I think it’s her.
I think she gave me some of her magic.
Or at least I’d think that if I didn’t know better. If I believed in things like magic.
If I believed that simply because I tasted her on my tongue – both sweet and salty with a hint of strawberries – I’m a changed man.
I’m a man with dreams.
I take in a long breath then and smell her scent. She’s sleeping right next to me.
She went to sleep as soon as she came. She sighed, said my name and curled up on her side and went to sleep.
Like she hadn’t slept in ages.
Instead of leaving her alone and giving her privacy, I put her head in my arm and spooned her with my body.
Her back is stuck to my chest now, her dress is all rumpled up and those straps that I destroyed snake down her delicate arms like red ribbons.
Jesus Christ. What the fuck came over me?
Why would I do something so… savage and untamed? Something so criminal and crazy. Something I’ve never done before.
But the moment I kissed her, something happened to me. It was beyond the mere knife in my chest. The pain, the need, the craving was more like a phenomenon. An earthquake that destroys towns and cities and apparently, my self-control.
She affects me in ways I don’t understand.
I don’t understand why I want to consume her. Why I want to ruin her and keep her safe all at the same time.
Why am I such a fucking asshole that I haven’t even straightened up her clothes? I haven’t even pulled down her dress to cover her tight ass that’s currently glued to my very hard cock or covered her perky tits. All I’ve done is shield her against the cool air with a blanket and my body heat.
Maybe it’s because I like to look at her. Because I could look at her for hours and hours.
So that’s what I’m doing.
I’m staring at the slope of her shoulders and the line of her fragile neck. I’m smelling her hair that’s in my face, rubbing my jaw in it. While my hand is tucked in the nook of her waist and my palm is open wide on her stomach.
Every now and then, I press on it.
On her soft flesh, and she sighs and wiggles around my cock, making it hurt like a motherfucker.
Making me hurt.
But it’s too little punishment for me and what I want to do to her.
For how selfish and bad I want to be. How goddamn possessive and dominating.
Even if I forget the fact that I had an unhealthy obsession with a barely legal girl, what I said to Brian still stands true.
She deserves better.
So much better than me. Better than a middle-aged man who has no interest in a relationship. I’m not going to date her. I’ve never dated anyone before. I don’t even know how.
I’m not a teenage kid who’s going to change his ways for the girl he wants.
I can’t.
I’m too hard, too severe for her. I’ve seen too much roughness in life, too much reality, too much abandonment to ever be foolish enough to hope for anything else.
And she’s too young to know anything else but hearts and dreams.
As much as I love my son and admire how he did the right thing, he has hurt her. I’m not going to do the same. She has known too much hurt already.
I refuse to do that to her.
Besides, she’s going to college, isn’t she?
This is her vacation. Come fall, she’ll leave. She’ll find someone who’ll suit her better.
I have to do what I told Brian to do the other day, then.
I have to do the right thing.
I have to give her a chance to leave. One last chance to back out before I lose all semblance of decency and goodness and keep her here selfishly, for myself. And take and take and take from her.
Without promises. Without hearts and dreams and all the bullshit I’ve never had the time for.
That she deserves, anyway.
Because she’s made of moon and magic.
He left me a note.
A note.
It said: I want you to leave before I come back from work tonight.
That’s what he said to me. In a note.
The man didn’t even have the decency to say it to my face. After everything we talked about, after everything we did last night, he left me a note on his freaking side table.
Asshole.
I’ve been seething since then. Seething and stewing with every second that passes. Oh, and I snooped around in his room.
I did.
He lost all his rights to privacy when he told me to leave on a fucking piece of paper. Not that I found anything. His room is almost bare.
Just a king-sized bed in the center with dark sheets and wooden slats for the headboard and a tiny side table with a lamp on it. A dresser with his clothes that are neatly folded like they used to be back in Connecticut, and a small closet full of his plaid shirts.