The Beauty Series Bundle (25 page)

T
he 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.”

I would do this everyday if it were up to me, but it’s not my choice. It’s his. And he’s choosing to let me go.

Now his hands are on my hips and he encourages me to move up and down faster under his splayed hands. “I’m close, Laurelyn.” His fingertips are digging into my skin. “Is it okay to come inside you?”

“Yes.”

His fingertips close around each of my hipbones and he pulls me down hard against him. He makes his come sound that I love so much because it always has my name behind it. “Ooh, Laurelyn.”

I feel him twitch inside me and I know he has just filled me with a part of him.

When he releases my hips, I collapse against his chest and his arms wrap around me. “God, I’m going to miss you.”

And there they are. My walking papers. I no longer hold out hope he will ask me to stay, and I feel the tears. Thank God I turned off the bathroom light when I came out so it’s dark and he can’t see me. And I won’t see the love he doesn’t feel when he’s holding me.

I feel the stream slide down my cheek.

“What is that?” He slides his hand between us and feels the wetness. “Are you crying?”

“No.” Yes.

“You are crying. What’s wrong? Did I hurt you?” He slides up in the bed, although I’m on top of him. I feel him reach for the lamp on the nightstand, but I grab his hand to stop him.

“No. I’m not hurt. I’m fine.” Yes, I’m hurt but not the way you think.

I lace my fingers through his so he won’t try again to turn on the lamp. I don’t want to attempt to explain this.

He doesn’t say anything else about it and neither do I. I spend the next two hours lying next to Jack Henry with my head against his chest. I’m listening to his heartbeat—another thing I’ll never hear again.

He kisses the top of my head. “Mmm. I’m going to be late if I don’t get ready for work. I’d hate to get fired.”

“Yeah, that’s a mean ol’ mister you work for,” I laugh, but even I hear how phony I sound.

The sun is up and I watch Jack Henry walk naked to the bathroom. Damn, I’m definitely going to miss seeing that every morning.

When he’s ready for work, he comes over to kiss me like he has every morning that I’ve been in his bed, but this time is different. “I’ll see you this afternoon, baby.”

I kiss him like it will be the last time I ever see him. Because it is. I clutch him in my arms. This is our last kiss. Our last embrace. Our last everything.

“You’re squeezing me like this is it.” Can he read my mind? Sometimes I wonder. He kisses my forehead. “Are you sure everything is okay?”

I nod because I’m so unstable. I’m about to burst into tears and I have to keep it together just a little bit longer.

“I’ll try to come in early so we can do something special tonight.”

This is it. Here it comes.

I watch Jack Henry walk out of my life forever as he leaves the bedroom. And that’s when it all sinks in. We’re over. Forever.

A
t twelve o’clock
, I decide to call it a day because I’m getting nothing accomplished. All I can think about is Laurelyn and how she’s going to walk out of my life tomorrow. It’s all I’ve thought of for a week since I heard her say that she loved me.

This has been the shortest three months of my life. My chest quite literally aches with the thought of never seeing her again. We agreed on three months, and our time together is up. I promised her the time of her life, but I’ll be damned if she didn’t turn it around on me. I’m the one who had the best three months of my life, and there’s no hope for ever topping it.

I love her too much to let her leave and I need to tell her right this minute.

“Harold, I’m taking the rest of the day off.”

“Yes, sir. Have a good afternoon.”

Within minutes, I’m at the house and Mrs. Porcelli greets me in the kitchen. “Mr. McLachlan, would you care for some lunch?”

“Has Laurelyn had lunch yet?”

She looks peculiar. “She left this morning not long after you went to work.”

She didn’t say anything about needing to go into town. “Did she say where she was going?”

Mrs. Porcelli hesitates. “She told me she was going home. I thought it was strange you weren’t going to the airport with her, but I didn’t think it was my place to question it.”

No. She’s wrong. That can’t be right.

“Laurelyn!” I run toward the bedroom and nothing seems out of place, but it’s too clean and in order. Laurelyn isn’t this organized. Something of hers is always tossed on the chair in the corner, but it’s free of clutter. I open the top drawer of the chest where she keeps her intimates and find it empty.

Please, don’t let her have left me.

I go to the closet and everything hanging there belongs to me.

Why have you done this, Laurelyn?

I take my phone out of my pocket and dial her number. I hear my personalized ringtone and I follow the sound. I find her phone next to her Martin on the coffee table in the living room. There’s an envelope lying next to it with my name written in her handwriting.

This is bad. Very bad.

I hold the envelope without breaking the seal. She’s gone and she left this ink on paper here in her place. These are her final words to me. I open it and remove the folded paper.

No! I thought I had more time to tell her, but she’s gone. She’s really gone.

And then it strikes me that she might not be. Her plane might not have left. When she wrote the letter, she expected me to find it hours later.

I race toward the garage. I get into the Sunset and drive faster than what’s deemed safe toward the Wagga Wagga Airport.

I arrive in record time and don’t attempt to find a parking spot. I abandon my car at the front entrance. To hell with it. They can tow it.

I race toward the first open counter. “I need help. I need to find out if a plane leaving for …” I stop to think. Damn. Would she fly home from here? No, Wagga Wagga is too small to have a flight to LAX. She would have to connect in Sydney. “Sydney.”

She’s clearly annoyed by me. “Sir, we have several flights to Sydney every day.”

“It’s an emergency. Can you check to see if all of them have left?”

She sighs. “I’ll check for you, sir. Any particular carrier?”

“No.”

She’s in no hurry as she clicks her mouse, and I think she’s doing it to piss me off. “They’ve all left for today, sir.”

“What about returning flights to LAX out of Sydney?”

She sighs heavier. “I’ll have to check, sir.”

She clicks several times. “There are two flights to LAX today. One left at seven this morning and the other is scheduled to leave at three o’clock.”

Damn! That’s in two and a half hours. Even driving wide open in the Sunset, there’s no way I can make it to Sydney in that short amount of time.

I find my car still parked at the front where I left it. There’s a security guard standing behind it jotting down the plate number. He sees me coming his way. “Is this your car?”

“Yes.”

“You can’t leave it parked at the entrance, sir.”

I wave him off. “I’m leaving now.”

“Good thing you came when you did. I was about to have it towed.”

I didn’t give a roo’s ass and I almost told him as much. Any other time I would, but right now I didn’t care enough to tell him anything.

I get into my car and drive away from the airport. I don’t make it two miles before I’m on the side of the road thinking of anything I can do to get to Laurelyn, but I’m totally blank.

I can’t stop this from happening.

Think. Think. Think. Okay, as much as I hate to admit it, Ben Donavon is my only answer. He might not know how to get in touch with Laurelyn, but he can put me in touch with his sister.

I grind my teeth as I drive toward his apartment. It’s going to hurt like hell to ask for his help, but I’m willing to walk through fire to get to Laurelyn.

After I use the intercom to let him know I’m here, he buzzes me into the building. I knock on his door and wait. When he opens it and sees it’s me, he cocks his head to the side and shifts his jaw. He is going to enjoy the hell out of this and that pisses me off.

“You already know she’s not here, so what do you want?”

It kills me to depend on him as my only link to Laurelyn. Literally, I’m having chest pain because I’m lowered to this level. “I need to know how to reach Laurelyn.”

He narrows his eyes at me. “You’ve got to be kidding me.” He’s smirking and shrugs. “I wish I could help you out, bro.”

He’s enjoying this way too much. “Okay, let’s not pretend like you’re not loving this.”

The little fucker laughs. “I’m not pretending. I am loving this shit, but I still can’t help you out because I don’t have her number.”

“Then I need Addison’s.”

He’s smirking bigger now. “Sorry. I’m not giving you my sister’s number.”

It’ll be a miracle if I don’t choke this little bastard. “You know I only want it so I can contact Laurelyn.”

He crosses his arms to let me know he doesn’t plan on giving in. “If Laurelyn wanted contact with you, she would have given you her number, so I think that means she’s dropped you.”

I feel panic coming on. If he won’t give me her number, how am I going to find her when I don’t even know her last name? I debate asking him and decide to eat shit if it means I find out. “What’s her last name?”

“Laurelyn’s?”

He’s shaking his head at me, judging me. “Dude! You just fucked her for three months and you don’t know her last name?”

“It was part of an agreement we had,” I spit out through a clenched jaw.

“I don’t know what the two of you agreed on, but apparently she left here keeping her end of it, so I suggest you respect her enough to keep yours.”

I watch the door slam in my face before I kick the hell out of it. Fuck! What do I do now?

I walk like a zombie to my car. I get inside, but I don’t drive away. I sit there. Thinking.

Shit, I’m so stupid.

She tried to tell me she loved me and I wouldn’t listen. I refused to see I might love her in return because I was too unbending. I thought I had something to prove by not falling in love with anyone. Ever.

But I did fall in love with her, and now she’s gone.