“Kitten.” He’s moving faster, panting, his strong body sliding against mine, his cock fucking me fast and hard.
Until I come apart, writhing on the bed, waves of pleasure crashing over me, drowning me. I can’t breathe, my nose clogged and my eyes running.
I’m crying. Have been for a while. I wake up in my bed, alone, still shaking from my release.
Crap, it was a dream. He wasn’t here. And when memory returns—the image of him and Cassie kissing at the wedding reception—I swallow a sob.
I knew it would come, but now it happened I can hardly believe it. Never knew a broken heart could hurt so much. At least he stopped calling and texting every day.
How can I trust him again? It took me so much effort to unlock myself, to believe he wants me, to believe we might have something between us.
And he kissed a girl the moment I turned my back.
But against my better judgment, I want to trust him. God, I miss him so much it’s suffocating me, killing me. I miss his faint, real smile and his teasing grin, I miss the look of concentration on his face when I teach him to cook, the way he kisses me like he can never get enough. The way he opened up to me about his past, the way he drew my image, lower lip tucked under his teeth, his eyes hot on me.
I miss the way he held me, the way he teased me, the way he sat with me and shopped with me. The way he made love to me and s
hook me to my core like no one else before. He treated me as someone strong and whole, not someone broken.
If only he saw me now…
Hugging my pillow, I let the tears flow.
***
“We should start drinking Turkish coffee,” Kayla announces, sliding into the chair across from me in our brightly lit kitchen.
I rub at my eyes. I know they’re red and swollen, like on most mornings these days. “Why would we want to do that?”
“To tell our fortune. Nothing better than Turkish coffee, because you boil the coffee with the water and just pour it into your cup without a filter. Then,” she sticks her tongue out to me when I make a face, “you let the coffee powder settle, drink the coffee, and upturn the cup in its saucer. It leaves streaks and symbols you can read. I saw it on TV the other day.”
Her blond-streaked hair is caught up in two pigtails. Her pajama shorts are fuchsia and her tank top green.
My eyes really hurt now.
“What happened to good old palmistry?”
“Passé.” She waves a hand at me dismissively and grins. “We need new methods. Vosprung durch Technik.”
“Isn’t that the ad for a car?”
“Amber.” She sighs. “Advancement through technology. That’s what it means.”
“And Turkish coffee counts as technology, I assume?” I roll my eyes at her.
“You assume correctly.” She grabs my cup before I manage to take a second sip. “But meanwhile we make do.”
“Hey!” I reach for my cup, my very filtered coffee sloshing. “I’m not done.”
“I’ll help you.” She gulps down the rest. “Our fates are intertwined anyway, what with living in this apartment together and whatnot.”
“Christ, Kay. You’ve been watching too much TV.”
“You can never watch too much TV,” she intones and studies the inside of the cup. “Ah-huh. I knew it.”
“I’ve had enough.” I get up, tugging down my blouse over my boy shorts, and turn to go.
“You love him.”