pulling me over to lay on his chest like it's the most natural thing in the world. I settle my ear over his beating heart and take a deep breath. His kiss to the top of my head has me closing my eyes and the silent tears releasing.
So many emotions. I never thought I would share moments like this with Carter. After a lifetime of memories made between us, we were left drifted and my heart shattered. Meeting Trent helped to put Carter out of my mind, my heart hurting less with each day that passed and each moment Trent shared with me. That isn't the man I saw tonight, the Trent that's loved me these last three months. I don't know who that guy was, and now I'm not so sure I ever knew who he was to begin with.
“What do you need me to do to help you, Starfish?” he whispers into my hair.
“I don't know, Carter. I don't know what to think right now. Everything I thought I knew is a lie. And now I know I hurt you, if you feel any bit of the shatter in your heart that I have felt since the night we parted, then I'm so sorry. I didn’t plan this. I didn't plan to have a baby, but now that I am, I'm so happy about it.”
He just nods his head and takes a deep breath. He's silent. A silent Carter is never good. He's thinking of what's best to say. Something that I hope won't make what's between us any worse.
His large intake of breath has me holding mine. He's got something to say. I know him so well, almost better than myself.
“I'm devastated, Starfish, but it doesn't make my love for you any less. Yes, I still love you. I'm still in love with you and I've been miserable without you,” he says, lifting my chin to look at him. “My job to protect you will never stop, I was put on this earth to do just that. So even if I only get to share this moment with you again, it's something I'll keep with me always.”
I choke up and let the silent tears roll down my face as I look in his honey brown eyes. He's so sincere, it breaks my heart all the more. There's such a raw beauty to this moment. We've had to sink so far before we could share this, talk this way, and help mend what we broke in each other. Even if we are only friends, friends that will forever love each other. We needed this moment, for better or worse I cannot live without him in my life at all.
His mouth descends toward mine and my brain is firing off so many warnings. Am I cheating on Trent by sharing a kiss with Carter? No, I'm not, I left Trent tonight. I won't live my life with him the way I saw him tonight. Carter is my safe haven, my safety net. I want this kiss, I need it.
I silently give the permission he's seeking, as I lift my chin and meet his lips with my own. We just hold our lips together a moment, silently feeling each other for the first time in so long. I let a tear shed at the beautiful moment that someone is giving back to me. Someone is looking down on me, telling me I need my Carter.
He wipes my tear with his thumb, and I feel a drip to my nose. His own tear, this moment means as much to him.
Framing my hands to his cheeks, I lift myself higher to him and give him a kiss worth so many words I cannot seem to gather in my head at the moment. I hope he can feel it in each touch. Each breath of mine, my heart lined beating erratically against his own. Our chests lined together, our legs entwined, he wraps his arms tightly around me and rolls onto his back with me on top of him. On pure instinct, I let my legs fall to either side of his hips, as I seek his tongue to dance with my own, grinding down when I hear the moan escape him. He suddenly grabs my ass to hold me still and pulls back.
Using his hands, he pushes the hair that's escaped my ponytail behind each ear, his eyes pleading with me. “Don't start something you don't want, Starfish. I won't take advantage, but I'm a man who has lived without his heart for five months. My heart is you, and having you here, feeling you against me again- I can't promise you that I won't have all of you if you don't stop now.”
I don't hesitate, there's no thought about it. I tried to give my heart to someone else when it didn't belong to me to give away. It was always Carter’s, it always has been.
“Remind me, Carter. Show me the man I've missed in my world. Show me you love me,” I plead as I sit up and pull my sweatshirt off.
“Goddamn, did I fucking miss you,” he says as he sits up and grabs my face. He looks deep into my eyes for a moment before sealing his mouth over mine and reminding me where I belong.
“I don't want to hurt you or the baby,” he says with a shake of his head. “I don't care that you're pregnant and it isn't mine. I let you go, but you have always been mine, Starfish. This baby is yours and I will show him or her all the love I show you.”
I don't know what to say or think. My kid’s own dad doesn't seem to care this much, but my ex?
It fills my heart so much to hear these words. To know I didn't stray too far from home to come back. I'm accepted and so is my baby, like no time has even passed. Like no heartache and hurtful words were never spoken.
“I don't want him in my life anymore, Carter. I road unknowingly into a hurricane, but I'm making it out safely. It's not that I think I can run back to you and we are right back together again,” I start. Carter shushes me with his mouth to mine placing small kisses down my neck and to my collarbone.
“It is that simple. You're mine and I'm not letting you go again.”
The tank top of my leotard is now pulled down each shoulder, and I'm tipped back until my back hits the bed.
“I was stupid. We were stupid. That's done now, Starfish, I'm going to show you my love is true. And when I'm done with you, I'll hold you all night and let you rest. But first, you've got too many damn pieces to this costume,” he says while trying to figure out how to get my leotard off.
“Hey, at least I dressed up sourpuss,” I tell him as I roll off the side of the bed to get undressed. It is getting a little tight anyway, I could never sleep in it.
Pulling the leotard down to my hips, my movements are halted a moment by his words.
“Let me see you, God, you're breathtaking. You're bathed in the glow of the moon right now and look like the angel I dream so much about.”
I start to slide it again over the flare of my hips, but a mouth to my swollen and so very sensitive breasts has me momentarily paralyzed. I feel each pull straight down to my core, it's throbbing with the need for him to touch me. I feel like one small touch from him and I could detonate.
Holding his head to my breast, I throw my head and shoulders back and just give in. Something that feels this right can't be wrong.
He switches to the other breast as he holds my hips in his large hands. My labored breathing and small mewls give him a clue what he's doing to me. I look down to see his eyes staring into mine as his tongue traces around my erect nipple. The humor in his eyes tells me I'm right where he wants me. Watching him has my eyes rolling back in my head. My tights feel so damp right now, my throbbing nub is begging for attention.
“So sensitive,” I whisper.
I go back to pulling my pesky clothes off to get them out of the way. As I'm pulling the leotard from my feet, I'm turned and laid to the bed.
He stares down at me a moment, me in my tights, breasts exposed, and hair fanned out.
“You'll always be my dream come true,” he whispers as he reaches for my tights and pulls them down over my hips. I lift my butt up for them to pass over it, but he only makes to pull one leg out.
Just as I'm about to protest that I still have my other leg in, he's on his knees and kissing up the inside of my naked knee.
“I can smell how wet you are for me, Starfish. God I can't wait to taste you again.” His words die off as he licks up the sensitive seam of my folds.
My back arches off the bed as the pleasure slams into me full force. I'm crying out as he now grabs my legs tightly in his hands to hold them from closing around his head. I haven't felt this touch in so long, I was never touched this way with Trent.
Carter has only ever shared this with me. This is his.
The pleasure of his licks and sucks has me sitting up and holding his head to my swollen lips, riding out my pleasure. He looks to my eyes and moans right into my slickness. That sends the detonation.
I throw myself back to the bed and tighten my legs around his head as he sucks and licks me through my orgasm. My lips quiver and pulse as I lay there and he pulls away on one last kiss, have me trying to catch my breath. He crawls up my body until his fully clothed body is draped over mine. “Sweet dreams, Starfish,” he says as he kisses my nose and lies down on the pillow at the head of the bed.
“Are you kidding me?” I yell to him as I sit up.
He chuckles at my outburst, his shoulders shaking with his laughter. “That's all I wanted to give you tonight, you've been through enough. I wanted to show you how much I love you by just giving and not worrying about myself. That's the hottest damn thing I've ever seen, getting you off with my tongue and tasting you again.”
That takes me back a second. I know him to be this way, but it feels so wrong to let him go unsatisfied.
“Don't overthink it, just get up here and let me hold you. We can figure out the rest tomorrow. But for tonight I want to hold you while you rest.”
Pulling the rest of my tights off, I climb up naked next to him and lay on the pillow next to him facing him. I feel his smile on my cheek as he lays a sweet kiss to my cheek and lips, turns me over so my back is to his front, and snuggles me under his chin. I feel his hand move to rest on my stomach protectively as he takes a deep breath and settles in.
That small gesture right there tells me all I need to know. I won't be alone in any of this.