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And it broke my fucking heart.
Because I knew whatever happened these last couple of days together, it wouldn’t change anything. We would still have to walk away from each other when it was over.
I refused to let myself dwell on that, though. I kissed him back and then pushed forward until I was straddling his lap. His hands closed around my ass to hold me in place as we kissed. I could feel his erection pressing against mine, but there was no frenzy to do anything about it. The wind whipping the tent around ceased to exist and the rain splattering the sides of the nylon shell became our soundtrack as we took our time exploring each other’s bodies. Hands on heated skin, seeking mouths, dancing tongues… it was speaking without speaking. Loving each other in the only way we could.
Xander carefully lowered me down into the folds of the sleeping bag. I welcomed the weight of his body as he covered me from head to toe, and I gladly made room for him by spreading my legs wide. I’d never had sex with a guy face to face, just because it was a level of intimacy I’d never wanted. Even with Aiden, I’d only ever let him take me from behind.
Looking into Xander’s eyes, I knew why.
Because I’d been too afraid that I’d look into my partner’s eyes and find them lacking. And then I’d have to face a truth I hadn’t wanted to acknowledge.
That nothing they did or said would ever be enough. Not because there was anything wrong with them… but because they just weren’t Xander. They’d never hold that place in my heart that he’d had from the day I’d met him.
I’d loved Xander from the moment I’d spied him through the car window, sitting on that swing, his sad eyes on his faded Transformers sneakers. It had been a child’s love then, but it had never waned, only grown. I didn’t even know when it had changed to loving him in a different way. But it had. And it had happened long before I’d stepped off that bus seven days ago.
But I couldn’t tell him that. It would just hurt him… and me.
And the last thing I wanted tonight to be about was pain... and regret. We’d both had enough of that to last a lifetime.
So no, I couldn’t tell him how much I really did love him. But I sure as hell could show him.
And that was exactly what I did.
Chapter 29
Xander
It had been too close.
Way too fucking close.
Even now with Bennett lying beneath me, his mouth eagerly sipping at mine, I still had this irrational fear that it was a dream. That I was lying out on the banks of that river looking at the spot I’d seen Bennett go under for the last time. Even the thought had tears threatening to start all over again.
It shouldn’t have taken almost losing him to know that I was in love with him. That I’d always been in love with him, even when I thought I’d hated him.
The hate he hadn’t deserved.
Because he’d been forced to make an impossible decision that no teenager ever should have to make. And because I hadn’t had the faith in him I should have had. Even after I’d left Greenwich, I’d had a million chances to call him… to give him a chance to explain himself.
But I’d been so certain that he’d become just another rich asshole who thought he was better than me, that I’d refused to even give him the benefit of the doubt.
My stubbornness had cost us fifteen years we couldn’t get back. And worse, I’d set us on a course that meant we’d never be together. If I’d sucked it up and called him, I could have kept that connection with him and maybe once he’d been old enough to tell his parents to go to hell, we could have been together. I wanted to rage at that… to find something that I could take my fury out on until I didn’t have to feel the regret seeping through my every nerve ending, through every cell in my body.
“Xander, baby, please don’t.” I hadn’t even realized I’d stopped kissing Bennett at some point and I was braced above him, my elbows locked to keep my weight off his upper body. He pulled me down for a kiss and whispered, “Stay with me.”
Yes. I would do that. Because he was still here. I’d lost what we could have had, but I hadn’t lost him.
“Always,” I murmured against his lips, and then I sealed my mouth over his and settled my weight back down on him. I let the past and the future go and focused solely on him. My body ached to be inside of him, but my soul ached for something more. I needed more time so I could slow down and drink my fill of everything about him. I needed to be able to hang on to all the things he’d changed for me in the past seven days. I’d become his Xander again, and even if I couldn’t be with him once he got on that bus that would take him back to his life, I’d still always be his.
