Elizabeth Finn - Unforgiven

He panted for a moment, and she turned her head, letting him nuzzle into her neck below her ear. She listened to his body calm and relax, and just when she thought he intended to say nothing more, he spoke quietly. “I’ve wanted you forever.” He let his lips touch her earlobe.

“Oh, God.” Her voice was practically whimpering as her non-response response tumbled out. There was just nothing better to say, nothing more, certainly nothing she could devise. He pulled on her earlobe with his teeth, gently tugging. He didn’t bother pulling from her body, and he was deep and still within her. He was bracing himself on his elbow, and she knew the second his weight left her, she’d feel empty and alone.

“Incredible.” His lips were tickling her earlobe again, and she thought it was nothing more than a blissful utterance until he spoke again. “Stunning. Intelligent. Sweet. Loving.” She was the one panting now. “Arousing. Consuming.” She started trembling around the length of him inside her again, and his voice caught in his throat as he felt her tighten. “Exceptional.” It came out on a whisper, and she had no idea if it was another word for the list or simply a reaction.

She assumed he was finishing the game they’d started forever ago. The words he’d denied her that fateful night that would destroy every chance they ever had of being something amazing together. “I wish you could feel that for me now.”

He paused. His chest stopped moving as he held his breath for a moment. “I was referring to now as much as then, though I left off my favorite one. It didn’t apply then, and now, it impresses me more than anything else about you.”

He finally moved from her body, and she felt a deep ache in her groin as she rolled over to look up at him. She was sore, but she was more sated than she’d ever felt. Her brow furrowed. He studied her eyes, and she waited. She wasn’t sure he was going to tell her, but then he reached to brush the hair from her forehead, and he leaned down and kissed her nose. “Forgiving.”

She didn’t need to say anything. She was stunned into silence at that, and he smiled gently, running his finger across her cheek. She shook her head in confusion.

“You’re still here, aren’t you? I certainly haven’t made it easy for you.” His voice was quiet, and his expression was sad. But he kept trailing his finger across her cheek. Then down to her chin. He stroked across her forehead, and he watched as he touched. “You would never be so cruel to me as I have been to you. You’re far too strong to let yourself decay and devolve like I have. I envy that in you.” His eyes were tearing though his voice was calm, and a small smile was on his lips. Bailey was mere seconds from sobbing, and she could feel a tear trickle down her cheek. He wiped it away, nodding in what appeared to be reassurance. “Jess would be so proud of you. You’ve had to be so strong.” He kissed her mouth. It was gentle. It was sweet, and her heart was breaking because she knew what was coming. “You’re going to be happy. I promise.” He kissed her again, and then he said the words she didn’t want to hear. “It’s time.”

Pain. Blinding anguish. So much so, the breath left her lungs, and she felt an imaginary fist twisting her guts into knots. He crawled from the bed, pulled his pants back on, and she followed him to the door. Her ears were buzzing, and though the pain should mean tears, there was nothing to cry. She stood there, waiting for it to be over, dreading it, and at the same time, just wanting it done. And then it was.

There was a point. A point where seeing his face, his beautiful features, his intense stare, simply ended, and he became a haunting memory. Just like that. He’d kissed her; he’d touched her chin. “You will always be my world.” His lips trembled as he said the words, and her tears fell. Then he’d kissed her again and turned away. Gone.

The first week was a nightmare. It was a maddening hell that felt endless. He woke up aroused from the most erotic and intense dream he’d ever had of her. But there was no having her anymore, and the moment that understanding set in, hell took over.

Every day was a routine. He got up, he got ready, he sat at the dining room table looking at the picture of them from her graduation as he drank his coffee, he read her letter, he went to the hospital, he came home, he stared at his ceiling, he finally fell asleep, he woke to either a nightmare about her or an amazing dream about her that turned sour fast when he realized she was gone, he got up, and he did it all over again. Breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out.

He stopped taking days off and threw himself into his work even on his days off. People were starting to stare at him when he showed up at the hospital when he wasn’t scheduled, but he didn’t care. Anything to cope. There was part of him that was happy, though. Or perhaps not happy but relieved. Not that she was gone, but that he was—at least for the most part. The he that had turned into a venomous monster who hated her over the past six years. He didn’t hate her. It was hard to imagine how he ever had. But he wasn’t sure he could forgive her, and if he could, there was no chance he could ever forget the pain, and that’s what had ended them. But at least he wasn’t a monster. She’d given him his humanity back. She had refused to walk away until he’d truly given her no reason to stay, and he’d made it so emotionally painful for her. Such an amazing, quiet strength.

One day, nearly two weeks after she’d left, he broke his routine for the first time. He didn’t go to the hospital. He intended to. He was dressed, driving toward the hospital when he passed Taylor’s Furnishings. And at just that time, Michelle Taylor, heir to the Taylor enterprise herself, stepped out of her car. He pulled in beside her before he even knew what he was doing, but he didn’t get out. He lowered his window as Michelle regarded him curiously, if not a bit wearily.

“Coffee?”

She said nothing for a moment. She was deciding. She looked toward the building and then back to him, and her eyes narrowed. “I s’pose I have time.”

“Well, aren’t I the lucky man. Hop in.”

The moment she was in his SUV, he relaxed. It was as if being close to Michelle was like being close to Bailey. He felt close to Bailey for the first time in two weeks, and it was calming. Not in the attraction sort of way. He wasn’t at all attracted to Michelle, never had been. She was just Michelle, and if anything, she reminded him of Jess, but she was as close to Bailey as anyone, and frankly, she was his only link to her.

Michelle’s uncertainty stuck with her until she was seated across from him at a small picnic table outside a little coffee shop on Main Street. “How are you, Darren?”

He nodded for a moment. It answered nothing, but it seemed like the thing to do. “Okay, I guess. You?”

She smiled. “Well, personally, I miss my good friend, Bailey, but otherwise I’m just grand. I assume that’s why we’re here? To talk about her?”

He didn’t answer. He just stared at her for a moment. She’d always been a cheeky brat, and he liked her just fine for it, but she wasn’t going to make this easy on him. “Okay, yes. How is she?”

“Why are you doing this to yourself?”

“What? Wanting to know how a woman I care about is doing now that she’s moved away? Seems like a legitimate question to ask.” He could be as cheeky as she was.

“She told me something.” Now she was taunting him.

“Such as?”

“Such as you slept with her on her last night here.” Now chastising.

But it was enough to get his sarcasm fired up. “You girls and your cute little words for fucking.” She suddenly smirked, and he was instantly reminded of Bailey. After growing up together, Michelle, Jess, and Bailey had adopted many of the same mannerisms. He’d noticed it before, but right now it was like looking at a piece of Bailey sitting in front of him. Michelle’s smirk was missing the incredible crimson cheeks that Bailey would have at his use of the word “fucking” in front of her. He loved her blush. He missed her blush.

“Fucking is such a brash word.” Still smirking.

“And yet, it’s so damn much fun. Are you going to tell me that you’re pissed at me for fuck-ing”—exaggerated enunciation—“her when she was leaving the next day?”

“No. I’m pissed that she was still crying about it when I arrived the next morning.” His face fell and his eyes did too, to stare at the tabletop. Their brief amount of sarcasm and levity had been much needed, but it was surely over now. “I’m sorry.” She must have caught the change in him. Not too hard considering he was suddenly catatonic with pain. She sighed loudly. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

He shook his head. She’d just been serious. Apparently making love to Bailey had caused her enough grief that she’d still been upset even a couple hours later. Should he have expected anything less? Hell, he’d been wallowing in self-deprecating misery himself for two weeks.

“I wasn’t trying to hurt her.”

“I know. She knows. I didn’t say she regretted it, only that she was upset. She was upset about leaving you.”

“You do know it was her decision to leave, right?” Michelle nodded, but she didn’t look very convinced.

“And yet, you did nothing to try to get her to stay.”

“She was right to want to be away from me. Michelle, I was really pretty awful to her.” He studied her for a moment. “’Sides, thought you’d be happy she was away from me.”