Page 68 of Until You Found Me

“Shit, I’m sorry. Don’t cry. I dunno what I—”

“I love you,” she says, full of conviction and honesty, holding his stare until he can feel the truth of it. “And you’re my bestfriend, too.”

He told her he loved her last night and convinced himself it wouldn’t matter if she never said it back. She was too distraught to return it then. Probably didn’t even remember that he said it. He picked the wrong moment and besides, another woman sullied those words, anyway, so maybe he could go his whole life without ever hearing it from someone else.

That was only a lie he told himself, to cope. His heart constricts like a vice when she adds meaning back to those three little words. It’s different hearing them from Tessa. It feels like a promise instead of a threat.

When she straddles his lap, her weight is heavy on his thighs, teasing his crotch. “Best friends can still do this, right?”

Her tone is soft and teasing but reflex tells him to hate this position. Nothing good can come from her holding him down. The tension is as reflexive as his need to defend himself before it’s too late and his shame at that reaction is instant. He hides his face in her neck above her collarbone rather than let her see the truth.

“I can move.” She wraps her arms around him, light as a feather, an easy hold to escape.

“Just gimme a minute.”

Nothing’s happened. They’re in the woods for fuck’s sake. It’s not the warmest place to get naked anyway. He’s overreacting, and he knows it. Tries to steady his breathing and focus on the feel of her fingers through his hair, and the inhales lifting her chest.

He’s safe. It’s only Tessa. He isn’t trapped.

Vanilla from that fancy body wash in the domes wafts up his nose. He lets his hands travel down to her thighs, rubbingin a firm drag. When he turns his head to press his lips to her pulse point, her hum of approval has his cock twitching. It’s enough to ease the initial stress of having someone in his lap.

“I wanted to this morning,” she whispers. “But then I didn’t because of everything…and then I did…and then I worried maybe you didn’t.”

“Me too. All of that.”

She chuckles, rocking her hips. “There’s no one else out here today.”

He blinks, stunned in all the best ways that she’s serious about wanting to do this in the woods. There’s nothing he wants more than her, so he captures her lips and swallows her moan, curving his arms up her back until she’s flush against him. Leftover anxiety turned his limbs to jelly, but he pushes through.If he can trust anyone, it’s her.

Whispy short strands of red hair slide through his fingers like silk. He’s a little obsessed with it. There’s a delicate curl and an easier flutter that tempts him to touch.

“You really do like it.” She smiles against his mouth. “I thought you were just being nice.”

“I fucking love it,” he growls.

When she shifts her weight to reach for his buckle he leans back, giving her room, imagining her small hand gripping him in a slow stroke before lowering down over the shaft…and then his world stops and tilts, everything in his body screaming out in protest as pain rips through his lower back.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, off. Get off. Goddamn it.”

She scrambles away, and he’d be worried about her confusion and hurt if he wasn’t being torn apart from the inside out.

“What is it?”

“It’s my back.” He slides off the log and to his knees, having to double over while seeing stars, cursing a blue streak into the dirt.

“I don’t know what’s happening. Please talk to me. Should I call someone? Do you need insulin?”

“Just took some this morning. It’s not that. I’ll live. Not the first time.” He shivers, rocking forward as if to escape while knowing he can’t, his forehead meeting the ground. “Don’t leave.”

“I’m not leaving.”

It’s a stupid request. Where would she go? She isn’t cruel enough to leave him in the woods like his father would have, or to give him a wide berth as if he’s plague-ridden. His first instinct is to beg for comfort anyway after a lifetime of being denied access to it.

Logan still flinches at her touch on his shoulder. All his nerves are on fire and despite wanting the contact, it hurts in a phantom flare. Then the real pain increases and he feels nothing except the white hot scalding in his lower back. Leaning into Tessa, gripping her knees as he half crawls into her lap, feels like his only salvation.

“It’ll pass. Few minutes and it’ll pass,” he chokes out. It never lasted long before, but then again, it never felt like this before, either.

It takes longer than a few minutes and has him writhing on the ground, desperate for relief. He’s seconds away from telling her to call an ambulance because the last thing he cares about now is a bill. When he thinks he can’t take anymore and starts to assume a bullet from the gun might be an easier option is when it finally subsides, leaving him limp and exhausted, panting as if he’d run a marathon.

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