Beauty from Pain(109)

The time has come. I’m leaving today, but Jack Henry has no idea. He believes we have twenty-four more hours together. Why have I lied to him? Because I can’t bear to see him be all right with watching me walk away forever when I’m not at all prepared to do so.


He’s sleeping next to me. He takes a slow, deep breath and like clockwork, I hear a quiet snore every other breath. It’s his breathing cycle and after sleeping next to him for three months, I’ve come to predict it. To expect it. To love it. I don’t want to know what it’s going to be like not hearing it once I’m in my bed at home, so I decide I won’t. I go to my purse and take out my phone to record his sounds. It’s silly, but at least I can have this part of him with me after I’m gone.


When I finish, I sit in the chair in the corner of the room and scan through the pictures of us on my phone. I have come to love these images of us together. I decide I won’t give them up, either, so I silence both phones and go through the photos texting each one to my personal phone. He’ll never know I did this and even if he figures it out, what’s he going to do about it? I’ll be over nine thousand miles away.


When I finish transferring all the photos to my phone, I sit and watch this man I’ve come to love. I have no idea how long I sit staring at him. I only know I won’t get to do it again after tonight.


I curse the glowing time on the clock—4:36. I realize the time I thought would never come has. The flames burning from both ends of our candle are meeting in the middle this morning. My three months with Jack Henry has dwindled to less than three hours and is about to be snuffed out.


I pull my legs up and cradle them as I begin to cry. I’m forced to cup my hands over my mouth to muffle the uncontrollable sobbing. I hear him toss in the bed and I cup my hands tightly so he won’t hear me, but he does anyway. “Hey, what are you doing over there?”


I take a deep breath and my chest vibrates. The light from the cracked bathroom door is minimal in the corner where I’m sitting so he can’t see my face. I work to disguise the nasally sound I’m certain my tears have caused. “I’m memorizing everything I don’t want to forget after I’m gone.”


There. I said it. It’s the reality we’ve been ignoring. This is me giving him the opportunity to talk about me leaving. Say something. Anything. Please.


But he doesn’t. “Come back to bed.”


“Okay. I just need a minute in the bathroom.”


I splash my face with cold water and then hold a cool cloth over my eyes knowing it won’t help with the swelling by the time he gets up for work. He’s going to know I’ve been crying and there’s nothing I can do about it.


When I get into bed with him, I slide over and put my head on his chest. He wraps his arm around me and rubs it up and down from my shoulder to my elbow. “Everything okay with you?”


“Yeah.”


“It doesn’t feel okay.”


I agree. Nothing about this feels okay. I can’t tell him that, so I do the only thing that will. I roll to my stomach and rise to my knees. I hitch one leg over him until I’m straddling him and then my body covers his as I drop my mouth to kiss him.


We’re both still naked from our earlier romp. I feel him grow hard below me as I slide back and forth over his growing erection. My intention is only to tease him and myself, but then I feel him angled perfectly to slide inside me. I push him inside just a little, dying to slide his full length all the way in.


We’ve only gone without using a condom the one time last week when I told him I loved him and it was the best ever. I felt so close to him and I want that again before I leave. I need it one last time.


His hands are on my hips and he doesn’t push me away so I slide his length inside me a little more. “Laurelyn …”


“Do you want me to stop?”


He doesn’t answer me immediately. “No, I don’t want you to ever stop.”


I lace my fingers through his and use them as leverage as I sink his remaining length inside me until I’m completely full. I love you so much, Jack Henry.


I hear a deep groan from him and the sound alone is such a turn-on. Knowing I’m the one who makes him come undone gives me a kind of pleasure I’ve never known.


He flexes his hips up every time I slide down. “Oh, that feels so damn amazing, Laurelyn.”