Page 43 of Riding the Pine

I can’t watch her in pain like this, I can’t. So, I step toward her. She holds a hand out to stop me. “I need to get it out.” She leans forward like the pain is making it hard to breathe, and my own breathing constricts.

If I could take her pain and make it my own it wouldn’t be a question, I’d do it in a nanosecond.

“And if he died, Edith wouldn’t know how much he truly loved her. Like, more than a friend.” Her words come out between heavy sobs and shuddering breaths. “I don’t think she has any idea. Or maybe.” She swallows hard. “Maybe she knew and was just ignoring it thinking it would go away eventually.”

She shakes her head making more tears fall. “It’s me. I mean me. If something ever happened to you, Scott.” The raw and unmasked agony in her eyes steals my breath away, and I can’t stay so far from her, I take another step despite the warning in her eyes at my movement.

“It just hit me, probably the way it hit Pollo.” She sniffs, wiping her nose with the back of her hand. “You’d never know how I felt if s-s-s-something happened.”

I step up to her, she braces a hand on my chest, clenching her fingers to grab a handful of material on my shirt.

She cups my face with her soft palm, and as much as my eyes want to flutter closed and absorb this moment, I can’t stop looking at her. The urgency swimming in those expressive brown eyes primes my body for action. If she asked me to walk through the fires of hell itself I would.

“I l-l-love you, Scott Raine. I’ve always loved you.” She holds my stare so I can see the emotion laid bare in her eyes, and it’s so overpowering my breath gets even more restricted. “I w-willalwayslove you.” Her shoulders sag as though saying what she just did took a behemoth effort.

Her eyes tell me she wants to say more but her lip trembles, her cheeks are tear streaked, and she’s just been through a severe trauma. “Shhhhh.” I cup her face with my palm like she did to me, she closes her eyes and turns her head into the warmth of my hand. “It’s okay, I’ve got you.”

She nods into my hand. “You’ve always got me.” Her words come out on a sigh, and her eyes snap back open like she didn’t mean to let them out.

I nod my reassurance at her. “I do.” I don’t want to drag her through a lengthy conversation about what this means, but I need her to know I love her too. I need her to know I love her with my whole chest, my whole fucking existence, I was put on this earth to love this woman with all I am and all I have.

“I love you, Athena. I’ve always loved you.”

Tomorrow, I’ll tell her that I was scared to let myself, that at first I was scared of her brothers, and that I’m one hundred percent sure that loving me will be the worst mistake of her life, but for now, I just need her to know that she’s loved.

I bring my face closer to hers, she wasn’t seeking to kiss me, and she didn’t have that look people get in their eyes before theywant to kiss someone. But it’s the quickest way I know to tell her everything I need to.

She nods. I pause. Our breathing gets heavier.

Once we cross this line there’s no going back. It’s like lighting the end of a fuse, my body’s already sparking to life at the idea of being able to kiss the woman I’ve only ever dreamed of kissing.

She stares at my lips, then back at my eyes, and there’s a silent plea within.

We’re drawn to each other, like magnets, or planets caught in each other’s orbits. The air is charged with anticipation and more than a small amount of relief, like even the cosmos is glad we’re finally giving in to whatever this is between us.

Her eyes flick to my lips one more time, and when they meet mine again, it’s clear ‘whatever this is,’ is straight up love. There’s no other word, no hiding, no pretending, it’s pure, unadulterated love, and it’s so fucking overdue.

I brush my nose against hers, sucking in a deep breath and capturing everything about this moment. I want to immortalize it, remember every sensation, every smell, every brush of our skin against each other. She smells of hospital coffee and whatever perfume she has on.

I gently press my lips to hers, it’s not an earth shattering, all consuming, life changing kiss. Not at all. It’s not filled with impatience, or feral need, and it certainly isn’t desperate.

As she parts her lips to accept my tongue into her mouth, there’s no clashing of teeth, no battle of tongues, no urgency.

It’s a lazy kiss, a kiss cumulatingyearsof pining, years of right girl wrong time, years of someday maybe. She sighs into my mouth as her body softens against mine. I kiss her deeply, holding one side of her face as I pour into her years of yearning and fear of taking the next step.

After what feels like only a second and an hour at the same time, our mouths finally part and she looks up at me. I kiss herforehead. “Bedtime.” I don’t mean naked bedtime, though my hard cock is pressing against her like a fucking baton. I’m hoping she ignores it and lets me put her to bed.

She nods. “Thank you,” she whispers.

It’s like we don’t need to talk or explain. I get it. I understand what she needs without her having to tell me. I take her hand in mine, leading her through her apartment to the one room I have never entered.

My heart flutters and my stomach tightens. I don’t have time to be giddy, I don’t have time to be anything other than what she needs me to be.

I pick her pjs up off her pillow and hand them to her, then turn to face her door while she gets changed.

She giggles. “You don’t want to see me naked?” Her voice isn’t heavy with suggestion, more uncertainty, or even dare I say it, self-consciousness.

“Athena, I’ve wanted to see you naked since the day you stopped to pick me up at the side of the road in your oversized winter coat. But I’m merely a man. If I see you take your clothes off, my last remaining thread of restraint will snap, and I’ll stop being a gentleman. You need sleep, not sex. And when I worship every inch of your naked body—and trust me, when I say I’m going to worship every fucking inch of your naked body—I want it to be because we both want it, not because you need to escape trauma. Not for our first time.”

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