“Trace.” I cupped her face. “I need you to listen to me.”
“Nixon, you’re scaring me.”
“Don’t be afraid.” I kissed her forehead. “I need you to trust me, okay?”
“Okay.”
“I love you.”
“Nixon I—”
“I’m not finished.” I pressed my finger against her lips. “I would die before I let anything happen to you, but—”
“But?”
I smiled. “But, sometimes in life, things don’t end how we want them to. Sometimes, what we want to happen and what has to happen are two very different things.”
“Nixon.” Her lips pressed against mine, softly, and then more urgently as she grabbed me. “Please don’t leave me, please. I don’t think I can take it if you do. I don’t know what I’ll do if you leave.”
“Who says I’m leaving?”
“Your eyes,” she whispered. “You’re saying good-bye. Damn it, Why are you saying good-bye?”
I sighed, touching my forehead to hers. “Sweetheart, I’m only going away for a while, okay? Remember that. If you remember nothing else, remember that. I’m going away. But I’ll always be here.” I pressed my hand to her chest. “And when the time is right…” I kissed her lips and then grazed them with my fingers. “I’ll be right here, kissing you, loving you, being with you and only you.”
“Swear it.” Trace wrapped her arms around my neck. “Swear it or I swear I’ll hunt you down myself.”
Laughing, I kissed her nose. “I swear it.
“Good-bye.” Emotion clogged the back of my throat.
“Bye.” She closed her eyes and kissed me hard on the mouth.
“Good-bye, good-bye, good-bye,” I repeated over and over again as I lifted her shirt over her head and helped her pull off mine.
We didn’t speak.
I wasn’t sure I could say anything. I was afraid to ruin the magical moment that we were currently living in.
She knew.
I knew.
And we needed each other more than anything else in the world.
Just this once… after all… every man on death row gets one final wish, right?
I tugged her down onto the bed and hovered over her. Trace reached up and trailed her hands over her favorite tattoo. I closed my eyes. Her touch was almost like a burn, so powerful, so perfect.
Kissing her neck was my perfection, my last meal, my last drink, my last everything. I wanted to memorize the exact moment my lips touched her neck, the exact minute she screamed out my name.
The second she found her pleasure.
Her lips found mine again as our tongues twisted together, fighting, coaxing, tasting.
More clothes were discarded and then it was pure skin. Hot, soft skin pressed against all of me.
“Are you sure?” I whispered.
A tear streamed down her face as she nodded. “Yes.”
Maybe I shouldn’t have been that selfish. To take the one thing I knew she had to offer another man. But I wanted it. I wanted her and if I couldn’t have her forever, I at least wanted a part of her that would be no one else’s.
I wanted to hate Chase in that moment.
I wanted to hate him for being able to touch her in places I wouldn’t be able to. I despised that it would be his lips that kissed the part of her hips where her long legs met the rest of her body, where her soft curves invited and begged a man’s touch. Promising him nights of pleasure.
“I love you.” I gripped the headboard and looked down at her. “I love you so damn much.”
“I love you, too.” She arched beneath me and pulled me down to her.
* * *
We stayed in my room the rest of the night. I knew Chase assumed what was going on and was probably either drunk or just really pissed off.
At two a.m. I needed to go. I grabbed my stuff and the journal Trace had given me permission to use.
One final kiss on her shoulder, and I was out the door. I got into my car and started it.
Did I have the balls to do this?
No.
But my heart left me no other choice.
I sighed as the smell of Trace floated around me. I shouldn’t have done it. I should have allowed her to freely give her heart to someone else, because if things went badly, she’d forever hate me for stealing that one thing that some other man should have gotten.
A battle raged inside of me. I felt guilty and thankful at the same time. I didn’t want to be that guy. The one that pressured a girl into sleeping with him by saying lame crap like, “If this is our last night together… blah blah blah.” No, hell no. It was so much more than that. It was my own selfish need to know that for the rest of her life, she would remember me. I had this paralyzing need to mark her as mine—even though I knew in the end the odds weren’t in favor of us—but of them.