From This Moment

by Melanie Harlow

  I closed my eyes, and when I opened them again, my brother was sitting beside me.

  “Dude,” he said. “You know the answer.”

  “Do I?”

  “Of course you do. You knew me better than anyone. If I wanted something, I went after it.”

  “True.” For a moment, I said nothing, watching the waves as I considered my next statement. “How could you ever have wanted someone else?”

  He was silent.

  “How could you do that to her?”

  “I don’t know. I fucked up. Everyone makes mistakes.”

  I knew that, but it didn’t help. “You had everything, Drew. Everything.”

  “Maybe I didn’t deserve it.”

  I frowned, unwilling to go that far.

  “But you do, Wes. You’ll be good to her.”

  “I would,” I whispered.

  “But you can’t fuck this up. It’s Hannah we’re talking about. And Abby too.”

  “Abby.” My heart swelled.

  “They need you. And I trust you to love them both the way they deserve to be loved, Wes—enough for both of us. Can you do that?”

  I swallowed hard. “Yes.”

  “Good. Because there’s no one else on earth I trust more.”

  “Are you sure I haven’t…broken some sacred bond between us?”

  “I’m sure. Now get out of your head. And get Hannah out of hers, too. Life is short, brother. Go live it.”

  “I will. I want to.”

  “And for fuck’s sake, get out of Mom and Dad’s house already. What are you, twelve?”

  “I’m going, I’m going.”

  “Good. I’ll be around, but only when you need me.”

  “Thank you.” I looked at the empty sand next to me. “For everything.”

  By the time I went back up to the house, Hannah was gone, my dad was sitting in his chair with a crossword puzzle, and my mother was following Abby up the stairs.

  “I get to stay here again!” Abby shouted. “Can we make snow cones in the morning?”

  “Sure,” I told her, watching them disappear at the top of the stairs. When they were out of sight, I grabbed my keys from the kitchen counter. I’d waited ten years to do this.

  It was now or never.

  “I’m gonna go for a drive,” I told my dad. “Maybe meet Pete for a beer.”

  He didn’t even look up. “What’s a synonym for gossamer? Eleven letters, starts with a T-R-A and ends with a T.”

  I thought for a second. “Transparent?”

  He nodded. “That’s it.”

  Hannah’s house was dark and silent as I strode up the front walk to the porch, my heart pounding frantically. Before I could even knock, the door opened.

  My breath stopped.

  She wore a little white slip of a nightgown that seemed to glow in the moonlight. Her hair hung in soft waves I wanted to bury my face in.

  “Wes,” she said, her eyes begging me. “Please.”

  “Can I come in?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  Her lower lip trembled. “Because. I don’t trust myself to be alone with you.”

  “Please, Hannah. I have to talk to you.”

  “No, Wes. There can’t be anything between us.”

  “There’s already something between us.”

  She didn’t deny it. “Even if there is, we can’t act on it. And the more we agonize over it, the worse it will feel.”

  “Nothing will ever feel worse to me than walking away from you without telling you how I feel. I did it once before, and it was the biggest mistake of my life.”

  Her face registered shock. "What do you mean?”

  "I mean that I've always wanted you. From the moment I saw you, only I was too chicken shit to do anything about it. I didn't know what to say or how to say it. I just knew you were the most perfect girl I’d ever met, and I would have done anything to be with you."

  She closed her eyes in agony. “Wes. My God.”

  "I lost my chance with you then, and maybe I deserved to, for being too scared to speak up and tell you how I felt. Maybe I deserved to watch you fall in love with my brother instead of me. But maybe it just wasn't our time then. Maybe it’s our time now.”

  Her eyes opened slowly. They were wet with tears.

  “Tell me you feel nothing for me, Hannah, and I’ll go. Tell me you could never be happy with me. Tell me I could never be what you want.”

  “I can’t.” Her voice quivered.

  She hadn’t invited me in, but that didn’t stop me from crossing the threshold and taking her face in my hands. “Then let me love you, the way I’ve always wanted to.”

  A tear slipped down one cheek. “People will talk. People will say it’s wrong.”

  “Fuck people. This is between you and me.”

  “I’m scared.” Her voice was soft and plaintive.

  “I know you are. But there’s nothing to be scared of, I promise.”

  “There is,” she insisted, but her body swayed toward mine.

  “Say the word,” I whispered, rubbing a thumb over her soft, full lips. “Say you want me, and I’m yours.”

  The three seconds she took to answer me were the longest of my life. “I want you, Wes. I want you to love me.”

  I wasted no time.

  Kicking the door closed behind me, I scooped her up in my arms and carried her up the stairs, her white nightgown luminous in the dark.

  Inside her bedroom, I set her on her feet, lifted the nightgown from her body, and stripped off the panties she wore beneath it. Then I picked her up again and lay her on the bed. Both of us were breathing hard.

  “Wait,” she said as I whipped my shirt over my head. “The lamp on my nightstand. Turn it on.” She propped herself up on her elbows. “I want to see you.”

  I switched on the lamp, and the room brightened a little. My eyes devoured her sun-kissed limbs, her pale breasts, the hunger in her dark, glittering eyes. I undressed quickly, and she bit her bottom lip as she watched. When I was naked in front of her—naked in front of Hannah, Jesus Christ—she sat up and moved to the edge of the bed.

  “Come here.” She grabbed my hips and pulled me toward her, opening her knees so that I stood between them. Then she looked up at me with hooded eyes. “I want to taste you.”

  Next thing I knew, she had my cock in her hands and her mouth was descending on it, inch by inch. I groaned as her tongue stroked over the crown in slow, rhythmic circles. She sucked as she took me in deeper, keeping one hand wrapped tightly around the base. The other one moved around my hip to grab my ass and pull me in deeper.

  Oh, fuck.

  I gathered her hair in my hands and watched as my cock disappeared into her hot, tight mouth again and again. She made little murmuring noises that weakened the muscles in my legs and strengthened my grip in her hair. When she looked up at me and saw me watching her, she slowed down. Slid her lips slowly up my shaft and over the head, pulling me from her mouth completely and pressing a kiss on the tip. Then she dipped her head to one side and ran her tongue from the base all the way up to the crown, smiling at the sound I made, which was something between a moan of agony and a moan of pleasure. She repeated the long, slow stroke up my hard length on the other side, and then again right in the center, before taking me into her mouth again, all the way to the back of her throat. Goosebumps blanketed my lower body, and I knew I’d better stop her before I lost control.

  “Hannah.” I pulled back, springing free from her lips with a little pop. “You need to stop.”

  “Why?” She looked up at me with shiny lips.

  “Because it’s my turn.” Letting go of her hair, I reached under her arms and moved her backward onto the bed, then gently pushed her shoulders down so she lay on her back. I knelt between her thighs, looking down at her. “Christ, you’re beautiful.”

  She smiled, and it stirred a memory in me. Falling forward onto my hands, I kissed her lips, delighting at the eager sweep
of her tongue against mine, the way she arched her back to get closer to me, the fingers she threaded through my hair. It was unbelievable. She wants me. She wants me to love her. Something in me opened up, and words I’d kept dammed for years began to flow.

  “Do you know,” I said, moving my lips down her sweet-smelling neck, “how much I love your smile?” I kissed her shoulder, her collarbone, the hollow at the base of her throat. “It was the first thing I noticed about you. The way you could light up a room.”

  “Was it?”

  “Mmhm.” I moved lower, planting a row of kisses straight down her sternum, stopping to rub my lips back and forth between her breasts. “Then it was those huge, dark eyes, surrounded by the longest, prettiest eyelashes I’d ever seen.” When I picked up my head, I saw how her nipples had stiffened into little rosy peaks. I circled one with the tip of my tongue, and she arched even more.

  “And your voice.” I moved to the other one, although she made a little noise of frustration that I hadn’t given her what she wanted. “I’d listen to you sing and talk and laugh, and imagine what it would be like to hear you speak to me softly in the dark.”

  “Just like this,” she said, her voice breathless and dulcet, just a little bit rusty with need.

  “Just like this.” I closed my lips over one breast, and she moaned, her hands tight on my head, holding my mouth to her body. I sucked hard and bit lightly, and she gasped and bucked beneath me. When I brought my mouth to the other, I moved one hand between her legs, slid my fingers easily inside her.

  But it wasn’t enough. Slowly I dragged my mouth down her body until my head was right between her thighs. “Sometimes I imagined what you’d taste like.” I pushed her legs farther apart and kissed one soft, smooth inner thigh, then the other. “But I shouldn’t tell you that.”

  “Tell me,” she begged.

  “I imagined you’d taste like the vanilla ice cream you used to make.” I licked my way up the center of her pussy, and her entire body shuddered. I circled her clit with my tongue, and she cried out. I sucked it gently into my mouth, and she lifted her hips, pushing closer. “Hmm, I was wrong.”

  She went still. “What?”

  I licked her again. “You’re sweeter.” And again. “Warmer.” And again. “More addictive.”

  She laughed, but it melted into something more plaintive and impatient as I devoured her even more greedily than I had in my fantasies.

  “Oh God, I’m gonna come,” she whimpered, her hands clawing at the sheets, her hips rocking beneath my mouth. “It’s too good, too good, don’t stop…”

  Was she fucking kidding? I was never going to stop trying to consume her this way, desperate to get my fill, as if I had to make up for lost time. Never, I vowed as she cried out, her clit throbbing against my tongue, the rest of her body going still.

  I kept going until she sat up and pushed me away, then reached under my arms and tried to yank me on top of her. “Please,” she begged.

  She didn’t need to beg—I was desperate for her. It had only been two weeks, but this felt so different, almost like we’d never done it before. Last time was all about gratifying a physical need, finally answering the question, What would it be like to be with you? This was something else entirely—a beginning. A fresh start.

  I moved up her body and she hooked her legs around mine. My heart raced as I looked down at her. “Hannah. We should be careful this time.”

  She made a small, frustrated sound. “You’re right. We should. But I don’t have anything, do you?”

  I shook my head. Fuck! “I wasn’t thinking of this on my way over. I wasn’t even sure you’d let me in.”

  “I wasn’t going to.” She brought her hands to the sides of my face. “Did you mean all the things you said downstairs?”

  “Of course I did.” Braced on my elbows above her shoulders, I rocked my hips over hers, sliding my cock along her slick, wet heart.

  She closed her eyes. “That feels so good.”

  It did feel good, but the body wants what it wants, and soon the skin-to-skin friction wasn’t enough.

  “Just do it,” she said breathlessly. “I need you inside me again, Wes. Even it it’s only for a minute. We’ll be fine. We were fine the last time.”

  “Just for a minute,” I whispered as I reached down and slipped the tip of my cock inside her. “I won’t come inside you.”

  “Okay.” She turned her head to the side as I pushed all the way in. “Yes,” she breathed. “Right there. God, it’s so deep.”

  I was completely buried inside her, and the expression on her face was one of torment. “Am I hurting you?”

  “Yes.” She looked up at me. “But I love it. It’s a beautiful kind of pain.”

  I brushed her hair back from her forehead, the fierce urge to protect her clutching at my heart. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

  “You aren’t. You’re making me feel alive again, Wes.” She moved beneath me, her body undulating in a way that had me hanging onto control with the barest of thread. She picked up her head and whispered in my ear. “Don’t leave me.”

  Her words were as arousing as her body, and I had to move, had to claim her for my own. I watched pain turn to pleasure on her face, filling me with an intoxicating sense of power and possession.

  Finally, she was mine.

  I took her arms and put them over her head, pinning her wrists to the mattress. “Come for me,” I demanded, fucking her deep and hard with tight little thrusts. “Now that you’re mine, come for me.”

  “Yes!” she cried out, her eyes locked on mine. She tried to get her arms loose, but I held her fast.

  “I want you to come, Hannah. Now. Now!” I ordered, terrified she wouldn’t come before I had to pull out, which was in about five more seconds. But she did—I recognized the high-pitched, wavering cry that echoed the pulse inside her, watched the flush overtake her face, and felt her body contracting around mine. She was so fucking beautiful, and she was mine. It was my name she had whispered in the dark, my body bringing her to this state of divine madness, my love she had asked for. I’d never forget the sound of her voice saying those words.

  I want you to love me.

  I want you to love me.

  I want you to love me.

  Oh, fuck.

  I yanked myself out of her body without a second to spare and fisted my cock, leaning back on my knees and fucking my hand until I came in hot, rhythmic bursts all over my chest.

  When it was over, I realized Hannah had been watching me.

  “Wow.” She was propped up on her elbows, her eyes wide.

  I grimaced as my heart continued to race. “I’m sorry. That wasn’t exactly a romantic ending.”

  “It was to me,” she said. “Because you put me first.”

  “I’ll always put you first.”

  She smiled, although it almost looked a little sad to me.

  “You don’t believe me?”

  Her eyes fell. “Sometimes I have a hard time with words like always.”

  Of course she did. My heart felt heavy. “Maybe I can change your mind about them.”

  She looked up again, her smile a little more hopeful. “Maybe you can.”

  Twelve

  HANNAH

  “Favorite meal.” I was lying across the bed on my stomach, arms folded beneath my head. Next to me, Wes lay on his side, head propped on one hand. With the other, he traced a line down my spine, from the base of my neck all the way to my tailbone, over and over again. We’d been talking for hours about everything and nothing, fascinated by every word that came out of each other’s mouths.

  “Hmm. I’m not sure I have one.” He watched his fingertips glide over each vertebra, from the arc of my ribcage to the ravine of my lower back. His eyes were full of wonder, like I had the most amazing spine he’d ever seen in all his life, personal and professional.

  “Come on, I want to make it for you.”

  “Anything you cook, I will devour. And then, I will
devour the cook.” He leaned down and bit my shoulder.

  I laughed. How long had it been since I’d laughed in bed? A wave of affection and gratitude washed over me. Thank God he hadn’t given up on me. “Were you scared tonight? Coming here, I mean. Were you scared I’d say no?”

  “Hell yes, I was scared. I had no idea what I could say that would convince you to give me a chance.”

  “You did a good job.”

  “Yeah?” One eyebrow cocked up.

  “Yeah. And…and it was all true? What you said?”

  He laughed. “You keep asking me that. I’m a terrible liar, Hannah. I promise, those things were all true.”

  “You keep a good secret.”

  “I had to.” He started another path down my back. “So what made you say yes?”

  “Hmmm. Good question. Well, I liked what you said, obviously. But I also liked the way you said it. Somehow I knew you meant it.”

  He kissed my shoulder this time. “I did.”

  “And the way you looked at me. I liked that too. No one has ever looked at me that way before,” I told him.

  “What way?” He seemed surprised.

  “Like nothing else mattered. Like everything in your life had been leading up to that moment, and what I said would make all the difference in the world to you.” Even Drew’s proposal hadn’t felt so intense or dramatic, but maybe that was because Drew had been entirely sure I’d say yes.

  He nodded slowly. “A fair assessment.”

  “And it was sweet the way you said ‘let me love you,’ as if you were asking for permission.”

  “I’d have loved you anyway, you know.” He focused on his fingertips, stroking down my spine again.

  Chills swept over my skin. When he talked like that, his voice low and sweet, it was so easy to believe we had a chance. “I don’t want you to go.”

  “I don’t want to leave.” He exhaled. “But I have to. And it’s late. You have to work in the morning.”