Page 69 of Heartstrings & Horseshoes

Connor kneels before me, vowing to do anything to make me happy. As he rubs my legs, more tears fall from my traitorous eyes. Doesn’t he realize the kinder he is to me, the more it breaks my heart? Every day he shows me the life we could have, but it’s an illusion.

“It kills me when you cry. Talk to me, doll. What’s going on?” Connor brushes the tears from my cheeks with his thumbs.

I can see my future in the depths of his eyes, so dark I get lost in them—but it’s a future I’ll never have.

Someday he’ll meet someone and fall in love with her and there won’t be room in his life for me. What woman would tolerate a man having such an intimate friendship with another female? I wouldn’t.

“It’s not fair,” I lament, choked by my tears.

“What’s not fair?” he says, pain lacing his voice. “I can’t fix it if I don’t know the problem.”

I nudge him back by the shoulders so I can stand, and round the back of the sofa to pace. My fingers tangle in my hair, gripping so hard my roots scream.

I’ll explode if I keep it in any longer. But if I risk everything and tell him the truth, I could lose him.

I always thought having a part of him was better than nothing—but my soul has been dying from not having all of him.

The gilded heartstring that’s connected us since the day he found me crying in the dirt has frayed to a gold fiber about to snap. Hope and denial can’t hold us together anymore.

“Is this enough for you?” I blurt, my heart overriding my head.

He stands to his full height but doesn’t dare cross the barrier of the couch to reach me.

“Is what enough?” he asks, confused and in pain from the distance I’ve created. He’s so beautiful it hurts. Hair mussed from taking off his shirt, jeans slung low on his hips revealing the band of his black boxer briefs, a golden canvas inked with masterpieces immortalized beneath his skin.

“This. Us,” I say, unable to meet his eyes.

“You’re scaring me. What’s going on?” He rounds the couch and blocks the path I’m wearing in the floor.

“I thought after the bonfire things would change between us, but they didn’t. Everything went back to the way it’s always been, and I can’t take it anymore. It’s too painful. I can’t do this anymore,” I ramble, frantic, bordering on a meltdown.

Connor gently grabs me by the upper arms, not allowing me to flee.

“Can’t do what? I can’t lose you, Delilah. I’ll do anything, give anything, be anything to make you happy. All you have to do is ask,” he says with such confidence he can’t possibly know what I want to ask for.

“Please,” I beg, my voice laced with desperation. He’s standing so close my nipples graze his bare chest with each inhale.

I can’t meet his eyes, so I fix my gaze on the intricate sun tattooed over his heart. It’s my favorite of his gallery of ink.

Aching need thrums through me as he tilts my chin up, cupped in his calloused hand.

“Please, what? Baby, anything you want is yours.”

My heart’s too big for my rib cage and my lungs aren’t filling with enough air. My chest burns with the words I can’t say.

I barely get the words out. “Not anything.”

His eyes frantically search my face for an answer, brows creased in frustration and concern. The pieces fall into place for him, and his frown deepens in disbelief.

“What are you saying?” An emotion I can’t name laces his voice.

Is he really going to make me say it? My mind’s made up.

It’s always been Connor.

I can’t wait another day, another minute, without knowing if he wants me back.

His massive hands wrap around my waist, tremoring fingers biting into my flesh. I want to be confident and strong, but my words come out as a whisper.