Page 72 of From West, With Regret

My insides stretch as he fills me, and I sigh with his mouth still on mine, relishing in the way it feels.

His warm hands slip down my back. We move slowly to not make the water splash over the edge, but with every rock and roll of my hips, it does so anyway.

Our slow pace allows me to focus on the small details: our heated breaths, the way the veins in West’s neck bulge as he moves me over him, the way his eyes soften and look at me as if he still can’t believe I’m here, in his arms.

It’s different than it was in the car. Here, in the warm lighting of West’s bathroom, a thin veil in the dark of night isn’t over us. Here, we’re stripped down, raw and bare. Every angle and imperfection is visible. We’re seeing each other in a new light.

I drape my arms over his shoulders and lift myself up his length before driving back down, and soon, it becomes difficult to hold back. His large hands move from my waist to my chest. He palms each breast, flicking and pinching each of my hardened nipples. Electricity crackles along my skin, sending heat tomy core. I move faster, rolling my hips harder and deeper as more water splashes over the edge.

By the time we’re finished, and West has spilled himself inside me, nearly half the water is puddled outside of the tub.

“I’m sorry,” I pant, biting back a laugh. “Looks like I made a mess.”

“A beautiful mess.” West tucks my hair behind my ear before he kisses me gently, then winks. “I don’t mind a little mess every now and then.”

TWENTY

WEST

All I want is to stay in bed with London, burying my cock inside her so deep, I’d convince her to never leave. I spent years pining for her, running a fool’s errand, searching for her among the millions of faces in New York City. I’d almost given up hope.

Especially the day we crossed paths, about a year and a half after we’d been forced apart by the adoption.

I was seventeen, and she was fifteen. I’d remembered our age difference. In fact, I’d remembered everything about her: the birthmark on her hand, her long black hair, the way her eyes shined whenever she’d show me a new drawing.

But that day at Coney Island, all my hope of reuniting with her shattered within seconds.

I meant what I told her about quantum entanglement. It’s always been around us.

I nearly broke when I saw her that day. The sun glistened off her black hair. She stood in front of the bumper cars, watching them going around in circles. Holding a large ball of cotton candy on a stick, she used her other hand to point and yell at whoever was out on the track. She wasn’t tipping herhead back in laughter, but I couldn’t help noticing the smile on her face and the dimple in her cheek.

She was happy.

Free.

I stood several feet down from her then, against the fence. It had been over a year since I’d last seen her. Since our circumstances ripped us apart. But I knew she would recognize me. She had to.

I didn’t look much different. My muscles had grown, and my jaw had become more defined, but she would recognize. My eyes hadn’t changed, and they were her favorite. She never went a day without telling me.

I’d promised her I would find her again, and I had.

She was there, within reach.

I watched her nervously, gathering up the courage to speak to her. To tell her I found her like I always promised I would.

In a cruel twist of fate, the words got lodged in my throat when she looked at me.

I’d caught the attention of her gray eyes. The ones I’d stared at for days in our foster home. The ones I fell in love with long before I even understood the depth of what it meant to love someone.

Reality had punched me in the gut when she looked at me with no expression. No recognition. I’d opened my mouth to speak. There was less than ten feet between us, but I knew she was further away than that.

My mother’s voice called for me in the distance, and a chill hit the back of my neck when London looked away. Not even hearing my name pulled her back to me. I was a ghost, a stranger, a blank face.

I was heartbroken that day, wondering how London could have forgotten me so easily. How could she have let me go and pretend I no longer existed? My teenage mind and heart were atwar that day. I couldn’t wrap my head around the idea of her forgetting what we’d been through, even if it had been over a year before.

Trauma like ours wasn’t easily forgotten.

Then, years later, when my mother told me my brother’s new wife had amnesia, then seeing her and Heath at Julianna’s birthday party, it all clicked into place.

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