“If it were only that fucking easy.”
“It’s not easy. You’re right. But it’s also bullshit you’ve been made to feel like this life of yours isn’t for you.”
“I got out as fast as I could.” I switch gears as the thoughts hit me. As if I need to purge everything at once. Maybe once they’re out in the open they won’t fucking hurt as much. “I love my brother more than the whole goddamn world. Hell, the twin thing is real—the connection, the feeling each other’s pain—but looking at him is like a torturous, never-ending slap in the face. One minute I’m pissed at the fucking world, the next minute I’m pissed at myself . . . so the easiest thing for me was to get out, to not go back home. He’s their world, and I’m just the fucking mistake.”
“How can you say that?” I refuse to see the sympathy that fills her eyes even though it’s sincere. “Look at the man you are, at the accomplishments you’ve made. Look at—”
“All they see is the one decision.” I’ve never spoken truer words. Saying them out loud feels like a burden has been lifted from my chest. “All I see is him slowly dying, bit by bit, day by day, infection by infection. Christ, he’s barely a shadow of who he used to be. He can’t talk or eat or fucking do anything without my mom doing it for him. What kind of life is that, Dekker? What kind of fucking fate did I hand him?” My voice breaks and my shoulders shudder. “Like I said, all they see is the one decision.”
“That’s not true,” she says, but I can see her struggle with wondering if it is. “You leaving them to have an NHL career made Jonah become their world. He’s who they think about first and last . . . so it’s natural for them to put him first now, but don’t think they’re not proud of you. Don’t think they don’t watch your games on TV and smile knowing that’s their son. Don’t—”
“Stop,” I shout. I hate the tears that burn in my eyes. Tears I can’t hide. I hate the silent hope her words are offering, but more than anything, the lifting of the weight that has been so damn heavy on my shoulders. That I’ve carried alone. I don’t . . . I don’t know how to stop believing. “Just. Stop.” Please.
“Stop what?” she shouts getting in my face. “You have to learn that it’s okay to be loved. You have to learn that you’re not to blame. Winning a Stanley Cup is not going to take away the sting of what happened. It’s not going to—”
“But Jonah will know that I didn’t fulfill my promise to him and time is fucking running out.”
When she reaches out to lace her fingers with mine, it takes everything I have to accept the gentleness of her touch. It was so much easier last night with the darkness around us to accept it versus now that she knows the truth.
But I crave it. And hate it. And feel like I don’t deserve it, but all I want is to pull her into me and lose myself in her . . . but this time, not to forget. Not to use sex to numb the pain. This time it’s because I want to feel. I need to feel. I need to think that for the smallest of seconds she’s right, and I’m not to blame. That I deserve this.
That I deserve her.
“Dekker.” Her name is a whisper on my lips, her touch a balm to my soul.
She frames my face and stares at me as she leans up on her tiptoes and presses her lips to my cheeks, kissing away the tears I wasn’t aware I’d shed.
“Dekk.” Gruffer.
Her eyes on mine. Her hands on me. Her words for my soul.
Our foreheads are pressed against each other’s as her exhale is my next inhale, and her fingers tighten in the fabric of my shirt. The realization hits me.
All I want is her.
All I need is her.
She quiets the demons.
She sees me—the real me—and that scares the ever-loving shit out of me.
I lean forward and press my lips to hers. “Let me lose myself in you. Please. I need you.”
They’re the toughest words I’ve ever spoken. They’re also the most honest.
And when she kisses me back, when she opens herself up to me after I bared every demon I have and she didn’t back away, I’m overwhelmed.
She lets me set the pace. She lets me take what I need. Every sigh, every touch, every moan. She lets me evoke them from her.
She lets me be in control when I’ve felt out of control for so very long.
My hands slip inside her pajama bottoms to find naked skin. The strip of curls atop her pussy, the wet heat when I slide between her lips, the arousal that coats my fingers as I tuck them inside her. My groan is swallowed by her kiss.
How can I still turn her on even though she knows the truth? How can she still want me?
The thought is like a vicious eddy in my mind but with each touch, each sigh, each tightening of her fingers on my skin, it becomes more of a possibility. More of a reality.
The dance to undress is slow. There is no seduction needed. There is no desire needing to be awakened.
It’s me as I grab her hips and sink down on the couch.
It’s her as she lowers herself painstakingly slowly onto my cock and stills so I’m forced to feel everything about her. The warmth. The wetness. The tightness.
It’s us as our eyes meet, fingers entwine, and Dekker leans forward to kiss me ever so slowly before begging to rock her hips over me.
Pleasure builds within. My balls tighten. My cock swells.
It’s the shame that I’m now setting free.
Her tits bounce with each grind. Her teeth bite into her bottom lip. Her juices begin to cover wherever she touches.
It’s the hope that I can believe them.
I reach out to touch. My thumb and forefinger over her nipple. My fingers bruising into her hips. My cock hitting the very depths within her.
And it’s the knowledge that someday I might be able to.
Our pace is slow and sensual, her giving me everything I need, and God, she’s so fucking sexy. Sitting atop me, working me out, with those innocent eyes and those vixen lips.
There’s a connection I want to shy away from but she doesn’t allow that. When I break my eyes from hers—to take in her fingers as she slides them between her lips and begins to rub slowly, to watch the pink of her flesh as it stretches to accommodate me, to watch her back arch as I run my fingers up the crack of her ass and tease the tight rim of muscles there—she moans my name and brings me back to her. To the emotions swimming in her eyes and the connection the two of us have that is so much more than the physical.
Hell yes, I need to lose myself here, but she’s also showing me that I feel so much more.
She’s showing me how to be found.
She’s demonstrating that it’s possible to find more than simple sexual gratification.
As my orgasm slowly builds, as our pace begins to pick up, as the frenzy starts to peak, I’m overwhelmed with a surge of emotions that bring tears to my eyes. When I try to turn away, when I try to close my eyes, Dekker leans forward, my name a moan on her lips before breathing life back into me with her kiss.
And I’m gone. Done. Restraint breaks and I empty myself into her—my head thrown back, my hips pushed up, my fingers gripped tight.
Jesus Fucking Christ.
She’s a savior and a sinner, and I’m not quite sure which one I need to hold on tighter to.