AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I wake up sometime before noon. Eden’s small, warm body is curved against the hollow of my chest. It fits there perfectly. I don’t move. I want to pinch myself because there is no way this is real life, but if it’s a dream, I never want to wake up.
Eden makes a choking noise in her throat, and her back curls against my stomach. She is fighting tears even in her sleep. My heart slams into my throat.
“Baby?” I murmur in her ear, as she starts to shake and moan in her sleep. “You’re having a nightmare, wake up.”
She jerks awake, but my arm is already around her, keeping her safe.
“I’m here,” I whisper as I hold her. “I’m right here.”
She turns around and starts kissing me.
Ok, this isn’t a hallucination. It can’t be—never in my wildest dreams have I ever imagined her kissing me back with so much desperation. So much need. I kiss her back, arching my body and cupping a palm around her neck. We are fifteen again, crazy with desire. Hungry with it. Too hungry, too desperate. In too much pain.
She grunts against my lips and her hands come down to my jeans. I freeze for a millisecond. Is this really happening? Right now? When she’s so upset still? My breathing is heavy, and I can barely control my reaction to what her fingers are doing to my skin as they begin to explore my bare stomach.
It almost hurts to tear my lips from hers, but I have to do this. I’ll never forgive myself if I cross the point where I can’t control myself—even though my grip on control is quickly slipping through my fingers already—before making sure she’s into it. And not just wanting to escape the pain.
And not just trying not to drown.
I’ve been in that place more times than I can count, and I couldn’t stand it if that was happening right now.
“Wait,” I murmur, my lips brushing hers. She stops, looks at me. Her eyes are swollen with sleep and last night’s tears. My heart breaks just a little bit more, even though it’s impossible to break something that’s completely destroyed. “Eden.” I run my hands lightly down her arms and she shivers in my touch, her eyes heavy-lidded as she looks up at me, her lips still half-open. “Eden, are you sure you want to this? With me?”
She looks down, avoiding my eyes. This is not good at all. A few torturous seconds pass before she finally nods.
Yeah, I can’t work with that.
“Ok, so. Before we do this, I need to ask you something.”
“I need this,” she says. “I need you.”
Break my heart while you’re at it, won’t you?I think. But what comes out of my mouth is:
“And what about Jude?”
“What about him?” She sits back, letting air between our bodies. Too much air. Too much distance.
“Did you.. are you… Are you into him?”
“What?” She draws further back, and my hands fall off her arms. Her eyes are wide with shock and for the first time, I genuinely don’t think she knows what I’m talking about. Maybe she thinks I don’t know? I never saw them?
But I did.
I swallow hard. There are thorns lodged in my throat. ‘Thorn throat’, that could be a song. I need to write that song, I think.Not now, writer brain. Concentrate. You have to find out if she is with Jude first.
“The way he carried you out of the water the other day, I thought you might… I thought you might…” I can’t say ‘kiss’. I just can’t. “I thought you might be into him. And he is clearly into you. He follows you around like a puppy and just falls over himself to get you whatever you need…”
She’s just staring at me, expressionless apart from those wide, wide eyes. Honey eyes.
“I can’t stand it,” I bite out, all my desperation rising to the surface. I let out all the pent-up frustration of watching them interact, talk and laugh so easily, while I would nearly die every time I so much as looked at her. “If… if it’s true, that’s fine, but I don’t want to be the one in here, when you’re really wishing it was him. I will comfort you any way I can, but first I need to know.”
That’s it. I’ve said it now. It’s all out in the open.
I don’t say that I thought I saw them kiss, because I might have been wrong—and also, because she can freaking kiss whoever she likes. But if she is into him, I need to know.
Now, before this goes any further.
Before I lose anything more to her.
