A Love Soul Deep (7 page)

Just gone. Shiny gold glittered in the morning light, and while I thought I should cry, I didn’t. The greediness was gone. I’d gotten my wish. I’d had one more day with him. Sure, I didn’t get to know every inch of his body—as I’d hoped. But what I’d gotten was a miracle.

I still missed him. I still thought of him every day. But the hurt was gone. I got up long enough to brush my teeth, stare at my reflection, and decided to forget today altogether. I called in sick to work.

I lay under the covers and shut my eyes, preparing to say a small good-bye to my Crew.

When I felt a weight settle on my bed behind me, I jumped. With a screech, I flipped over and landed ass first on the floor. “Crew?” I rushed to my feet and hurtled myself at him. “Oh, Jesus! You scared me.”

He grunted as our bodies collided. “Whoa!” he said. “Don’t kill me before I can even kiss you.”

I clung to him. “What took you so long?”

“I told you,” he said, pulling my arms from his neck so we faced each other. I bent for a kiss. His lips were warm and firm on mine, and I knew it was really him again. “Stop. Hey, listen. I don’t have much time.”

“But no one will interrupt us this time. I swear. I won’t so much as answer the phone.”

He touched my face, smiling. “You cut your hair.”

“Yeah. Well, it’s been a long time. Six months.” I got a little pinch in my chest, and tried to erase the feeling with kisses.

He pulled back after a long, deep kiss.

I sat back on his lap. “What’s wrong?”

Pain shone in his eyes. The kind of pain that marked a storm on the horizon. I didn’t want to know. I almost stood up to get some distance from that look, but the fear of him disappearing glued me in place. Crew searched my eyes.

“I can’t come back again, Sara.”

“Then, don’t leave at all.”

He shook his head. “This one has to be good-bye. It isn’t up to me.”

“No. It’s up to me, right?” He looked down and reached for my waist. I grabbed his hand and laced our fingers. “Right?”

He shook his head.

My irritation spiked. Not with him. With myself. With God, with the universe, and whatever power kept teasing me with what I wanted most, but could never keep. I pushed one hand against his shoulder, so he looked me in the eye. “What aren’t you telling me?”

The pain gleamed in his gaze as well. “Do you remember the day I died?” He pulled me to him by the neck.

I choked back an angry sob. “I don’t like to.”

“You have to,” he gritted out. “If you don’t. . . .” His eyebrows drew together. He nodded.

“What? If I don’t what?”

“If you don’t, we’ll be anchored to each other in perpetual pain, in misery. Right now, this moment is all I have left to give you, Sara.” His hand moved to my hair. A shiver raced over my stomach. “You gotta remember, Sara. So I can say I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have anything to be sorry for.” I shook back a memory almost as painful as hearing the news that he didn’t make it. Too many internal injuries. I ran my hands over his arms and kissed him again. “Your lips are chapped.”

He half-laughed. “We had a pretty good fight that day.”

I looked up at the ceiling and groaned out a wave of pain. “Yeah. I know. I’d take it back if I could. I swear it. I was insecure. I thought not telling Moira was because of some sort of shame you had about me.”

“No. Not shame.”

Another wave of pain. No. Not shame. I thought he and Moira—no. Nausea crept up my throat. “It was all me. You didn’t even argue. I said awful things. You left and ....” Died.

If he had been clear-headed, maybe he’d have seen the other car and swerved to safety.

Crew’s eyes shone with tears. He licked his lips. “You accused me of having feelings for Moira.”

I nodded, a tear sliding down my cheek.

“You found out I had dated her, too. At the same time as you.”

There it was. The full force right inside my chest, as hard as a punch. I just shook my head over and again. Flashes of him and Moira. Crew kissing her, loving her. “Why?” I managed.

“There’s no good answer. Because I was an asshole. Because I could. Because you loved me so much, and it terrified me.”

I got up. I paced a circle in the room, pulling my hair off my face and back.

He got up. He reached for me. I turned away. “I loved you so much.”

He grabbed my hand and wouldn’t let go. “I know. Please, Sara, look at me.”

The hurt in his voice broke me. I met his gaze and there in his crying eyes saw everything. His regret, his honesty. His love. I let him pull me into his arms. “If you loved me, how could you still be with her?”

“Exactly,” he said softly. He put his chin on top of my head and held me tight. His voice quavered. “I am so, so sorry, Sara. I hurt you, and no one in the world will ever love me like you. If I could take it back, I would. I would keep you safe and cherish you and set aside my stupid ego.”

I wound my arms around his waist and made fists of my hands. I didn’t know what to say.

“Please forgive me. Not now, not today. Just please, someday, try. It will make all the difference.”

I wiped my tears away and slowly nodded. I’d try.

“It wasn’t because I didn’t love you. I love you, Sara. So much it hurts. So much that it brought me to my knees.”

I sniffed and leaned back. “Shut up, Crew. Just shut up.” I kissed him. It hurt. He’d hurt me more than anyone could. But he was leaving. I would regret not loving him more than staying angry.

I had nothing left to prove, and nothing could be scarier than him gone. I had already faced that. He kissed me back, full force, chapped lips and rough hands.

I hated it. I loved it.

The hurt gave way to love, and love gave way to a thrill of excitement. I allowed myself to feel the magic that his return was. I was desperate for more. Desperate to feel his mouth on every last part of me. Desperate to hear him say my name a thousand times. Desperate to never let this end.

I pressed my mouth against his. Crew answered in kind, his tongue driving into my mouth, sending pleasure down my chest, down my belly until it sparkled inside my core.

“I need you, Sara,” he rasped. He pulled off my T-shirt, hands shaking.

I pawed at his. In seconds we stood disrobed. He guided me to the bed and pressed his naked body to mine. “I want to ruin you for any other man, Sara. I do. I want to be the only one who could ever complete you.”

“Yes. God, Crew, yes. I don’t want anybody but you. Ever.”

He sucked my lower lip, nipping my mouth. His hands gripped my ass. I dug my nails into his shoulders as he lifted me onto the bed. I pushed the clutter there to the floor and reveled in his glorious beauty.

“I want every part of you, Sara.”

His eyes flashed with intent. My sex throbbed. A rush of wetness bloomed between my thighs. I wanted to be branded by his touch, by the sheer memory of this moment. He hovered above me, his arms trembling. He settled his length between mine.

“Don’t close your eyes,” he said and kissed my nose.

I opened my legs, an ache of need spreading inside of me. I craved feeling all of him. His toes to my toes, thighs to my thighs, his erection inside of me, filling me up and making the world disappear.

“Please,” I said as he hesitated.

He blinked and drew into me, inch by long inch until his pelvis met mine. He settled onto his elbows and stared into my soul. “I wish you could know how beautiful you are to me. How every time I’d see you, my stomach would tip over.”

“I do know.” I breathed in his salty scent. “I know because I feel that way about you, too.” I pressed my hips against his, encouraging him to move, wanting the orgasm I was on the brink of.

“God, you feel so good, Sara.”

I gasped, my eyes locked to his, entranced by the heady look in his. I wound my hips, arching my back, so that my nipples grazed his chest.

“Stop,” he said. “I don’t want to come.”

I fell still. He rained kisses over my face and then simply watched my face. I pressed my hips again, so beyond turned on. His erection throbbed in time with my slamming pulse. His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. He licked his lips, and new pain shone in his eyes.

“I think I came a little.”

“Oh, no. Is it too late?” He shook his head. “Good. Because I want more, too,” I said and let my inhibitions go.

The green of his eyes darkened. A surge of pleasure wound through me. I slid up and down his length. He stroked in and out of me. His mouth teased each nipple. His hands cupped my ass and roved over my belly. We rolled over, wet with sweat, so that I was on top. The penetration felt exquisite, and within a couple of small grinds my orgasm gripped me.

I cried out, arching, as pleasure shot through me again and again. My body squeezed his. He was so big it hurt, but hurt so good. And before I finished, his cock swelled and exploded into me, too. Crew groaned, gripping my back, pulling me close so that our bodies melded into a tangle of pleasure and limbs.

Nothing would ever compare. I knew it down to my bones.

Floating down from the high of sexual bliss, we lay together in silence. The spell eased away, and the most wonderful sense of ordinary replaced it. Normal life. It could have been any day, just hanging out, being us. We took a hot shower. He kissed my chin with wet lips. I held myself to his chest. I listened to his heartbeat and savored the feel of the water running in rivulets around my cheek and down his chest. I sighed. He’d be gone soon. I felt it coming.

A prickling tingle in my gut kicked in, the kind you get the night before Christmas. A little wonder, plus a speck of fear.

Had I been more aware six months ago, I’d have known it was coming then, too. I’d have stopped blaming Kim for the locket falling. In fact, I should probably apologize to both Kim and Moira. I’d been a world-class bitch these last months.

I should probably tell Moira more than I’m sorry. We had a friendship to mend, and I’d pretended differently for too long. No wonder she overprotected.

Feeling the tingle grow, I pulled back so I could see Crew’s face. “I’ll never love anyone like I love you, Crew.”

He smiled a little. “Me too, Sara. But promise me something? Try to love again?”

I winced. “How can you ask that of me?”

“Because, I know things. I know that if you close yourself off to hope, to love, to possibility, you’ll suffer. So will others.”

I couldn’t promise him anything, no matter how right he might be. The tingle grew stronger. “Will you try to see me again? At least in my dreams?”

“Of course I will. Just remember I’m there. I always will be. Know you will always have a part of me. Love hard, Sara. Life is worth it.” He gulped a breath. “You are worth it.”

Tears slid down my face as I watched his eyes, heard his words, and felt the softness of his skin, the hardness of his body, fade away. “Crew,” I whispered as the tingle in my gut, and my very last moment with him, slipped away.

~~~

Epilogue

My life has been irrevocably changed by lines.

The yellow dotted lines on pavement designed to keep cars separated, passengers and drivers safe, crossed just once. Wrong place, wrong time. Crew gone.

The lines on an aging woman’s face that warmed my heart. The clever lines of a story that encouraged me to buy a heavy gold locket, which caught my eye.

Two stark, pink lines on a white plastic stick.

One line would have meant no. Nothing changed. Everything going in quite the same direction. But, two, the two staring back at me bright as day from the grocery store bathroom, changed everything forever. More than any other lines ever had, or, I suspected, ever would again.

Crew had to return to wherever hereafter is. I hated that he left. I resented him, and then myself, over it for weeks. It got to the point that I thought I was making myself sick. Until Moira teased me, “You’re not pregnant, are you?”

A knock sounded on the bathroom door, jerking me out of my contemplation. “You’re killing me out here,” Moira called. We were slowly finding our way back to being close, one difficult conversation at a time. She was the first person I thought of when I realized I needed to buy a test today.

I pulled my jeans up and washed my hands, wonder coursing through me. Wonder—and nausea. The soap stunk like a truck stop.

Pregnant? It just didn’t seem possible. No matter how physically real he’d been, how could he have been real enough to pass on genes? Impossible. And yet, not.

I’d learned about impossible after Crew came back to me. Most days, our second chance felt like a dream. Not today. Today, I knew the impossible existed. So many of the vague statements Crew said during our magical time together made sense now.

He asked me to stay open to love, to “love hard.”

Now, staring at my reflection, seeing a tiny swell to my belly, I understood why.

I opened the bathroom door with two bracing thoughts:

One,
do not puke on Moira, no matter how she balks at the test results.
Morning sickness lingering until this afternoon was kicking my ass.

And two,
I can’t wait to meet you, my baby, and tell you about how much I love your daddy
. And he me. Turns out, some kinds of love go beyond the body. Some kinds go soul deep.

~~~

Irish Moon

By Amber Scott

Chapter One