Garden of Sins

I learned to answer always with okay. With you, I would actually say something different now, such as you should stay another half hour so I can drive you crazy again.

But today I’m saying “okay” to you too.

You stroke your full black hair again and a few strands fall across your forehead. You’re such a beautiful person and I don’t just mean your looks, but also your heart.

I try not to act too conspicuous. I can’t tell you that I want to leave today. I know you wouldn’t let me go and I would willingly let you stop me. And that’s a problem. I have to go now.

So, I smile and reach out to you. You come right over and lock fingers with me. I place our hands on your chest, under which your heart beats gently and your scent enters my nose. I suck it in deeply. God, I hate this. What if I never smell you again? Actually, it would be good if we never saw each other again because that would mean you were still able to get away. It’s obvious that won’t be possible for me, at least, not forever. Someone will see me somewhere and bring me home. The mob is everywhere.

You run your fingertips through my hair and gently pull my head back so that I must look at you. What does must mean? By now, I love to look at you.

I will miss that.

“I’ll be gone an hour. When I come back, we’ll go downstairs, get drunk, and when the bar closes, I’ll lick you on the counter.”

Only you can manage to make me tender, melancholy, sad, and hot at the same time, Carter. No one has ever done that before.

I’m thinking about leaving tomorrow. The prospect of spending another night with you is epic. You are epic. Everything about you is epic. I’ve never met a man like you before, one who’s so above it all. Even when you are easily angered, I’ve noticed I can handle it. Somehow, it’s no problem for me to calm you down. You are still that one exception. You would never tell me what to do. You’re a man who lets a woman yell at him. You’re a man who doesn’t take himself so seriously. And I love that so much.

“Okay,” I whisper, knowing that none of it is going to happen. I hate that I’m just going to leave you like this, but someone once told me a clean break is better. “Okay,” I whisper again and stand on my tiptoes to kiss you. You kiss me for a moment before you pull your head back to check me out. I flinch, but stay on my toes and lean against you.

“What?” I whisper with my lids half-lowered and your brow wrinkles. You are too sensitive in your core so you surely feel something.

“Nothing,” you say after a short pause and bend forward to place your lips gently against mine. I kiss you deeply and wrap an arm around your neck.

You groan into my mouth and your fingers dig into my ass. I love it when you touch me so roughly, but I only love that with you. Because they’re your hands. And I love your hands.

You and I always manage to come up with some reason. Sometimes a fleeting, little, barely noticeable touch or a thought is enough for us to jump on each other and it escalates.

Now, for example, you put your hand in my pants and grab my bare ass and I have to smile.

“Don’t you have to go?” I murmur into the kiss.

“Must go.” You pull me tighter against you and a gentle laugh escapes me. I love to feel your fingers on my skin. Even the first time, you were somehow familiar to me, overwhelming me, taking me completely into your world. I love your world, Carter.

You make a tortured sound, seemingly torn. Stay here and have sex or go off and not have sex.

I pull my head back to take the decision away from you. While I want to feel you, always, because I can’t get enough of you, I know you would make it impossible for me to move on today if I gave myself to you like that again now. Because then I would fall. Completely. And I would love to fall with you, but I’m afraid the impact would be fatal for both of us.

Breathless, we look at each other and you grind your teeth before you pull your hand out of my pants.

I glance at your face once more.

“One hour,” you say and my stomach cramps up hard.

“Okay,” I whisper and take my hands off you. You take a step backward and I wish I could hold on to you. I wish I could shoot Dorian. I wish I could shoot my father or whoever is responsible for me being in this situation now.

Oh, yeah. There was something else. There was HIM.

I’d like to shoot him too. Even more so than Dorian.

I take another breath with words on the tip of my tongue that I am not allowed to say now. I am not allowed to tell you what I feel especially since you are afraid of feelings.

You clear your throat. “See you later, princess.”

“See you later,” I reply softly and smile at you again. For a few seconds, you look at me, seemingly agitated... But then you take a deep breath, clench your jaw, and turn abruptly and leave.

And that, Carter Whatever-your-last-name is, is the last time I will see you in a long time. The last time I’ll taste your lips for a very long time.

The last time I will be happy in a very long time.

The last time, for a very long time, an incredibly long time, that you and I were free together.