Unbreak My Heart(43)

She parts her legs for me, and when I sink into her, my world turns neon. I’m high-definition and electric, lit up like this city at night.

As we move, my mind goes hazy, my skin grows hot. Pleasure rushes up and down my spine, racing through every cell in my body.

I want to say something. I want to tell her something, anything—words of love, words of sex. But the power of language has been drained from me, and I’m one giant electrical line, humming, buzzing.

I brace myself on my palms, swiveling my hips, and her eyes lock with mine. An obliterating wave of lust crashes into me as her lips part. She throws her head back and cries out my name again.

I’m so fucking happy I can give her this. It hardly seems equal when she’s given me so much more. It probably never will be even, but here in the bedroom, she can take all she wants. I’ll gladly give her all the pleasure I can, and I do as she comes again.

It’s beautiful and epic the way her orgasm moves through her, and it rattles mine loose—a burst of pure ecstasy that blots out the world.

Right now, she’s my world. It’s the real world times a thousand. It’s thunder and lightning and stars.

When I come down from that high, I roll off her, toss the condom in the trash, and bring her into my arms.

Her cheeks are flushed, and she has a happy, woozy look on her face that I want to keep putting there, every night and every day.

“Hi,” she whispers.

“Hi.”

“I missed that so much I’m not sure how I survived the last three years.”

I swallow hard and then decide it’s now or never. I prop myself up on my elbow. “Whatever it takes, I want to be with you.”

She smiles and traces my jaw with her finger. “I want that too. But what does that mean? Because I’m staying here, and at some point, you’re going back. What happens then?”

I laugh and shrug. “I don’t know. But I don’t want a fucking ocean between us.”

She nods sagely. “Oceans can be problematic. Can we find a way to remove it? Tug Los Angeles closer to Tokyo?”

I laugh and pull her close, kissing her forehead. “Shut up. I mean it.”

She presses her hands to my chest, pulling back. “I mean it too.”

“You want me to move the ocean for you?”

“I mean, I don’t want an ocean to come between us.” She winces. “But I also have to pee. Can you hold the thought?”

I salute her as she gets out of bed and heads to the bathroom. A minute later, I hear her flush then wash her hands. When the water stops, she opens the door and tilts her head, looking down the hallway at me.

She’s naked and curious. But concerned too. “Why are Ian’s painkillers open and on the counter in your bathroom?”





27





Holland



I’m fast at counting pills. The label says twenty, and three are missing.

While it’s possible Ian took three, there’s that little matter of the reason Andrew traveled to this city in the first place.

Unopened meds. Unused meds. He showed me the original letter from Kana. It listed all the meds, including Percocet next to the word unopened.

There has to be an explanation.

I look straight at Andrew, waiting for his answer. Tension spreads across my shoulders, but the tightness originates in my heart.

His jaw goes slack, and the admission is in his eyes. He squeezes them shut. “I took some.” His voice is ash.

It’s only three pills. It’s not a big deal. Three pills does not an addiction make.

Heck, three pills are what someone swallows over a few days when he has a bad back and it acts up unexpectedly.

But Andrew doesn’t have a bad back.

He doesn’t have headaches.

He didn’t have surgery, and he doesn’t suffer from recurring pain.

He’s healthy as a proverbial horse. He has no need for opioids.

“When did you take them?” I try to keep my tone as calm as possible. I don’t want to accuse him of anything. I want to know why he’s been turning to this drug, even a few times.

“The first night. I was jet-lagged and . . .” His sentence falls off a cliff.

“You took them to get to sleep?” That’s not ideal, but if he struggled with insomnia at the start of the trip, I can understand wanting something as a lullaby for the brain.

He rakes a hand through his hair. His voice is clogged with emotion as he answers, “No. It was the time I saw your pictures.”

I inhale sharply, wishing that wasn’t the reason. “And you needed the drugs to make it through the night?”

“It was only two,” he says defensively.

“What about the third?”

He sighs heavily. “I took it the next morning.”

I wince, absorbing this information and dreading asking the next question. “Why did you need them?”

He drags a hand down his face. “It was easier. It was just fucking easier than letting my mind entertain such awful thoughts. But that was practically two weeks ago, and I haven’t so much as thought about taking another since.”

“That’s good. That’s great.”

“You’re acting like I’m an addict.”

I raise my hands and shake my head. “I didn’t say that. I simply asked what was going on. Because I care. Because I love you. I’m glad it was only three.”