The Moment of Letting Go

by J. A. Redmerski

  “If he didn’t want you to know,” she says. “then it’s not my place to tell you. I really am sorry.” She fits her long fingers around the lever door handle. I get up from the bed and approach her. “About everything,” she goes on. “I didn’t mean to be such a bitch, and I think you’re a really nice person, not like those bitches that Seth goes through like socks.” She hesitates, but looks me right in the eyes. “Luke likes you a lot. I’ve never seen him as happy as he seems to be when he’s with you. Not even with any girl before Landon died. And Seth told me that when he talked to Luke this morning he didn’t seem himself. And it’s all my fault. And I’m just tryin’ to make it right by coming here and clearing the air. But Luke is in a lot of pain; not only because you left—that’s a given—but because he misses his brother and I worry about him a lot. We all do.”

  Tears begin to well up in my eyes. I reach up and wipe underneath them. I want to know about this secret Luke has been keeping, this thing he’s so afraid will scare me off, but I want to go to him and be there for him, more than anything else. I want to hold him in my arms and let him use me to cry it all out if he needs to; I want to cry with him.

  “Just do me a favor,” Kendra says at last. “It’s all I ask.”

  I nod rapidly, eager to hear it and to oblige because, despite everything that happened before, I forgive her, and I feel really bad for her. And for Luke. My stomach is twisted in a thousand knots and my heart feels permanently broken, but for such a different reason than it did last night.

  “If you decide to see Luke again,” she says with profound determination, “and if—when he tells you how Landon died, don’t let it scare you away. If you really like Luke as much as I think you do, remember why, and don’t let anything else change that.”

  I don’t think I’ve ever been so baffled.

  I nod, agreeing, even though I have no clue as to what I’m really agreeing to.

  The door locks automatically behind Kendra after she leaves, and I’m left here alone, standing in a pool of confusion and dread. Why would how someone died scare me away? But mostly what I think about is the ominous feeling in my heart for Luke and what he must be going through. That’s what’s important right now. Luke lost his brother, and all I can think about is how much pain he must be in, how much he’s been in the whole time that I’ve been in Hawaii with him. I picture his smiling face and his infectious laughter and his vibrant, magnetic personality, and I wonder how he could be that way around me twenty-four hours a day and keep it together.

  Then realization sinks in.

  My shoulders slump with a long breath and I fall back onto the end of the bed and find myself staring at the carpet until the little specks of color bring weird spots before my eyes.

  Luke always seemed distressed when it came to talk of his brother. I see it now for what it really was and I feel terrible for not pushing the issue further. I remember asking him about Landon once, about what was really bothering him, because I knew that something was. But I didn’t probe when he said nothing was wrong, and I feel nothing but guilt now. I should’ve dug deeper. I should’ve listened to my instincts.

  TWENTY-THREE

  Sienna

  It’s raining again when I step off the plane on Kauai, and it rains on the taxi ride all the way back to Luke’s house. I pay the driver and step out into the downpour, covering my head with my hands until I make it up the steps, my purse hanging on one shoulder. My heart is beating a hundred miles a minute. I knew I’d be nervous to see him again after leaving the way I did last night, but things are so different now. I have so much to say, but, more important, I hope that Luke will give me so much to listen to.

  The windows and doors are wide open like he usually leaves them, letting in the rain-cooled air and the ocean breeze. I hear music playing inside on the stereo in the living room, not too loudly but enough that he probably didn’t hear me pulling up in the cab or he might’ve come to answer the door already.

  I stand in the doorway, looking into the living room through the screen, but Luke’s nowhere to be found. I knock lightly and wait. He never comes. Finally I open the screen door and let myself inside, feeling a little weird about it but knowing that Luke doesn’t mind and might even complain to me if he found out I stood out here and didn’t let myself in.

  Unless he has a girl in there … No, I don’t even know why I thought that—Luke doesn’t seem the type.

  “Luke?” I call out in a normal tone, walking through the living room. I set my purse down on the recliner as I walk by and slip down the hallway in my flip-flops.

  A shadow moves along the wall from the room at the farthest end of the hall where Luke keeps his paintings. I step up to the open door to see him inside, wearing just a pair of running shorts, a paintbrush in one hand; a large canvas with familiar scenery stands nearly finished in front of him on an easel. There is paint everywhere—it looks and smells like fresh paint—even on Luke. A few splatters of green and yellow and brown are smeared across his shoulders. Paint streaks run down the backs of his hands as one moves furiously over the canvas; the other hangs at his side, his strong fingers arched. There’s paint on his muscled calves, clinging to his leg hairs. Little glass jars filled with paint are set on the floor beneath the easel. One has been knocked over, a puddle of blue pooling near Luke’s bare feet.

  To see him standing there like this, I don’t just see a guy in front of a painting. I see a broken heart in front of a memory. As I study the scenery being created by his brush I quickly begin to realize where I’ve seen it before. At the community center. The enormous painting of the sheer rock wall covered by green that seemed to reach into the sky forever. A valley below, shadowed ominously, beautifully, by the rock around it. The painting I named the Bottom of the World. I wonder what Luke calls it.

  My eyes move slowly about the room, the overcast light bathing the other paintings in a somber ambiance, most of which are of mountains and cliffs and the sky and the ocean seen only from above. But most of all, there are paintings of the Bottom of the World. Different sizes. Different angles. Different viewpoints. Some with sunlight beaming in thick, bright rays. Some with yellow trees instead of green. Some with fog. Some with rain. But all of them of the Bottom of the World.

  This place, wherever it is it, holds a painful memory for Luke, and it tears me up inside to know that he’s still trapped there, that no matter how much he paints it, or how hard he tries to perfect it, it won’t relent and give him the closure he seeks. That’s what I see as I look at him; that’s what I feel.

  With his back to me, I wonder if he even knows that I’m standing here, but he’s working on that canvas with so much passion and intensity that at first I can’t bear to interrupt him.

  Then I see his strong shoulders rise and fall seconds later, just as his paintbrush falls away from the canvas and rests in his hand down at his side. I sense he knows now that I’m here, but he has yet to turn and face me.

  “Why didn’t you tell me,” I say softly, “about your brother’s death?” Tears begin to well up in my eyes, already taking on his pain, but I choke them back.

  “Because these two weeks were supposed to be for you,” he says in a quiet voice, still with his back to me. Thunder rumbles amid the gray, cloud-covered sky outside. “I wanted it to be special.”

  With my heart steadily breaking and filling up with guilt, I step into the room and approach him, trying to hold down my tears.

  “But, Luke … it was special. Everything about being here with you has been … It’s been more than I ever imagined it could be.”

  “It wouldn’t have been if I’d laid my problems in your lap, Sienna. I didn’t want that. I just wanted you to have a good time. And because—”

  He stops.

  He still hasn’t turned around, and as I draw closer I hear tears in his voice—faint, but I hear them as clearly as I hear my own—and they cut off what he had wanted to say.

  I lay my hands on his shoulders from b
ehind, carefully at first, not sure if he’s in the frame of mind for such comforts, and when he doesn’t reject me, I lay my palms flat against his skin, moving them down the length of his arms, before wrapping them around his waist from behind and resting the side of my face against his warm back.

  Then suddenly, as if human touch has triggered a side of him he’s been keeping down for such a long time, Luke falls to the floor, sitting on his bottom with his knees bent, and he lets the tears roll right out of him. His strong hands grip mine around his waist as I go down with him. One fierce sob rattles uncontrollably through his body, and that’s all it takes to make my own tears rush from my eyes, causing my vision to blur. I hold him as tight as I can from behind, wanting to wrap him up within my arms and hold him here forever, but his strength is more palpable than mine, his hands gripping the tops of my fingers, pressing my arms against his hard body with so much force.

  He turns around to see me, his hands touching the sides of my face, and I don’t care that I might become a canvas too. I never want him to move them away. He looks deeply into my eyes, his filled with moisture and emotion, my cheeks warm beneath his hands. “I didn’t want you to go, Sienna,” he says and another repressed sob fights its way through his chest. His hands tighten on my cheeks as he holds my fixed gaze. “I wanted to tell you the truth, to make you understand, but—”

  I lean toward him, my knees pressed into the hardwood floor beneath me, and I kiss his sweet, trembling lips softly. “I’m here now, Luke.” I kiss him again, and his eyes search my lips when I pull away. “I came back because I want to be here. With you. I don’t care about what happened last night, or about what you didn’t get to explain. I’m here and I don’t want to be anywhere else.”

  His warm, forceful lips fall on mine and he kisses me passionately with worship and elation, his hands, wet with paint, gripping the sides of my face with fierce protectiveness. I feel the wetness of his tears on my cheeks, mingling with my own, the intensity of his hands and his mouth and his heart encompassing me.

  He breaks the kiss, and we’re both breathless when he says, “I wanted to tell you about Landon. I wanted to tell you a lot of things, but I knew you had to go home and none of it would’ve mattered.”

  I touch his lips with two of my fingers. “You can tell me whenever you’re ready. I’m here to listen, and I’m not going anywhere. There’s nothing you can say to scare me away. I still have four days left of my vacation and I want to spend them with you.”

  “I want you to stay.”

  “Then I’m staying.”

  “What about after that?”

  “We’ll figure it out.”

  He gazes into my eyes, searching for something, longing for it, and I look back up at him, wordlessly giving him whatever he wants. His lips press against mine and he kisses me hungrily. I feel my body being lifted into the air, my legs wrapped around his waist and the air in the room hitting me as he carries me quickly through it, never breaking the kiss. In seconds I feel the comfort of his bed beneath my back and the lumpy pillows I missed so much under my head. His natural scent envelops me, his heat, his warm flesh, the exploration of his mouth, his ravenous kiss, his everything. I’m done for and I know it. I’ve never wanted to touch or to taste or to feel anything more in my life than this moment, this inevitable crushing, blissful moment when I give myself to Luke knowing that no matter what happens between us, I’ll never be able to forget him. And I’ll never want to.

  We strip each other clumsily—paint from his hands stains my clothes and my skin—and Luke is on top of me before I can even catch my breath. But I don’t need my breath when I have his, and his kiss is deep and forceful and it alone makes my body dizzy with need. My insides tremble and shiver, and my rapidly beating heart threatens to burst, or to stop, and I don’t care—as long as Luke’s eyes are the last eyes I see, as long as his arms are the last arms to ever hold me.

  Luke shoves the pillows out of the way and lowers himself on me. I’m breathless and willing, giving myself completely to him. Arcing my head against the mattress, I open my lips partway, seeking air to fill my lungs with as the sensation of his lips moves over my breasts. His tongue snakes a path between them before he finds my lips again.

  I gasp when I feel his hardness press against me with intent.

  “I imagined this every night you were here,” he whispers hotly into my ear, sending shivers down my spine.

  He presses harder below me, and all I can think about is him being inside me, sharing his soul with me, becoming one with me.

  “So did I,” I whisper and push my hips toward his urgently. He pushes back even harder, and I feel like I’m going to die if he doesn’t give me what I want.

  And as if he’d heard my thoughts, my eyelids become heavy when I feel him inside of me. I gasp, my body trembling beneath his. My legs shake and my fingers dig into the hard flesh and muscle of his back, holding on to him as though I’m afraid to let him go.

  “I’ve never wanted anything more in my life,” I whisper onto his lips just before he takes me into another hungry kiss.

  Luke begins to move in and out of me with deep, forceful thrusts, and my thighs quiver around his warm body.

  I can’t steady my breath.

  My heart is beating its way out of my chest.

  The muscles in Luke’s arms stiffen, holding his weight above me as he dips his head lower, the warmth and moisture of his mouth searching mine possessively. “Look into my eyes, Sienna.” I hear his low, coaxing voice, feel the heat of his breath on my lips.

  Slowly I open my eyes; it feels like a magic hand lies over them, causing them to tingle and resist.

  “Look at me,” he whispers, thrusting deeply into me in a slow but hard motion that threatens to send my insides into a quivering frenzy.

  I peer up into his eyes, seeing them so full of unbridled passion. And intent—it’s as if he’s preparing me for something, teasing me with only the wonder of what’s to come, knowing I’m going to want it again, and again, and again. He drives into me deeply once and holds himself there, never losing eye contact, and I feel myself clench around him in a desperate, lustful fit. “Luke …” I whimper his name, barely conscious of having said anything at all.

  “Don’t close your eyes,” he whispers hotly onto my mouth, and then suddenly I feel the palms of his hands pressing on the insides of my thighs, pushing my legs farther apart and toward me and repositioning himself without ever pulling out.

  “Tell me you want me,” he says in a low, rumbling voice that demands an instant response. “Tell me. I want to hear your voice.”

  “I do want you, Luke,” I whisper, my voice shuddering, my lips parted, sucking in the warm air between us. “I want every part of you. Every inch of you.” I gasp when he thrusts against me once more, hard. And he stops and holds himself there again, deep inside.

  His lips move against mine urgently, aggressively, the vibration of his voice moving through me in a rumbling, hot growl. Each time his hips rock against mine, it’s rougher than the last, more determined than the time before it, sending my mind into blissful oblivion. Claiming me that much more. I belong to him. We belong to each other.

  He presses his solid chest against my breasts. My eyes slam shut of their own accord as he rocks in and out of me so hard and so deeply that I lose my breath once more. My senses. My self-control. My thoughts. I wind my fingers through his hair, pulling and gripping with no regard for how much it might hurt him. I know it doesn’t. It only makes him fuck me harder.

  Arcing my neck on the pillow, my mouth open, my lungs and heartbeat frozen somewhere inside of me where I can’t feel anymore, I feel a growing fiery, tingling sensation between my legs, spreading outward through my thighs.

  “Oh my God … Luke—” My own body cuts off my words.

  “I’ll only come after you come,” he says, rocking against me.

  This can’t be real … can it? This has never happ—

  Just as that tho
ught enters my mind, a tiny explosion goes off inside my belly, heat spreading throughout my hips and thighs and down into my toes. I moan his name, digging my fingertips into his back. My legs tremble and shake as they tighten around his body, and I feel myself contracting around him, over and over, and I feel like I’m inches from passing out.

  Luke pulls out and comes hard, and I reach down and help him, collapsing my hand around his. His sweating body trembles atop mine. His kiss is deep and forceful, the heat of his tongue tangling around my own. He moans into my mouth, pinning me against the mattress with one arm.

  With my eyes closed, I feel his lips kiss mine more softly now. Tenderly, as if I’m too delicate to be rough with, too important to him not to be cherished.

  My eyelids break apart slowly and I gaze up into his eyes.

  I smile softly and he does too.

  “What?” he asks, his gaze searching my face. “Why are you blushing?” He pecks my lips.

  Reaching up with one hand, I trace the pad of my thumb across his bottom lip. “Oh nothing,” I say mysteriously. “It’s just that … Well, never mind.”

  He pecks my lips again. “No, tell me,” he urges, tugging on my bottom lip with his teeth. “What is it?”

  When he lifts his head, my eyes veer away from his for a moment.

  “Well, I don’t want to bring up my past … you know … experiences, right now of all moments, but—”

  A sexy, devilish grin spreads across his face. “Just say it. It’s all right.”

  After a moment, I say, “I’ve just never been able to orgasm that way.”

  Luke chuckles lightly, plants kisses all over my cheeks and forehead, and then lies down next to me, pulling me closer. I can feel his heart still beating erratically against my shoulder.

  “I’m serious,” I say, and I’m telling him the truth. “It’s always been fingers or oral for me.”

  His arm tightens around my body. “Well, I can do that for you too, if you want.” A shiver moves up my spine and into my neck as his fingers brush along the bare skin on my waist and down over my belly.