Silence settled in the wake of my question, and I forced myself to look back at my ex-boyfriend. He hovered over me again, hishead bent, gaze direct, waiting for me to return to it. And when I did, he said, “No.”
Something dislodged from my chest and worked its way into my throat.
“Didyouknow?” he asked.
Fuck.
Why I hadn’t expected the rebuttal was beyond me.
But I couldn’t lie.
“Yes,” I whispered.
Sully’s gaze flared, and then he was unbuckling his belt, unzipping his pants, pulling out an erection that was all for me.
“But you still came.” His eyes raked over me. “And you still wore that fucking dress.”
My lungs stopped working at the mention of my dress. The one I’d worn on my twenty-first birthday.
I hadn’t known for sure if he would remember it, but I certainly hadn’t expected him to comment on it. Or to look soangryabout it.
“You don’t like this dress?”
“I have memories of that dress on my bedroom floor.” He ripped open a condom wrapper. “And seeing it makes it really hard to think about anything else.”
I pushed forward onto my palms, watching as Sully smoothed the condom over his sizable length. I tried not to stare at it. “So that’s why we’re here, huh? Do you want to take a picture this time? It might last longer than a memory.”
Sully froze, and I could tell that, for whatever reason, the question pissed him off. But I couldn’t put my finger on precisely why it would.
His jaw clenched, and I couldn’t handle much of it. Him, staring at me wordlessly with that fire in his eyes. I didn’t know how to feel about it and didn’t have the energy to figure it out, so I decided to take action, grabbing the hem of my dress and peeling it up and over my head. I lost sight of Sully for only a moment, but then he was there again, his cerulean gaze dancingwith new, unnamed emotions. And despite all his comments about what this dress looked like on the floor beside a bed, Sully didn’t look at it once when I dropped it over the edge of the mattress.
I hadn’t worn a bra tonight. The skinny straps of the dress didn’t really allow for it, and it had an inner lining that gave me enough support without one. I didn’t have the kind of figure that needed a lot of support, anyway.
But Sully didn’t seem to mind. He never had.
His mouth worked, lips parting as he stared at me, naked on the bed. And I’d never in my life felt more exposed.
“What else can I kiss?” he choked.
The question caught me off guard.
“If you don’t want me to kiss your lips, fine,” Sully went on, sounding inexplicably tortured. “But tell me I can kiss you everywhere else.”
“You can kiss me everywhere else,” I whispered without thinking about the consequences, and Sully dropped onto the mattress with a low growl in his throat, covering my body with his. His mouth pressed to the place where my pulse thumped against my skin, eagerly sucking. Like he could drink in my heartbeat, make it his again.
“It’s sofuckingannoying.”
“What?”
“That you think my memories of you could just fade.” His words were muffled, spoken into the curve of my neck. “That theydon’t.”
Suddenly, I was blinking back tears.
“You want to forget me, Sawyer?”
The elation of feeling him—the press of his mouth on my skin, the firm exploration of his fingers gripping my sides…it was all juxtaposed by the tedious, devastating ache in my chest.
I would never forget him, never shake the imprint he’d made on my body, my heart, my very being. And the thought that maybe hewantedto forget me, that maybe hecouldforget me…it hurt, in all the very worst ways. But at the same time, could I blame him?
