“No,” she says. “You’re fine.”
“I’m going to get cleaned up.”
I shower, throw on some clean boxers, and swallow my pills. When I come back, and slide under the covers, Ella scoots close to me, almost laying her head on my chest, but I stop her with a wince.
“Cracked ribs, remember?”
“Shit. I’m sorry.”
She settles against my bicep instead. We both lay there in the dark, quiet, probably thinking about the same thing in vastly different ways.
After a while, her hand travels along my lower abdomen, her nails tracing a path along the band of my boxers.
“Ella—”
“Please,” she whispers. “I just need...I need to feel close to you.”
Her hand slips beneath the fabric, tentative at first, waiting for me to stop her. I should pull away and tell her this isn’t what either of us needs right now.
But as her warm hand glides up and down my cock, I know I won’t.
Because she’s right. I need to feel something other than this crushing weight too. Anything other than grief and guilt and self-loathing from the image of Sawyer’s face when she pulled away from me.
So I let her.
And when I’m close to coming, I slide her underwear aside, and rub her clit.
It’s all so mechanical, like we’ve done this a hundred times, and we’re just trying to get off so we can go to bed.
“Knox,” she moans, her legs going rigid.
I close my eyes and try to focus on the moment. On Ella. On the girl actually in my bed.
But all I see is Sawyer. Her hand fisted in my jacket. The way she looked at me in that parking lot. And when that doesn’t do it, I picture her from before. Her beautiful golden hair falling over her eyes. The swell of her breasts, the curves of her hips.
Ella comes with a quiet gasp, her body tensing against mine. I follow seconds later, my release feeling empty despite the physical relief.
We lie there in the aftermath, both breathing hard, neither of us moving. When I pull my hand away, she rolls to her side. I think I hear her crying, but I don’t think she wants to be asked about it. Even so, I’m tired. Bone-deep exhausted.
I get up to clean myself off in the bathroom, staring blankly into the sink, avoiding my own reflection in the mirror. When I come back, her breathing has evened out.
Good. My pills are kicking in, and I can barely keep my eyes open, let alone have a conversation.
“Goodnight,” Ella whispers as I get under the covers.
“Night.”
But we both know there’s nothing good about any of this. We just used each other to feel something…anything. If I let myself linger on that for too long, I’ll feel even worse about myself.
The medication pulls me under, and my last conscious thought is of Sawyer. It’s always of her.
I dream of falling, and her hand slipping from mine, and metal creaking, and Owen’s voice.
I dream of all the things I’ll never be able to forget.
Chapter 14
Sawyer
