Take Your Time (Fate and Circumstance #2) (24 page)

“We should probably go get cleaned up.” His whispered words became lost in the abundance of space he’d put between us when he rolled to his back.

I turned around and observed the soft expression on his face as he lay there with his eyes closed. It gave me the perfect time to study him, to see every nuance he’d kept hidden from me for weeks. My gaze traveled over his chest, covered by his shirt, and down to his dick that lay slack against his pelvis. I couldn’t take my eyes off it, completely lost in its magnificence. There was no way in hell I’d ever be satisfied with anything else ever again.

“Is it everything you imagined it would be?” Bentley asked humorously, catching me in the act of gawking at his impressive size.

I quirked a smile at him, a devious and promising grin, and then wagged my eyebrows. His eyes narrowed in curiosity, watching my every move as I shifted down the blankets until I held him in my hand.

His hips bucked as my fingers wrapped around his softening dick. A guttural sound escaped him. I moved my mouth closer to his hips, never taking my eyes off his intense stare.

“What are you doing?” He seemed surprised by my bold move, but not enough to stop me, so I continued to ease my mouth closer to where my hand held him. “Sarah…you don’t have to.”

I licked the soft skin over his hip with the tip of my tongue, trailing a path to the place between his legs that I desperately wanted to taste. “You said we should get cleaned up. So…I’m cleaning you up.” Without hesitating or dropping my gaze, I wrapped my lips around the tip of his dick, tasting the salty mixture we’d left behind on his skin. His groan filled my ears, coercing me to go deeper.

“Sarah…”

I hummed around his girth, slowly lowering my mouth over him more and more until he reached the back of my throat. I could barely swallow around him, so I pulled back, tasting the remnants of sex on my tongue. Once I had him all the way out, I began to lick the rest of his shaft, hearing the excitement in his gasping breaths.

“Sarah…wait.”

His dick was no longer soft in my hand. I began to pump my fist up and down, covering the head with my lips while teasing it with the tip of my tongue. His soft pleas became white noise in the background as I grew lost in his body’s reaction to me. But then he grabbed me by my upper arms and pulled me up, shifting our bodies until I was flat on my back with his body hovering at my side.

“You want more? Is that it? Once wasn’t enough for you?” He cupped my sex and then pushed two fingers inside, sliding in without objection. “Did I not satisfy you?”

I shook my head vigorously, trying to ignore what his fingers were doing to me long enough to speak. But it proved impossible. I had no idea what he was doing, but whatever it was brought me to the brink of another intense orgasm fast. It felt like his fingers were curled inside me, yet he pumped them in and out in shallow, rough strokes. He kept his hand covering me, pressing the heel of his palm against my clit, making it ache and throb for more.

“I’m gonna make you come so hard you won’t be able to walk inside, let alone ask for more.”

In my desperate attempt to take back some of the control I’d initiated, I grabbed his throbbing dick, gripping him hard, and began to eagerly pump back and forth, matching the rhythm of his fingers inside me. He lifted off his hip slightly and started thrusting himself into my hand, never letting up his assault on me.

I came again, harder than the last time, feeling it throughout my entire body until I saw stars that mirrored the fireworks behind my eyelids. I couldn’t even focus enough to finish what I’d started on him, but he didn’t seem to care. Before the waves of ecstasy dissipated, he moved over me and thrust completely inside, holding his body still and rigid, his hips pressing painfully into mine. His body jerked and convulsed as he released himself in me once again, which extended my own satisfaction.

“For someone so worried about a condom, you certainly don’t mind coming in me.” It was meant as a joke, a way to tease him once the cloud of lust lifted. But instead, it came out sounding more like a complaint.

“Please don’t mention it. If I think too much about it, I’ll get freaked out and paranoid. And I really don’t want anything to ruin this moment right now.”

“I didn’t mean…” I swallowed harshly, feeling embarrassed for some odd reason. “You don’t have anything to freak out about, Bentley. There’s no reason to be paranoid. I’d never put either of us in a position like that.”

He kissed me gently, so different from the demanding actions he exhibited just moments before. “I know. But it still scares me. Accidents happen all the time. You can’t always prevent them.”

I could tell it bothered him, but I couldn’t really figure out why, aside from the obvious. I wanted to ask him about it, but the words never came. Fear of his answer kept them from forming and left me quiet and uneasy.

“Come on. Let’s get back inside.”

“Are the fireworks over?”

“It doesn’t matter. We need to get cleaned up. I’m sure it can’t be comfortable to sit around in this mess.” He straightened his arms to push away from me and glanced down to where we were still joined.

“Just stay right there and I won’t have to worry about it,” I said with a hint of humor in my voice.

His eyes locked with mine and a genuine smile covered his lips. He gave me one last kiss before pulling out, and said, “As amazing as that sounds, it’s dark and mosquitos are starting to feast on my ass. Plus, I really want to talk to you about something.”

“So talk…”

“Not out here. Not like this. It’s really important, and we should be fully clothed first.”

My stomach dipped at the seriousness of his tone. “Just tell me, Bentley. Don’t say that and then make me wait however long to hear what it is. Just get it over with.”

He sat back on his knees, seated between my parted legs, and I’d never felt more bare before in my life. The way he regarded me left me hopeless and deflated. It was as if I’d gone from cloud nine to six feet under in two seconds flat.

“I never said it was bad. Only something I want to tell you.”

“Are you moving back home?”

He hung his head and placed his hands on my knees, the heat of his palms scorching my skin. “Not unless you want me to.”

“Then what do you want to tell me.”

He inhaled deeply and then locked eyes with me again, showing the magnitude of his mood as they glistened in the candlelight. “Let’s go inside first.”

It was clear he wouldn’t give me anything until we were cleaned up and clothed, so I sat up and began searching for the clothes he’d ripped off me. I found my shorts and panties twisted at the end of the blankets, and my flip-flops were in the grass next to the dock as if they’d been tossed. I hadn’t even remembered them coming off, but then again, things had turned intense rather quickly.

Bentley pulled his jeans up from his ankles, having never completely removed them in the first place. Then he led me through the dark yard by my hand. Neither one of us spoke as we pulled ourselves together and made it up to the house. But unlike the silence that had nearly suffocated me on the way out, this silence was contented.

Once inside, he led me to his bathroom and grabbed a towel from the closet. He turned the water on and then left for a moment, returning with a pair of boxers and a T-shirt like he’d done for me before. I waited awkwardly in the small room, not sure how to act since every other time we’d taken a shower it’d been separately. But considering we’d already crossed that line, I wasn’t sure what that meant for tonight.

“Are you not taking a shower?” I asked when he moved to the doorway.

Rather than his gaze falling on me, it roamed the tile flooring. “I uh… I have to pick up the stuff from outside. You go ahead and clean up. It’ll only take me a few minutes.”

“If you wait until we’re done, I can help you.”

He shook his head, his gaze finally meeting mine for the first time since coming inside. “No sense in going back outside after a shower. I’ll be okay. It’s not much.”

He offered me a grim smile before closing the door, leaving me alone in his bathroom once again. I ignored the sting of dismissal and the coldness of isolation. Instead, I stripped off my clothes and stepped beneath the warm spray, taking my time and waiting for Bentley to return and join me in the shower.

After nearly ten minutes, I turned the water off and got out, unable to wait any longer for him to join me. The loneliness had become too much to bear, so I gave up and grabbed the towel he’d set out for me. I dried and dressed quickly, wondering if maybe he needed help cleaning up the mess from the dock. But once I stepped into the hallway, I caught him coming back inside with a basket and an armful of blankets.

He set the basket down by the heap of blankets next to the sliding door and then turned toward me. He stopped once he caught sight of me in the hall. “Feel better?”

“I would’ve felt better had you joined me.”

His smile was soft and meant to be comforting, but I couldn’t shake the uneasiness that radiated from him as he walked toward me. “Let me wash my hands and then I’ll meet you in my room.”

“Aren’t you going to take a shower?”

He shook his head and moved into the bathroom. “Nah. I took one before you came over. I can wait until later for another one.”

I nodded—to myself since he wasn’t looking my way—and turned to head to his room. I put my clothes on his bed and pulled my cell from the pocket of my shorts, noticing the low-battery indicator. “My phone is about to die, do you have a charger I can use? I forgot mine,” I asked over my shoulder as I glanced around his room.

From the bathroom, I heard, “Next to my bed.”

I sat down on the edge of his mattress, searching his bedside table for the chord, but not seeing one. I opened the small drawer, wondering if maybe he’d put it in there, and that’s when the entire world stopped spinning. Air vanished and my eyesight dimmed. In the drawer, I found bottle after bottle of prescription medications. I pulled them out one at a time until I had four in my hands with countess more still in the drawer, desperately trying to read the labels. But nothing made sense to me. I had no idea what any of them were for.

Blinding panic filled my chest.

Searing fear burned in my throat.

Debilitating confusion warped my mind and left my head heavy with worry.

Bits and pieces of our conversations came flying forward—his preference for healthy eating, his need to talk to me about something…

I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t move. All I could do was stare down at the bottles in my hands, trying to decipher the words on the labels. But all I could make out were the names. Bentley Cole, and the other was the name of a doctor.

The same name on every bottle.

Bentley

I dried my hands and walked down the quiet hall to my room. The moment I noticed Sarah, my feet stalled beneath me, refusing to move any closer. She sat on my bed with my medicine bottles in her hands. Her head turned to me, her eyes wide with shock, and her mouth hung open as panicked, shallow breaths moved her chest up and down rapidly.

“What are these for? Are you sick?” Her sharp, broken voice had my face burning and my hands shaking. Complete fear registered in her eyes, and I felt every ounce of it deep inside.

I took a step and then paused, needing to be close to her but scared of her reaction. I was at war with myself as to what I needed to do—comfort her or protect myself. “That’s what I needed to talk to you about.”

“What? Talk to me about what?”

One more step and then another pause. My throat tightened and burned, making it difficult to swallow past the painful ball growing in place, cutting off my ability to breathe. “I uh…I suffered from a heart disease called—”

She shook her head rapidly, staring off into the distance. The whites of her eyes became red as tears formed, hiding the deep brown I’d grown to love so much. “No… No, no, no. Not again.
No
. This can’t be happening…”

I took the final steps toward her, no longer caring about her reaction. It was clear she needed me, but what she needed more was an explanation. I needed to tell her, and I had to get it out fast before I either chickened out or she ran away. I ignored the hiccup in my chest and the rush of blood in my ears. I crouched down in front of her. “That’s why I came here in the first place, Sarah. I came here to see a specialist.”

“What is it?”

“Dilated cardiomyopathy. It’s—”

“How’d you get it? How’d they find it?”

I wished she’d stop interrupting me with her frantic questions so I could explain, but I understood her need to ask. I’d done the same thing back when it was discovered. Your head fills with so many thoughts, concerns, questions, and the overwhelming need to get them out before they suffocate you. “It was inherited. My grandfather died very young, but they didn’t know why. After finding the issue with my heart, they believe he had the same thing. None of the other causes fit with my lifestyle.”

“
Died
?”

The pill bottles fell from her hands and rattled on the floor as she dropped her head, tears slipping rapidly past her lashes and down her soft, smooth cheeks. I wanted to kiss them, touch them, but I couldn’t seem to bring myself to do anything other than sit there, feeling every ounce of pain that flooded her eyes and fell from her quivering chin.

“This can’t be happening to me. Why would you do this? Why would you let me fall for you if you knew you were dying? I can’t deal with this…”

I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her to the floor and into my chest. “It’s not like that. Let me explain.”

“Can they cure it? Is it treatable?” My shirt muffled her words, but I could feel her distress clear through to my chest. Her racking sobs vibrated through me, filling me with her anguish, but I couldn’t do anything to take it away.

“That’s why I came here…for treatment.”

She pulled her head away and locked her eyes with mine. “So you’ll live?”

“That’s the plan.”

“What did they do? Do you have a pacemaker or something?” Her gaze fell to my chest, covered by my shirt, and I knew what she was imagining.

I shook my head, contemplating my next words. “No, not like that. I did have surgery, but I’m not completely in the clear yet. It wasn’t discovered until almost too late, so I couldn’t get a pacemaker. I have a fifty-percent chance of making it through the first year, and if I do, then I have a very decent chance of living a full and happy life. But I eat right, I go to all the appointments…I’m doing everything by the book.”

“What kind of surgery?” she asked in a broken, hesitant whisper.

I took in a deep breath, knowing I had no way out. “Transplant.”

“A
heart
transplant?” Utter disbelief rang loud in her surprised, high-pitched tone. “Okay, so…so when did this happen? When will it be a year? How much longer do we have to wait before we know you’re in the clear?”

I didn’t want to say anything, knowing what would happen once the answer was out there. My eyes throbbed and burned, a sensation I hadn’t felt in a really long time. Panic, fear, resignation—they weren’t foreign emotions for me. But this tragic desperation over the very real possibility of her walking away was.

“Christmas.” I held my breath, waiting for realization to hit her.

She sat still, watching me with red-rimmed eyes and a tear-stained face. Then she shook her head, slow at first, then fast, her face scrunching and eyes squinting. “L–last Christmas? You got a new heart…
last
Christmas?”

I nodded, waiting for her to say the words all on her own.

“Here? At Regional?” She pushed off my lap and collapsed into a ball on the floor, covering her face with her hands. When I reached out to comfort her, she shot up, moving to stand in the middle of the room. Her gaze scanned the space around her, probably not focusing on anything as she put the pieces together. “Who’s heart did you get? Do you know?” Her chest rose and fell rapidly, frantically, as if she couldn’t breathe until she heard my answer. And knowing I had to give her one took away
my
ability to breathe.

I licked my lips and swallowed, my mouth suddenly becoming bone dry. I balled my hands into tight fists, hoping I could get them to stop shaking, but nothing worked. Anxiety filled every part of me. “They don’t ever tell you who the donor is, much like they never tell the families of the donors where their organs go. It creates this attachment to the other person that’s very unhealthy for all parties involved.”

“I know this already, Bentley. That’s not what I asked. I asked you if you know who the donor was.” She spun around and came to stand in front of me, her hands trembling violently at her sides. “
Just answer the fucking question
!”

I finally found enough strength to stand up and face her. My knees wobbled as I tried to stand tall, yet I felt so small staring into her eyes. “I only know because Luke was there that day, and he saw your family. He was there when the doctors discussed organ donation to you once she…once your mother was diagnosed brain dead.” I hated hearing those words out of my mouth, so clinical and sterile. And as soon as “brain dead” had been uttered, I wished I could’ve taken them back, knowing the devastation they’d cause her.

She took a small step back, her line of sight going straight to the center of my covered chest as if she had x-ray vision and could see through me. “So you’ve known… All along, you’ve known. My mother’s heart beats inside your chest, and yet you’ve never bothered to say anything to me about it.”

“I was going to. That night at the bar, I was there to find you.”

“
I
was the girl you were supposed to meet?” She backed away farther and shook her head, holding her hands out to keep me at a distance, keeping me from following her like I so desperately wanted to. “So everything I’ve thought was the truth has all been a lie. You stayed behind because you couldn’t deal with the fact that I was broken and devastated—my life was destroyed all so
you
could have a chance to live on. Am I getting this right?”

“That’s not true. I never asked for her to pass away. I never asked for her heart. That’s not fair to place the blame on me for things I can’t control.” I knew she’d be upset, hurt even, but I hadn’t thought of the possibility of this reaction. Of her faulting me for her mother’s death.

“No. You’re absolutely right, Bentley. You couldn’t control her dying or where her organs ended up. But you could’ve told me when you first met me. When I cried and cried about losing my mom for no reason. When I needed
something
to help explain why she had to leave me so soon. You could’ve said something then. That was an entire month ago. You’ve had so many opportunities to say something, but you never did.”

“You wouldn’t have been able to handle it.”

“Don’t tell me what I can and cannot handle!” She backed all the way up until her back hit the wall, her eyes going wide. “You’ve lied to me from the very beginning. How many times have I asked you about the night at the bar? Huh? How many times have I mentioned it being fate that you were there? And yet you went along with it. You led me to believe it was coincidence.
Fate
. But it never was. You
knew
all along. You
planned
it. And even after I found out about Luke, you
still
lied to me.”

“I just wanted to make sure you were okay.” I needed her to understand, but she wouldn’t. She couldn’t see past her own devastation to see my reasons, and the helplessness of it all blinded me. My vision began to blur as my own tears began to fill my eyes. It’d been so long since I’d cried, but I couldn’t seem to hold it in at the thought of losing her.

“Do I seem okay to you now, Bentley? Do I?”

I took a hesitant step in her direction, but she moved to the side, closer to the door, like a caged animal. Dread filled me at the thought of her leaving like this, my insides quaking and trembling the same as the day I’d been given the devastating news about my heart—the day the doctors told me I more than likely wouldn’t live to see my next birthday. I never wanted it to happen this way. But there’d always been this nagging fear that when she finally did find out, she’d leave. She’d push me away and close herself off again.

I’d only hoped she’d be strong enough to handle the truth.

I was so wrong.

“The only truth you’ve ever spoken was when you talked about breaking my heart. Congratulations, Bentley…it’s officially broken. Irreparably broken into a million pieces. ” She practically ran out of the bedroom before I could stop her.

“Sarah! Wait!”

“No!” She stopped and spun around, causing me to freeze in place at the bedroom door. I watched her trembling form in the dark hallway. “I won’t give you another chance to lie to me. Don’t follow me this time. I mean it.
Don’t
call me.
Don’t
come over. Pretend like you
don’t
know me. I’m just the daughter of an anonymous heart donor. You don’t know me. And I
sure as hell
don’t know you.”

I wanted to go after her as she stormed out of the house, but I couldn’t seem to get my feet to move. My lungs weren’t working enough to properly give me the oxygen I needed, and I became dizzy, lightheaded. And for the first time in six months, I felt my heart skip a beat and tighten in my chest.

I knew all along that Sarah would break my heart.

I just wasn’t aware how literal my assumption would be.