I don’t fucking blame her. And I’m still turning over in my mind the fact I expected to see Octavia when I woke up.
Octavia, not Emma.
And I was glad that I was right, that she was the one I saw when I opened my eyes.
What the fuck does that mean?
My hands fist in the covers, and my stomach is churning, and I’m back in a cemetery, standing over an open grave, a red rose in my hand and a gaping hole in my chest.
I’m looking down at her coffin, at her face.
And then I’m looking down at myself, lying in that fucking coffin, fucking dead and gone and done with.
Hell.
“Matt.” Octavia walks back to my side. “Matt, look at me.”
I do, and her sweet face brings me back to the room, the bed, the goddamn scent of her that fills me up like hope.
“I’m so fucking sorry,” I tell her, my voice so hoarse I barely recognize it. I reach for her, tug her to my side until she half-falls on the bed. “I want you here. Christ, you don’t know how much.”
She curls up on the bed beside me as my mind spins in circles, the image of myself in that coffin flashing through my thoughts like it means something.
What, though?
I tried to end myself, bury myself. Bury the pain.
But the pain is inside me, an open vein spilling poison, bleeding out. Was that why I tried to cut myself open? To let the poison out?
Well, it didn’t work. I guess I’ll have to learn to live with it.
And my dream with Emma… Fuck, no. I don’t believe in this shit. Messages from the Great Beyond. This is all my own mind, making up excuses for myself.
And yet… Emma always told me she wanted me to be happy. Not to stop living. I just couldn’t bear to think about the possibility of life going on without her.
Until now.
My fever breaks at some point, and when I open my eyes in the gray darkness, I feel much better.
I’m not sure what woke me up until I realize I’m on my back with Octavia half-sprawled over me and my dick rock hard and
aching.
“Tay…” I breathe against her loose hair, and she moans—a soft, feathery sound that shoots straight to my balls, tightening them.
Fuck…
She’s dressed in one of my T-shirts, I realize, huge on her, and the fabric is riding high on her hips, allowing a glimpse of her panties.
God, that glimpse is driving me crazy. She’s so hot, and she doesn’t even know it. All I want is to tear the soft cotton down her legs and bury myself inside her.
She shifts, another breathless moan escaping her, and I wonder if she’s dreaming. If she feels me underneath her, hard and so damn turned out I have to hold very still not to rub against her.
But apparently I don’t even have to try, because she’s doing it for me, shifting again, rubbing herself on me until my whole body tenses. My stomach clenches, and I groan, shoving my hand inside her panties, finding and parting her folds.
She’s soaked and scorching hot around my fingers. I push them deep inside her, stroking her, and she makes a mewling noise, her hips rocking.
God, she’s killing me.