by Mia Ford
I don’t want to be the reason she regrets anything.
“You’re still thinking,” Georgia says. Her pupils are dilated, and her skin is hot. I can see the sweat on her brow and feel her trembling limbs. “But you’re wrong about it all, Ethan. You can’t just push me away and tell me to go live my life. It doesn’t work that way.”
I seize Georgia by the shoulders and look her in the eye. It’s so hard being this close to her, and my body is starting to react in interest, my cock tightening in my pants. She needs to step back before we both lose control.
“You have your life to live,” I insist, finally giving up all pretense. “You can’t keep living mine.”
Georgia stares searchingly at me. The desperation on her face slowly falls, leaving bewildered understanding in its place.
“You’ve really thought this through,” she murmurs. “I can’t believe it. Oh my god… Ethan, you’re a moron.”
I glare at her, and try to pull back. But she hasn’t let go at all.
“Georgia…” I start.
“No,” Georgia interrupts. Fire is burning in her eyes again. She’s still angry, it seems, but it isn’t as all-consuming as it felt before. She’s no longer trembling with the force of her fury and her grip has loosened slightly. “No, no more arguments. That’s it. You’re a goddamned fool. Did it ever occur to you to just ask?”
“Ask what?” I challenge.
Georgia lets go of my shirt, leaving huge wrinkles in it. Before I can step back, her arms wind around my neck, curling gently against my skin, and she steps in close, fitting her body perfectly to mine. Heat forms in the pit of my stomach and I struggle to draw in breath.
“Ask me what I want,” she says softly. “You’re trying to make all these decisions for me, but you haven’t asked me what I want.”
My mouth goes dry. She’s leaning in, and her lips press gently against my jaw, so different to the fierceness that she had bombarded me with before
Her invitation is clear.
“What do you want?” I ask her, my voice trembling slightly.
I feel her smile against my skin.
“Isn’t it obvious?” she asks. “I want you.”
I close my eyes briefly and shudder. My hands are on her hips, keeping her in place, and I don’t remember putting them there. My body is betraying me.
“You shouldn’t,” I say. “I can’t give you anything other than trouble.”
Georgia lets out a short laugh.
“You say that like you’ve given me anything but trouble since we met,” she murmurs. “Even at twelve you were always getting yourself into all sorts of scrapes, forcing me to either follow you or bail you out. For the last ten years I’ve been by your side, helping you get your life back together. Now you want me to walk away? If I didn’t walk away ten years ago, when you were at your worst, what makes you think I’ll walk away when you’re at the strongest I’ve seen you in ten years?”
I wake up a little at her words. This isn’t what I want. I pull back, laughing harshly.
“And that’s why you need to walk away,” I say. “You’ve given me too much. It isn’t fair.”
Surprisingly, Georgia smiles.
“Ethan…I would give you everything,” she says seriously. “What would you give me?”
I claim, constantly, that I would give Lily the world if I could. But for Georgia…
“My life,” I whisper.
Her fingers are playing with the hairs at the nape of my neck again, curling and tugging at them. Her body is so perfectly aligned to mine, her hips pressing against mine as my cock becomes painfully hard. She moves against me purposefully, and I know she’s trying, successfully, to drag arousal from me.
“I know,” she says. “So stop lying to me, Ethan. I told you what I want. What do you want now?”
Fuck, I don’t want to say, because it would break everything apart. But I can’t think with the way Georgia is slowly rubbing herself against me, her words penetrating the last of the thick walls I once built around my heart. She’s been tearing them down bit by bit for years without me realizing, and now she’s finally infiltrated the last of the barriers. There’s no more argument, I can’t deny her or these terrifying feelings any more.
“I want you in my life,” I say. I close my eyes, defeated. “I want to support you and see you every day, and share laughter with you and Lily. You’re my family. My best friend.” I breathe in shakily. “The only woman I’ll ever love again.”
I lower my head, resting my forehead against her shoulder. There it is, the end of it all. I can’t keep up the charade any longer, not with Georgia’s might against me and the clear evidence of how much it’s hurting both of us. I never wanted to hurt Georgia, even if I did so to keep her away from me, where she can only know misery.
“I can’t make you happy,” I whisper.
Georgia laughs.
“And this is why you’re a moron,” she says. “You already make me the happiest person in the world.”
I feel the softest pressure on my hair, a light touch that leaves me feeling loved and wanted. I breathe deeply into her shoulder as her fingers massage little circles onto the back of my neck. It’s both comforting and arousing.
“Stop worrying about what you can’t give me,” Georgia says. “All I ever wanted from you was your love. If you can give me that, I’ll never need anything else.”
How am I supposed to argue against that? Georgia is telling me that everything will be okay, that we can make this work somehow. I remember, before I can stop the hopeful thoughts from creeping over me, working out a possibility for a long-distance relationship. We can do that, then, can’t we? It will be hard, but I’m definitely not going to be meeting anyone else. We can visit each other and, during the school holidays, Lily and I can organize a trip to New Jersey. It will be fun. We can do it.
And maybe it won’t work out. But that’ll be okay, too. Isn’t trying the most important thing? I just need to give us a chance, the one thing Georgia has been begging me for since forever, it appears.
“An hour isn’t too far away,” I murmur.
“What?” Georgia asks.
I raise my head.
“New Jersey,” I say. “It’s not a huge distance. If…if we want to try a long-distance relationship, it’s not so far that we can’t visit.”
Georgia hesitates. Then she smiles.
“No, it isn’t, but that isn’t going to matter,” she says. I frown, wondering what she means by that. “We still need to talk about that…but, right now, it’s enough to know that you’re willing to think about the possibility. Please, Ethan… We can do this together. Let us try. No matter what happens, we can make this work if we’re with one another.”
I wrap my arms around her waist.
“Okay,” I say. I draw in a deep breath. “Okay.”
“No takebacks this time,” Georgia warns.
Her words send a little fissure of panic through me. I stamp down on it, though. There’s no more room for that.
“No takebacks,” I say.
A beautiful smile spreads across Georgia’s lips.
“Good,” she breathes. “Now, what do you want?”
Her hands brush against my spine and her hips jerk suddenly against mine. I gasp aloud and tighten my own grip on her.
There’s only one answer to that. I lean in close and hover over her lips.
“You,” I say.
And when our lips crash together, I finally let go. There’s no more fighting. This was my last attempt to give Georgia a better life, and she still chose me.
Now it’s time to finally give her what we both want.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Georgia
I remember playing video games with Ethan when we were younger. We would sit in front of that screen, directing the character through each level, and I remember being amazed at the levels of story. Each time we turned around, we faced larger and larger challenges, each one becoming more d
ifficult to overcome as we got further into the game.
Finally, at the end of the game, we faced the final boss, the largest and most difficult of all the tasks we had completed before now. On one particular game, it took us weeks of constant attempts before we finally won, laughing and cheering. It had been thrilling.
Somehow, I feel like that now. I’ve been fighting against Ethan, my love for him, and everything that has been in our way for over ten years. When he married Polly, I remember believing that I had lost the biggest battle of my life, only to have that path opened a year later when she left him.
Each step of the way it became more and more difficult to keep going. In the last few weeks, problem after problem has been thrown at us, forcing us to fight back as hard as we could, sometimes together, and sometimes against one another.
Yet, now…
It feels like it did back then, when we won that final boss battle. I feel a huge sense of achievement, removing a weight that I feel like I’ve carried around forever as Ethan kisses me. Somehow, I’ve finally broken through to him, and found the weakness that would make him admit how much he loves me.
It feels amazing.
I know this isn’t the end. There’s still going to be problems. As far as I know, Polly still looms over us. I still need to tell him I’m not actually leaving, and why. There are going to be days when Ethan’s insecurities flare up, and when I can’t believe that this is real after ten years of seemingly futile waiting. We have to sit down and talk about all this.
But that will be the future. Together, Ethan and I can smash through all those barriers, I’m sure of it. If we can get to this point, where we can tell each other what we want for ourselves and each other, then we can cope with anything else that gets thrown at us.
I raise myself on my toes and deepen the kiss. Ethan’s arms are wrapped securely around me, so I slip my hands under the hem of his shirt, splaying my hands over his toned stomach. I can feel the way his breathing speeds up as he chest rises and falls, and I’m pressed so close that I can feel his racing heartbeat, beating in time with mine.
We pull back, lips red and sore from the pressure and breathe, staring at each other, Ethan’s fingers play against my spine and my back arches automatically in response.
“Bed,” I breathe.
Ethan doesn’t argue. We start moving down the hall, but I can’t stop myself from latching onto Ethan’s neck, tasting the salt of his skin and breathing in the musk of cologne he must have put on for the party. I recognize the scent; it’s the same cologne I bought him for Christmas last year. The knowledge makes heat curl and flare in my stomach, and I bite down as we stumble toward his open bedroom door. Ethan hisses at the feeling.
“Shit,” he groans. “We’re going to run into the wall.”
I bite again just to be contrary, and Ethan pushes us through the doorway. He pulls me up and attacks my lips with another kiss. I feel myself moving backward, but I don’t know where, exactly, we are in the room until my knees hit the bed and I fall backward, dropping onto the soft mattress. I grip Ethan’s shirt and pull him down with me, forcing him to slide in between my thighs and brace himself over me, before tugging the shirt upward and over his smooth muscles.
My nails graze one of his nipples and Ethan bucks.
“Fuck, that felt good,” he pants.
I do it again and he groans deeply. He looks at me with eyes dark with lust and his hands are on my shoulders, his fingers digging into my skin. He releases his grip as I pull the shirt through his arms and over his head, tossing it away somewhere before sitting up slightly and starting on his belt buckle. It’s old and worn, and I have to work it through the buckle before letting it fall from his pants.
Ethan’s hands move, then. One hand is unbuttoning my blouse, and the other is wriggling under my skin, playing with the smooth skin of my thighs and creeping toward my wet panties. My heart beats faster at his touch, and I drop my hands from my pants as he slides my shirt over my shoulders and down my arms.
“You’re so beautiful, Georgia,” Ethan says, his hands cupping my shoulders again and then sliding down over my covered breasts. “I can’t wait to feel every part of you again.”
I shiver, remembering his careful exploration of my body last time, his fingers playing over old scars and finding freckles he’d never seen before. More importantly, I remember his tongue and then fingers sliding inside me, both too much and not enough. I gasp at the memory, and then again when Ethan fingers my panties, applying only the lightest pressure to drive me mad.
“Ethan…” I groan. “Stop fucking teasing.”
“No teasing tonight,” Ethan breathes, and I shudder at the promise in his voice. “Tonight is all about us. I’m going to fuck you deeply, until you can’t think of anything else but me inside you.”
I tilt my head back, my mouth slightly open, at his words, overwhelmed and hot and needy. I reach down and pull at his zipper, dragging down and rubbing his thick cock through the material. His hips buck toward my hand, seeking more pressure, and I slide nimble fingers into his pants, slipping under the waistband of his jeans. Ethan goes still, watching me, and he groans when my hand finds his cock and grips him firmly, rubbing my thumb over the leaking tip.
With my other hand, I pull his jeans down and he kicks them off, spreading his legs as I slide my hand up and down his hard length. His hips thrust desperately into my hand, and his eyes roll back at the friction. I jerk my hand twice more before pulling back, and Ethan groans deeply in protest.
“Shit,” he pants. “I’m so close.”
“Then do something about it,” I say to him, fingering the elastic hem of his pants.
Ethan rolls over, swinging his leg over my waist as I lean back so he can straddle me. I look up at him, and his hands card through my curls, his fingers brushing against the roots. Then his hands travel down, skimming the back of my neck and playing along my spine, making my back arch, before finding the clasp of my bra and undoing it. He pulls it free and I lift my arms to make it easier.
Then he slides lower down my body, until he’s somewhere near my knees. I blink, confused for a moment, until he leans down and wraps his lips around one of my now-free nipples.
I gasp at the feeling of his tongue swirling around it, his teeth grazing the skin lightly and making me shudder at the sensation. He sucks lightly on it and then licks the nipple once more before lifting his hand and immediately paying the same attention to the other nipple. I groan and bury my hands in his hair, my eyes fluttering closed at the overwhelming sensation, my body jerking under him.
“Oh my god,” I gasp.
I feel him smile and then he sits up, his hands pulling at the elastic of my waist. I lift my hips so he can slide it down my legs, and then my panties follow it. Remembering, hazily, that Ethan is still wearing his own underwear, I reach out blindly, overwhelmed and needing far more than this. The silk slides smoothly under my hands, and I brush against his cock once more as he groans, feeling the leaking wetness from it on his boxers.
We’re both trembling as the boxers join the other clothes on the floor, and we gasp as our naked skin meets. The fire that has been building in me since this started explodes into an inferno that burns around us, taking my breath away and making my heart beat faster. I look up at him, staring at the hooded look in his eyes as his hands touch me, taking in every part of my body that I can. It’s exhilarating to be looked at like that, as though nothing else in the world can capture his attention. It makes electric sparks dance through me, and I wrap my arms around him, pulling him down further on top of me.
“Fuck me,” I demand.
Ethan lets out a breathy laugh, panting. He puts his hands on my hips, gripping them firmly, and raises himself up as my legs fall open, giving him an easy opening. I can feel my entrance fluttering eagerly, desperate to have him in me once more.
Slowly, Ethan starts to sink home. His movements are jerky, and he has to keep stopping to breathe deeply, trying to con
trol himself. As he moves deeper into me, I wrap my legs around his waist, forcing him in further, needing to feel every inch of that hot, thick length in my body. Ethan shudders and slides home the last inch, his balls nestled against me, and I struggle to take a breath. This is the part that I love most, the moment when we’re this connected. I can feel him inside me, hot and pulsing and eager, and my body is welcoming the intrusion. It sets me on fire, and I need to pause for a moment before I come just from the feeling of him spearing my body. Ethan’s grip is tight on my hips as he waits for me to adjust, his fingers clenching and unclenching.
“You’re so tight around me,” Ethan groans.
I choke on the words and my hips buck without permission, making us both moan at the feeling. I reach up to grip his shoulders, pulling him down slightly as he thrusts slightly inside of me in return.
“Move,” I pant. “Fuck me hard.”
Ethan slowly slides out until only the tip remains. I barely have any time to mourn the sudden empty feeling, however, when he slams back into me, my hips snapping down to meet his, anticipating the movement. I roll my hips and he angles his thrusts, searching within me until I let out a choked cry as he hits the sweet spot, faltering for a moment as pleasure wracks me.
“Oh fuck…” I moan. “Do that again.”
He thrusts in again, and I scratch at his skin as I struggle to keep my grip. One of Ethan’s hands leave my hips and he runs it down my leg, pulling it up so he can surge inside me, pushing past the tight muscles to slam forward even deeper. My eyes roll back and my body keeps moving, desperate to take him in as far as I can.
Nothing else matters right now. Not my job, not Polly, not the problems between Ethan or I, or the tiniest fear that I have that I’ve done it again, jumped Ethan and spoken to his lust because I’m seeing feelings that might not be there. Neither of us are doing this against our will, though; Ethan is gripping me just as hard, pushing deeply inside me with reckless abandon, sweat pouring down his face as he chases the orgasm that’s building in us both. My stomach tightens and I breathe raggedly as my hips falter. Ethan thrusts several more times.