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“Look, Chase, you can be a dick about it if you want. I can’t stop you, and I can’t change the past. You’ll never know the regret I feel.”
“Oh… I’m pretty sure I do.” My tone was defensive and snarky but I couldn’t fucking help myself
“No, you don’t.” I could hear the tears in her voice even though her head was bowed. She shook her head. “You think that I just went and screwed Jensen and didn’t look back from the moment you left… but that isn’t what happened.”
“Kat filled me in.”
I ran both hands through my hair. I didn’t know what the hell to do. I wanted to believe her. I wanted her to tell me something, anything, to change my perception and suddenly make the last six years okay. I had the urge to drag her across the car and into my lap to comfort her and then kiss her senseless… to take comfort from her.
“She doesn’t know everything, Chase,” she raised pleading eyes to mine.
There was no doubt I loved her. It was killing me.
“Ugggggh!” I let out my frustration. “I’m hanging on by a thread, Teagan. Part of me wants to know, but another part of me doesn’t need to rip open old wounds. Jesus Christ, I just learned to breathe again. You’re not my girl anymore! Do you know how hard that is to admit?” I fought hard against it but my eyes welled to the point I had to brush away a tear from both eyes. “I wanted to see you because just being near you makes things click… but everything has changed. Just looking at you: I’m… dying. I’m fucking dying, Teagan!”
“I still love you. I do,” she cried brokenly, reaching for my hand with hers. There was a kind of desperation in her act as if our skin didn’t connect she’d fall off a cliff. Her shoulders shook with the force of her grief as she clutched at my hand.
“I don’t believe you!”
“Don’t say that!” Teagan rose up in her seat and moved toward me over the console as her other hand reached the front of my button down. She was pulling me toward her with both hands, and I somehow found the strength to resist, but then she only pulled harder.
My heart was at war with my head. “Stop. Stop!” I demanded, startling her and making her let go. She fell back into her seat in a defeated heap and covered her face with her hands. She wasn’t wailing, but within seconds she closed her eyes and turned her face toward the back of her seat, curling into it and bringing her knees up in front of the steering wheel. She seemed ashamed and broken as if she were trying to hide the magnitude of the sorrow she felt. Her shoulders shook violently in silence until she was forced to take a gasping breath. My own left me in a rush as if I was sucked into a black hole. Tears I couldn’t stop rolled down my face and I tried to push them away.
“It’s tra—rue, Chase. I’m heartbroken…” Her sobs tore at my soul and I could feel myself cracking. Teagan could touch me at soul-level the way no one else ever would. I knew that there wasn’t one damn thing I could do to change it. “I juh—ust wanted to touch you. Just let me tuh—touch you. Just for a mi—inute. I mi—miss you, so much.”
I should hate her, but every time I looked at her, all I could see was the love of my life. In that moment, the rest of it just didn’t matter.
It was as if my arms had a mind of their own and I leaned forward, grabbed her by both of her upper arms and hauled her across the car. She scrambled on to my lap and into my arms, clinging to me as she continued to cry against me. The whole thing took about two seconds.
I wound my arms around her, turned my face into her hair and hung on for dear life. We didn’t speak; only just clung together and cried for how long, I didn’t know. She was small and her entire body fit perfectly against mine, curled close to me.
We just sat there holding each other in the passenger seat of her SUV, me stroking her hair down her back and her face buried into the curve between my neck and shoulder, oblivious to anything other than each other. Eventually, Teagan’s sobs subsided, but I made no move to separate from her.
“I miss you,” she whispered again. Her voice was thick with tears and we were both exhausted, but just having her near me settled me, and at the same time I had to acknowledge everything that had changed. It stabbed me straight through the heart.
I lowered my cheek to hers, wanting to feel the warmth… needing the feel of her skin on mine. My mouth was so close to hers that I could inhale her sweet breath. I wanted to forget; needed the years to melt away, to have the innocence of an unbroken heart, to trust that she loved me… to get rid of the fucking pain if only for a moment.
My hand slid up her back and into her silky long hair at the same time, the other cupped the side of her face, tilting her face up to mine, my mouth hovering over hers. I closed my eyes doing my best not to give in, but loving Teagan wasn’t something I could control, and not loving her wasn’t something I could choose. It would be so easy to give in.
She waited still as stone; except for her fingers curling into my hair and fisting into the front of my shirt. She said my name in the faintest, aching whisper. It was one word. Just one word, but it was filled with the same longing I’d always felt; magnified by the time that had separated us.
“I miss you every goddamn day,” the admission ripped from me half a second before my mouth slammed down on hers. The kiss was wild and delicious, Teagan shifting in my arms to straddle my lap at the same time as our tongues tangled and laved against each other.
I groaned in a mixture of ecstasy and agony. It was like coming home and I couldn’t tell if the pounding in my chest was my heart or hers. Our fingers clutched and pulled, my hands sliding down her back, around her butt cheeks and pulled her hard against my rising erection.
“Oh God, Chase,” she said achingly as we broke for a breath. Over the past years, I’d dreamed of her saying my name like this, of holding her in my arms and making love to her like we used to.
My hips surged and hers pressed down. Our bodies, mouths, and hearts remembering the way we used to be as if not one day had passed. “Say it again.” My hands moved up the sides of her body to the gentle swell of her breasts and closed over each one, kneading and reveling in the feel of her pebble-hard nipples pressing into my palms at the same time as her body surged against mine, in a decisive rhythm.
“Chase.” Her arms were around my shoulders; her hands tangled in my hair as she bent to kiss me again. Her position over me gave her leverage to move against me; rubbing the engorged head of my cock against exactly the spot she needed it. She was so hot I could feel her through the material, and my mind imagined her slick, wet heat, naked and sliding, taking me deep inside her body.
“Christ, Teagan,” I growled into her mouth, as I pulled back and ghosted my lips over hers. The kisses were wet, deep, amazing… and my mouth savored hers, brushing my lower lip against her top one, and then sucking on it softly. She wasn’t satisfied and opened her mouth, her tongue coming out to tease mine back inside as the kiss intensified. I yanked her hard against me, and her fingers opened the top three buttons of my shirt to slide in over my chest. “I need…” I moaned painfully.
“Yes,” she answered breathlessly. “Yes, Chase.”
It felt like the night we made out all night in the parking lot at school. We were both so fucking hungry as we kissed over and over again, each one more passionate than the last, our hips grinding together in mutual rhythm. She was making soft moaning sounds that drove me crazy as we moved; trying to assuage the ferocious throb. Fuck, I was dying and I couldn’t tell if I was going to heaven or hell.
I continued to kiss her because I couldn’t stop myself, but a pair of headlights flashed across the car as another vehicle pulled into the hotel parking lot; causing me to remember where we were and what was going on. It was a cruel dose of reality that flashed brightly across my closed lids. I tightened my arms around Teagan to still her movements and dragged my mouth reluctantly away from hers.
