Page 101 of A Lot Like Adiós
But she wouldn’t use that on him. Not like this. So she locked it away inside what was left of her heart.
“All right.” Her voice was brittle, and she felt like she was about to break into a thousand pieces.
He gave her a pained look. “I have to do this, Michelle.”
“What about us, Gabe?”
“I don’t know what to tell you. My life is in LA. You knew that.”
“So you’re just going to pretend like nothing happened?”
“Michelle, whatever we’ve been doing here, playing house, isn’t real life. My real life is falling apart and I have to go fix it.”
It didn’t matter that she’d opened up to him more than she ever had with anyone else. It didn’t matter that they were good together. It didn’t matter that she loved him.
She’d loved him before—granted, not like this, but she had—and he’d still left. And according to him, he’d wanted her back then and left anyway. Cut her outbecauseof his feelings for her.
Was it any surprise he was doing the same thing now?
As much as Michelle wanted to wish otherwise, she knew that once Gabe left, she wouldn’t hear from him again. This was it. She could either argue with him or scream at him like she had before, or she could say goodbye and accept the truth.
Let it be real.
But it wasn’t real. He’d just said so.
He was leaving, and they were over.
“Good luck,” she said. Because what else was there to say? She’d known this was coming. From the beginning, he’d been clear that he was going back. It was her own stupid heart that had hoped he might change his mind. Or that even if he left, he’d do it sweetly, with assurances that he’d return.
Except it wasn’t meant to be. He was leaving her. Again.
It was as Michelle had always suspected. Love was for other people. And she was meant to be alone.
If even Gabe didn’t think she was worth sticking around for, who would?
He turned and headed for the stairs. Halfway there, he stopped. His hands clenched and unclenched. Then he spun around and stomped back to her. The look on his face was fierce and hungry, and she was already moving toward him when he caught her around the waist and pulled her in for a kiss.
Michelle slung an arm around his shoulders and went up on tiptoe, pressing their bodies together, soaking in the feel of him. Gabe held her close, and she poured everything she felt for him into the kiss. It was pure heat, the intensity drawing whimpers and moans from their throats as their tongues tangled and their teeth nipped. It was a wild, unspoken war of all the things they had and hadn’t said.
It was goodbye.
As she had in this very basement all those years ago, Michelle reached for the waistband of his pants, yanking at the elastic in desperate movements. Before she could free his cock, he gripped the back of her thighs and lifted her, carrying her to the desk. He deposited her on the surface and shoved her laptop and notebooks aside. She didn’t even care that the pencil case fell to the floor, her collection of colored pens spilling out across the beige carpet. Urgency was the only factor here.
Their mouths parted long enough for Michelle to lean back on her arms, lifting her hips so Gabe could yank her shorts and panties down her legs. He shoved his own pants and briefs to mid-thigh as she hurried to find a condom in her zip-around Wonder Woman wallet. She ripped open the wrapper and gripped the base of his dick, holding him still as she rolled the condom down his hard length. He hissed in pleasure, his eyesrolling back as she sheathed him, but he didn’t say a word and neither did she.
There was nothing left to say. There was only this.
Gabe hooked his arms under her knees, angling her hips so they aligned with his cock. His mouth found hers again in a searing kiss, and she reached down to guide him into her. She was wet, but not enough, and it was her turn to hiss as he stretched her. She scooted forward as much as she was able, urging him on, and he pumped his hips to work his way in.
From there, he set the pace for a hard, fast fuck.
Face-to-face, with barely a breath between them, Michelle could barely hold a thought in her head. Everything about him overwhelmed her senses, from his size, to his heat, to the sound of his harsh breaths and his clean, soapy scent. She took everything he gave and committed it all to memory. She kissed him so hard her lips felt bruised, but she didn’t care. She needed as much of him as she could get before he was gone.
His eyes were closed, like hers had been the first time they’d had sex, and she couldn’t blame him. It gave her the opportunity to study his face as he fucked her, to memorize the crease between his dark brows, the way his jaw tightened and his lips parted to reveal a flash of clenched white teeth.
But eventually the sensations became too much for her, and her own eyes drifted shut. Michelle stopped thinking and just let herself feel. From this angle, his cock was rubbing both her clit and her interior walls in the most delicious way. She moaned as he moved inside her, and the feelings intensified. She tightened her thighs around him as her body wound with tension.
Holy fuck, she’d never felt this close to a vaginal orgasm before. Her toes curled against his ass and she threw her head back, giving herself over to him. He took her cue and ran kisses up and down her neck, swirling his tongue against the sensitive skin as he picked up the pace, grinding deeper and harder.
