Unconditional

Garrett pauses, gasping a ragged breath, his body poised. I see his eyes flash with emotion, feel the tension wracked through his body. He’s holding back, even now, trying to keep control, but I already know there’s no stopping this. I’ve surrendered, body and soul, and now I slide my hands down his glorious body, feeling his muscles pulse and tremble under my touch. I tighten around him, tensing my secret muscles and Garrett lets out a hoarse groan, his forehead falling to rest against my chest, damp with sweat.

“Let go,” I whisper, driving up against him. Garrett’s body shudders, resisting. “Let it all go,” I tell him. “Look at me, baby,” I tilt his chin up, seeing the agonized control in his gaze, everything he’s holding back. “It’s just you and me, right here. Be with me,” I beg him, “right now. Let it go.”

His eyes meet mine, and something shatters in his gaze. His face flashes, wild, and then his lips are on mine again, claiming me with a new passion. He grasps my hips, driving into me again as he rolls us, so now I’m straddling him, impaled on the thick surge of his cock, driving up inside me, oh God, so f**king deep.

I cry out, my voice echoing as the pleasure surges through me, cresting and high. Garrett thrusts again, hands driving my hips, controlling the delirious rhythm even as I lose my way, overcome, falling forward against his chest. Garrett is groaning now, a raw pant, his eyes wild with passion and I’m frozen, frozen in his gaze. We’re joined together, our bodies surging, our cries mingling with each new thrust, climbing, cresting, lost in the sight of each other, the feel and taste. It’s coming now, a wave I can’t comprehend, sweeping me along in it’s shattering force, uncontrollable, undeniable, building with every rock of our bodies. I’m helpless, caught up in the power of Garrett’s stare, the surge of his body inside of me, hitting everywhere, just there, God, more than I can take. I gasp his name, over and over, a chant of salvation and release all in one, losing myself to the pleasure cresting higher, to the freedom, to him, only him, everywhere and all I need and everything, everything.

“Garrett!” I scream, desperate, clinging to the edge. With a roar, he rises up, slamming into me one last time, a surge of ruthless power. I see it take him over, the look in his eyes as he comes undone, the hot rush of his body inside me, everywhere, and God, I’m falling, past the brink, beyond sanity, pleasure consuming me in its white-hot waves as I collapse against him, my body turned inside out, my soul crying out his name.

As I fall asleep in his arms, I know I’ll never be the same.

21

I wake past midnight. Garrett’s arm is flung over my body, tucking me safely against him. I can hear the soft sound of his breathing, steady in the dark, and feel every unconscious movement of his limbs.

I roll over gently to look at him, the ruffled mess of golden brown hair, the line of his jaw. He shifts, murmuring something in his sleep, too soft for me to make out the sound.

I wonder what he’s dreaming.

I watch him, feeling a rush of tenderness swell in my chest. I can’t even define it, but I feel different now. Changed. Ever since that night on the dock, I’ve been the one confessing my secrets to him, being stripped bare under his tender gaze.

Now, we’re finally equals.

He revealed his own dark past to me tonight, and all the heartbroken torment that haunts his every day. I understand him now in a way I’ve never known before. Staring deep into his eyes as he moved inside of me, there was nothing dividing us anymore, no barriers left to cling to, no sense of where he ended and I began.

It was thrilling, intoxicating.

Terrifying.

I lift his arm and silently slip out from under his embrace. I find his sweater over the back of a chair, and slip it over my na**d body, quietly closing the door behind me. It’s dark, but I know my way downstairs by heart, tip-toeing lightly down the stairs I’ve climbed a hundred times over the years.

I get a glass of water from the kitchen and sip, looking out of the windows at the dark shore. Still, I feel restless, something fluttering against my ribcage that I can’t put my finger on.

It’s called emotion, silly, a voice tells me, amused. You’re not used to feeling it with a man. Welcome to the real, human world.

Is this what I’m feeling: the mix of giddy elation and pure terror? Is this what normal people feel when they haven’t spent years dulling their emotions and locking every feeling away in a dark, secret place? Making love to him last night, I wanted everything from Garrett: to wake in his arms every morning, and fall asleep there at night; to chase those shadows from his eyes, and heal the wounds that the past has scarred him with. Now, in the silence of the empty house, I hear my own thoughts and feel foolish, like an overly romantic teenage girl, with wide-eyed dreams of love and soulmates and happily-ever-afters.

You’re too old for such nonsense, Carina. The time for naivety is long gone.

But still…I feel it, that ache of hope in my chest, the desperate wing-beats of desire. Not just desire for his glorious body, but his mind too: his humor and teasing, his compassion and strength. And more than anything, his heart.

His broken, messy, wounded heart.

I want all of him, despite myself. Despite my promises never to open myself up to that kind of pain, never to trust a man who will only let me down. Reasons have nothing against the surge of emotion I feel, taking me over, and no defense against the way I feel lying in his arms.

Why do we do this? I wonder helplessly, drifting back through the dark house, into the living room. Why do our hearts reach out and cling to each other, with no promise of anything in return? Is it written deep in our DNA to crave that connection, even in the face of such obstacles, or is it the only way our souls can find some peace in this world, when finally we find a mate to match our step through the lonely darkness, a fellow heart to share the heavy load?