Rachel is still holding my hand, and I smile at her.
“She loved Aidan, and she would play with him for hours, no matter what kind of silly game he wanted to play. She loved to read, too. My earliest memory is of her reading to me. I guess she also had a temper, especially when she fought with my dad, but he always knew what to say to her, how to remind her she was the most important person in the world to him.”
Her eyes glisten. “They sound like lovely people.”
The last years of my father’s life were a tragedy, especially compared to what he was in his prime. I take a deep breath. “They were. Then the accident happened.”
She strokes my back. “Landon, there’s no shame in the fact that it haunts you. Most people would never forget if something like that happened to them. You survived. You saved your brother. You were strong for him. It’s something to be proud of.”
But I’m not proud. I close my eyes, remembering that day in the car. My mother, convinced my father was cheating, leaving him. Me in the back with Aidan, wanting more than anything to go back home.
“I wanted to go back.” The words open a well of pain. “I didn’t want to leave. I prayed so hard for anything to happen, anything to make us go back, at least until my father returned. I knew once he arrived, he’d make it up to her somehow. I didn’t know what I was asking for, just any reason for us to go back home and wait for my dad.” My lips twist. “Then something happened. We crashed.”
She puts her arms around me, somehow knowing this is the part that really haunts me, the part I’ve carried alone for twenty years.
I always get what I want.
And sometimes the world falls apart to give it to me.
“Landon.” She rises from the mattress and puts her arms around me. “You were a child.”
“Don’t you think I know that?” I close my eyes. “But it didn’t stop me from torturing myself for years.”
I feel her lips on my shoulder then she’s on the floor in front of me, on her knees.
“Look at me,” she urges. “I’m glad you told me,
but it wasn’t your fault. You didn’t wish the accident to happen. You were just a child afraid of his parents separating. I’m sure you made a thousand more wishes that didn’t come true. It wasn’t your wish that caused the crash. It was an accident.” When I nod, she continues. “Whenever you start thinking like that nine-year-old boy again, just remember how much you loved your mom, how no wish you made could have caused her any harm.”
She’s so intense, it makes me smile. “Yes ma’am.”
“I’m not joking,”
“Neither am I.” I pull her up and draw her onto my lap. “You’re incredible. An angel.”
She smiles. “You need to get back in bed. Get some sleep.”
I set her down on the bed and roll on top of her. “I know what I need, and it’s not sleep.”
“You’re insatiable.”
“You’re irresistible.”
She cups my face in her hands, gazing up at me with a tender expression, then she presses her lips to mine. I roll onto my back so she’s straddling me. Her lips stay on mine, the weight of her body just perfect.
When she pulls away, I reach up to touch her face, grateful for her existence, and for the fact that she’s mine. “You’re like a drug, Rachel. You make me forget everything, everything but you.”
Her eyes close. “When I’m with you, I feel like nothing is missing.” In her eyes, I can see a hint of tears. “It’s like everything finally fell into place.”
I draw her down so I can kiss her again. She tastes like home, like forever.
Don’t leave me.
Her tongue meets mine, tasting and caressing, needing. She moves her hips, grazing my cock, which is already hard. I suck on her bottom lip and she lets out a soft moan.
I need to be inside her.
As if she can read my thoughts, she pulls her lips from mine, shifting her weight down to my thighs so she can wrap her fingers around my rigid erection. She strokes me slowly, tortuously, until I can’t bear it for one more moment, then she brings her hips to hover over me and slowly guides my cock inside her.