CHAPTER 27
LIAM

I woke up with Whitney’s head upon my chest. The fire had died down during the night and we’d fallen asleep against one another after the full-body massage turned into another hour-long session of passion. My body ached in all the right places and my cock was tired from last night’s activities. I ran my fingers through Whitney’s hair, thinking about how we could spend our next two weeks together.

I was ecstatic she’d invited me to stay with her because I wasn’t ready to let her go. I wanted to know more about her and I wanted to continue experiencing life with her. I wanted to hear more about her best friend and I wanted to keep walking around town with her. I wanted to take her back to my cabin one last time and paint it with her body. I wanted to take her on every surface her body hadn’t touched yet so the walls could soak up memories of her.

Memories of her I could indulge in after she left.

I knew we were only prolonging the inevitable but I couldn’t help it. She had been a wrench in the plans I’d made for my life and, now, I was starting to see things a bit differently. I was actually enjoying being around other people and I found myself wanting to talk to her about things. Before, I’d sworn off women, thinking I wasn’t worthy of the beauty they could bring into my life.

But Whitney came in on a whirlwind of a snowstorm and turned my life upside down. She’d interjected herself into my space unknowingly and reformatted the entire place. Now, I couldn’t imagine that cabin without her in it. I couldn’t imagine waking up without her in my arms. I didn’t know if I could go back to cooking for just one and I didn’t know if I could go back to the nightmares that plagued me before she showed up.

But how was I going to communicate all of this to her without pushing her away?

I felt Whitney slowly beginning to stir against me. She sighed and groaned, her body stretching while it cracked with the stiffness of our activities. With each crack, she moaned a little deeper and I chuckled at her sounds. Her eyes were still closed and, for a second, I thought she was going to drift back to sleep, but then her head lifted up off my chest.

“Wanna go get some breakfast?” she asked.

“I think that requires you to open your eyes first,” I said.

“I’ll get there. One step at a time. I need coffee. They have coffee at breakfast.”

Chuckling, I slowly sat us up. I could tell her body was still exhausted from the night before. The marks I’d left on her body were red, glaring at me as a surge of pride swelled within my chest. Her shoulders and her chest were covered in them and I bet if I spread her thighs wide, they’d be there as well. I raised my hand and allowed myself to trace their outlines, feeling her skin shivering against my touch as I explored the evidence of our salacious activities.

“Are they bad?” she asked.

“In all the best ways,” I said.

“You’re such a man.”

“And you love every second of it.”

Her naked body was soon covered up with a blanket before she turned around and looked at me. She threw me a smile that made me tingle and I watched her pad back into the bedroom before I gathered myself off the floor, picking up my blanket in my arms before I started after her.

She was silently dressing while I began putting on clothes of my own and, soon, she was standing there ready to leave.

I went over and wrapped my arms around her before my lips descended onto hers.

“How are you feeling?”

She smiled up at me with a smile that lit up her eyes before she threaded her arms around my neck.

“Sore. Got a pretty good workout yesterday. How are you feeling?”

“Hungry,” I said. “Got any good food around here?”

“Yeah, but I’m too sore to cook. What do you say we go into town and get some pancakes?”

“My mouth’s already salivating,” I said.

We hopped into my truck and went on a little adventure. Instead of Whitney taking out her phone, we took random twists and turns throughout town. We passed by a couple of breakfast places that didn’t look too appetizing but then we approached a little diner that had a neon sign still lit up, even though the sun was shining brightly.

“It’s always those places that have the best food,” she said. “Turn in there.”

I parked the truck and we walked in. The moment I smelled the air, I knew we’d picked the right spot.

A perky waitress came and took our order before setting a carafe full of coffee at our table. Whitney had to get through two cups of coffee before she started to look even remotely alive, but I had a good time simply watching her. The fact that she wasn’t a morning person gave me time to study her more and I started to notice things about her I hadn’t caught before. Like the light scar she had just above her left eyebrow. Or the way her right eye was a little lazier than her left. Or the way her lips were chapped slightly from the cold, dry air that was currently settling over Gatlinburg.

I got to take in all of these things while she slowly woke up.

“You got to ask me a question last night I never got to toss back your way,” I said.

“Then shoot. I’ve got two cups in me and I’m feeling good.”

“What are your plans for the future?” I asked.

The waitress came up just as I asked the question and took our order. Whitney wanted two scrambled eggs with cheese and a stack of pancakes and I ordered an omelet with hash browns. Whitney was absolutely appalled that I wasn’t eating pancakes and I admitted that I was going to steal some of hers.

That little altercation resulted in her ordering a second stack of pancakes, just in case we ran out.

“Two stacks of pancakes?” I asked.

“Don’t underestimate me,” she said. “I can put them away.”

“So,” I said. “Don’t skirt the question. What are your plans for the future? Have you ever thought about opening your own practice?”

“Honestly, I don’t really know what I’m going to do. But whatever decision I do make, I have to do it fast. I’ve got just enough money to make it three more months. Then I’m gonna be in trouble.”

“Have you job searched at all?”

“Not really,” she said. “This vacation was just supposed to be all about relaxing. You know, taking it slow and getting my mind off things before I got back to reality.”

“Back to reality?” I asked.

“Yeah. Gwen convinced me to take a chunk of time off and just get away. Clear my head and take a break from the slump I was in before I started giving legitimate thought to what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.”

I nodded but my mind started reading into her words. If she came here for the sole purpose of vacation, then I was just a fling; something she’d do as a fun little activity while she was here before she went back to her world and left me behind. I was just a way for her to get her past behind her before she left me and went chasing after her future.

A future that didn’t include the likes of me.

“A part of me has wondered if I should start my own practice but, at this point, I’d have to take out a small loan to get it up and running. I don’t have enough money in my savings account any longer to fully front the cost.”

“Uh huh,” I said.

“Plus, the only law I’ve practiced up until this point is corporate law and I don’t know if I’d want to set up a business around that type of law. It just left such a bad taste in my mouth.”

“Yeah,” I said.

“But I’ve got two weeks with you before I have to think about that kind of stuff,” she said, smiling.

And there it was. Confirmation that I was nothing but a temporary distraction.

Here was what I knew for sure; Whitney was impacting me in a way I would’ve never thought possible. But I also knew I wasn’t going to be strung along like this. I might’ve been just a nice little fuck for her but she was breathing life back into me. I was beginning to incorporate her into routines and aspects of my life I hadn’t exposed to anyone except Paxton. I wasn’t about to sit here with a woman who was just using me as a side fuck before she went back off to her life and left me here to flounder by myself.

I had to protect myself. I had to nip this in the bud and get back to the way things were before she came rolling into my life. If my nightmares were going to return, I needed to start coping with that as soon as possible. If she was really going to be gone, I needed to be coping with that as soon as possible too.

“Liam, are you okay?” she asked.

Our food arrived at the table and I started eating before I could answer her. She continued to drone on about the pros and cons of opening her own practice. She talked about the branches of law she might want to try out but how there were other certifications she’d have to get before she could practice any of them. She babbled on about things she’d do to help Gwen with her business when she got back, but never once did she insinuate that we’d keep in touch once she left Gatlinburg. I reached for my wallet but Whitney jutted her hand out. She insisted on paying and I wasn’t willing to argue over such a minor point with her. She left a twenty on the table and told the waitress to keep the change. Then, the two of us headed back to my truck.

She tried to take my hand but I pulled away from her.

“Liam? What’s wrong? Was it something I said?”

“Could you take out your phone and get us back to the resort?” I asked. “I’ve got no clue where we are.”

“Yeah, sure,” she said. “Liam, did I say something wrong?”

But all I did was let out a sigh before I wrapped my hands around my steering wheel.

“Okay,” she said. “It says we should back out and go left.”

So, that’s exactly what I did. I followed every direction she gave me until the resort came into view. Then, I went into autopilot and drove us through the resort. I could feel the air in the truck growing thicker with tension but it wasn’t something I wanted to address. This was her vacation and she didn’t deserve it. The first week had been rough, with her getting lost and injuring her ankle. She’d been through a great deal in her life and worked hard to get where she had and then she was dealt a blow with the bullshit her boss asked her to do.

She deserved to get away and get her head straight but what she wasn’t allowed to do was drag someone along for the ride. She wasn’t allowed to pull someone into her gravitational orbit and keep them there just for her own pleasure. I was a person, a human being with feelings, invested in the time we spent together. And maybe this was the point. Maybe this was the world reminding me that I was a terrible person and I deserved nothing but loneliness. Maybe this was my penance for the choices I made during that bullshit deployment that forever changed my outlook on life.

But, if I got to choose the length of this punishment, then I chose the shortest amount of time available.

I pulled us up into the driveway of the cabin and quickly cut the truck off. I took out my keycard and strode for the front door as Whitney called my name behind me. I needed to pack my stuff up and get out of here. I needed to leave all of this behind before I became any more invested in the woman that was currently running up behind me.

I walked into the cabin and made my way to the bedroom but I couldn’t get there before Whitney grabbed my arm.

“What is going on?” she asked.

“I need to pack and get home,” I said.

“Why?” she asked breathlessly. “I thought… I thought we agreed last night that you’d stay.”

I rounded on her and planted my feet. “I’m more than just a fling, Whitney.”

The tone and strength of my voice even caught me off guard and I watched her take a step back from me. Her eyes widened and her breathing began to pick up. I could hear the words I’d just spoken ringing in my ears while Whitney stood in front of me and, in an instant, I knew I’d traveled down a road I could never come back from.