“I know.”

“You need to know what it means when I choose you, Sara.” He turned my locket over in his hands, flipping it open, his eyes sad as he looked inside. “I won’t ever do to you what this man did to his family—to mine.”

“It was Tyler?” I whispered. Of course I’d known. I’d hoped maybe I was guessing wrong, jumping to conclusions. I’d spent three days staring at the man who papered my walls, realizing Dale had been trying to tell me something when he told me I was filling in all the wrong pieces to the puzzle. I had created the image of the man I wanted.

And then that image had walked into my life as if out of a dream.

Dale was the man I needed in my life, not a fantasy, but a real, warm, flesh and blood human being. Not Tyler Vincent, the man I had fabricated, just as two-dimensional as the paper he was printed on.

“Yeah, it was him,” Dale confirmed, snapping my locket closed.

Dale had known all along what Tyler really was, and he hadn’t told me. It was a sin of omission, but I couldn’t fault him for it. It had been a selfless act. He hadn’t wanted to spoil my image of him. He let me hold onto the dream instead of waking me with the truth. He had loved me through it, all the shamefully crazy hopes and fantasies I’d pinned on a man I had never even met, all the while hesitating before a man who knelt before me with his heart in his hands, offering himself fully to me, knowing I could step on it and crush his hopes at any moment.

“Dale, I’m not going to Maine.”

His gaze lifted, meeting mine, his look so hopeful and open and raw, my heart shattered into a million pieces, knowing how much I had hurt him already. There were no words that could ever make up for it. I could only hope my actions could speak loud enough.

He kissed me, making a small, pained noise in his throat, his mouth opening mine, his tongue seeking entrance, and I let him in, as fully and completely as I could, wrapping my arms around his neck and pressing my body to his.

“Let’s go upstairs,” I whispered when we parted.

We had the whole apartment to ourselves and still we ended up in Dale’s bed, the place we’d spent hours whispering and laughing and kissing.

And kissing.

And kissing.

Tonight there was no hesitation. We fell into each other’s arms and kissed like we were coming up for air after being underwater for days. The melding of our mouths was sweeter than oxygen. We took huge, deep gulps of each other as we struggled with worldly constraints like clothing and gravity, seeking to transcend it all in our coming together.

“No, no,” I whispered when I was naked beneath him, his mouth beginning its delicious travel south. I stopped him at my collarbone. I didn’t want any of that. I just wanted him, inside of me. Now.

He lifted his head, the sight of his dark, disheveled hair, eyes glinting with longing in the lamp light, the gorgeous spread of his shoulders, tapering down to the narrow thrust of his hips, made my ovaries ache deep in my belly.

“Inside me,” I whispered, cupping his face in my hands, sliding them behind his neck and pulling his head to my breasts. “Dale, please.”

He didn’t deny me. We were both ready when he entered me just a moment later, poised above me, eyes locked. His breath exhaled sweetly over my face and I ran my hands up the muscled terrain of his arms, his shoulders, across his back, so in love with him I couldn’t contain it, as if my hands could tell him without words how much I wanted him, needed him, craved him.

Dale bent his head, eyes closing for a moment, then opening again, looking down at where he was buried deep inside of me. The thick, aching throb of him, filling every bit of available space, my thighs open to him, everything open to him, reminding me with every sweet pulsing drumbeat of his heart, beating with mine, as close to me as my own.

“Come here.” I slid my hands behind his neck, pulling his mouth down for a kiss that wasn’t a kiss at all. It was like completing a circuit, our bodies electrified in an instant. Sparks flew the moment our tongues touched, as if we had caught a livewire between us. Dale moaned into my mouth, beginning to move inside of me, my flesh opening more and more to him with every sweet thrust.

“Oh Dale,” I murmured against his lips, squeezing him tight between my thighs, my legs locked around his waist. I had to tell him. He had to know what he meant to me, what I felt. His cock throbbed when my lips touched his, swelling when my tongue slipped into his mouth. I gasped as he moved faster, deeper, his tongue thrusting with the same smooth, rhythmic motion, and I lost myself in the connection, an endless loop, a delicious, rising spiral.

And there just weren’t words anymore. They didn’t fail me, they just didn’t exist on the plane of existence we had driven ourselves into, clutching and gasping and moving with the gentle purpose of the tide. The world had disappeared. There was only us, the slick circle of our bodies moving together, both of us crying out, mouths mirroring the sweet, dizzying friction between our legs.

More, more, more. I begged him silently, rocking up to meet him, holding him in the cradle of my limbs, wrapped tightly around him, as if my world might slip away if I let go. My sex clamped down around his shaft as the first spasm of my climax washed over me. I cried out, nails raking the skin of his shoulders, heels digging into the small of his back, feeling Dale’s sharp intake of breath as he came too, like the sudden flash of a distant star.

We were a galaxy exploding into a million pieces, creating a whole new world, as we crashed against each other on the soft surface of his mattress, a cloud in the darkness, our bodies finally falling together like rain. Dale lowered his head to my chest, letting me cradle his head against my breast, our hearts still racing, off somewhere together without us.

I held him and he held me, words unnecessary, our hearts way ahead of us. They always had been, from the very beginning. We couldn’t do anything but hang on and hope to catch up.

CHAPTER TWENTY

“Are you sure your parents aren’t coming home?” Dale followed me into the apartment as I shut the door behind me.

“I told you, they went to upstate New York to visit my stepfather’s family. Something about borrowing money. That’s two hours away, so we have the place to ourselves for a while. Do you want anything to drink?”

“Sure.” He followed me into the little kitchen, sitting on the chair next to the closet.

“We have water, milk, a half a Pepsi.” I frowned, eyeing the sparse fridge contents. “Or we have my father’s stash.”

“Liquor?” Dale raised his eyebrows.

“Nope.” I opened the closet door and Dale let out a low whistle. “Juice. Orange, grapefruit, apple, you name it. This is what he used to deliver, before he got fired.”

“He got a discount on it?”

“Yeah,” I said bitterly. “The five-fingered kind. That’s why they fired him.”

“Oh. Right.”

“So, what’s your poison?” I waved my hand toward the boxes stacked five high, four across and three deep.

“Apple’s up top. Let’s split one.”

I pulled out a bottle and got two glasses and some ice, carrying them toward my room.

“Are you excited?” I asked as I opened my bedroom door.

“I really finally get to see it today?” Dale nodded toward the veiled canvas on my easel.

“Today’s the day,” I agreed, setting down our drinks. “You ready?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never had anyone do a painting of me. It’s kind of weird,” he said, trying to peek under the cover.

I slapped at his hand.

“Not yet!” I pushed him down on the bed. “I’ll do it. When I’m ready.”

“You’ve only kept me in suspense forever,” he groaned, laying back and pulling me with him. He tried to kiss me but I wouldn’t let him.

“Okay.” I got up. “If you really want to see it, let’s do it.”

I went to the canvas and pulled off the sheet. Dale blinked, staring quietly, studying it carefully. I waited, chewing on my nail until I couldn’t stand it anymore.

“Well?”

“Well...” He cleared his throat. “It’s not exactly what I was expecting.”

“I know.” I threw up my hands. “But I was experimenting. Every time I tried to put you down in portrait form I couldn’t do it.”

He studied it, frowning, speechless. It made me nervous.

“This,” I nodded toward the abstract. “This is really you.”

“Here...” He pointed as he spoke. “This is my music, right?”

He touched the misshapen music note.

“Is this my father?” He pointed to a shadowy figure. I nodded.

“Everything is here. Even you, over here in the corner right?”

I nodded again.

“Why in the corner?”

I shrugged.

He pulled me back onto the bed, tucking me easily beneath him. “You should be right in the middle.” He kissed my forehead, pressing my hand over his heart. “Right here.”

I smiled.

“Well, I’ve never had anyone do a painting of me before.” He nuzzled my ear. “I’m more than a little flattered.”

I shrugged again, embarrassed. “It’s yours, if you want it.”

“Thank you.” He pulled back to look at me, tracing the outline of my face gently with his finger. His eyes were soft as he touched my lips and whispered, “Sara, sometimes I don’t think you’ll ever know how much you mean to me.”

I kissed him, letting my mouth tell him what I felt, what I wanted. He kissed me back, the feel of him a relief as he let his weight press me into the bed.

His hands moved up under my t-shirt, sliding up my sides, making me squirm.

“Ohhh, ticklish?” he inquired, his fingers finding his way up under my arms. I squealed and writhed and tried desperately to get away.

“Stop, stop, stop!” I cried, laughing too hard to get the words out in anything but a gasp.

But he went on, persistent, tenacious, until I was howling with laughter, trying to buck him off me, off the bed, but having no luck at all.

That’s when my door flew open.

My stepfather’s voice boomed above our heads. “Get the fuck off her!”

I didn’t have the breath to scream, but that’s what my body wanted to do. Instead, I gasped, and Dale was up, protecting me with his body, standing between me and the stepbeast faster than I thought humanly possible.

What is he doing here?

My stepfather loomed, glaring at me over Dale’s shoulder.

“We’re going.” Dale reached back for my hand, not moving out of my stepfather’s path, keeping his body between me and the stepbeast. I stretched out to take his offered hand, my fingers brushing his, when my stepfather shoved Dale aside with enough force to throw him against the desk, knocking the chair over on its side and spilling apple juice onto the floor.

Then the stepbeast gave me a shove, the force of it pushing me back onto the bed, my head hitting the wall so hard the edges of my vision went black, all the breath gone from my lungs. My body was paralyzed, my brain sending all sorts of signals but none of them getting through.