JUNE 12 / 10:06 PM

Ophelia Finlay

I LAY IN my bed watching Eli sleep. He’d held me as we fell asleep together. Or I pretended to fall asleep until he was breathing deep and even. My thoughts weren’t going to allow me to shut down that easily. Today had been perfect. Too perfect.

I closed my eyes tightly and sighed as the tenderness between my legs reminded me of the thorough job of fucking my brains out Eli had done earlier. Finding him a place to live had taken up most of our day. I had been happy when he found this place but accepting the fact this was temporary and he’d leave again one day made me panic. It was what kept me awake. More than once today I had heard him tell an owner or real estate agent he wasn’t looking for permanent residence. A reminder he didn’t want to stay. Whatever life he’d left to return here was important to him.

My desperation to keep him had been what drove me to be so wild when we had sex. I realized when it was over, I’d been trying to cling to him or possibly find a way to hold him. I knew that I would only hurt myself more when he left if I allowed my heart to think he might decide to stay. The safest thing for me to do was to take all I could while I had him here. It had been my goal when I’d let all my walls down. I had opened myself up emotionally and physically to Eli. Living in the now, taking all he gave me, begging for more, wanting to know the feeling of being one with Eli.

It had been mind-blowing, best I’ve ever had, make that the best anyone had ever had, sex. There was just no way it got better than that. There couldn’t be any comparison. What we experienced together had to be the pinnacle of sex. Historically so. I didn’t question it . . . because I knew that while I was giving my body to that man, he took my heart too. Sex that incredible and real coupled with the giving of your heart was on a level of unattainable that many would never know. I closed my eyes even tighter. Fear grabbed my throat so tightly I found it hard to breathe. I’d never done this. Not once had I just let a man have it. My walls had been put in place from a young love that had hurt me. One I hadn’t realized at the time was just innocence getting its first taste of desire. That hadn’t truly been love. Not now that I knew this feeling. The unquestionable soul claiming kind of love I’d fell straight into with Eli.

Accepting it and admitting it were one in the same. There was no way to save me now. No possible wall building could change what had transpired. I wouldn’t be able to backtrack and run away. I was taken. Leaving him would be impossible. My heart wouldn’t allow it. Eli Hardy owned my body and soul whether he wanted it or not. Not completely losing my head and telling him I loved him during that last orgasm when I had known it was the truth had been my only saving grace. If I’d told him I loved him, he quite possibly may not be in my bed with me right now. He didn’t have to say it, I knew he wasn’t after love. Not mine or anyone else’s. I hadn’t meant to fall. It wasn’t something I could have controlled.

The reality that I was in love had shocked me. I hadn’t been vulnerable enough to feel this way about a man in the past. Why Eli? Why did I fall for a man who made it clear this was as temporary as his apartment? My stone will not to break had let me down this time. I’d broken, or melted was a more accurate description.

I inhaled deeply and the smell of his soap made me feel warm all over. If I could climb into his skin and just be with him every moment, I’d be happy. That would be the ultimate joy. And admitting that to myself made me sound like a crazy ass person who should be admitted. What was wrong with me? I was thinking insane things and I had to face the fact this man was going to leave me. This wasn’t a fairy tale. I wasn’t going to win the man. He wasn’t open to being won. He was passing the time. If I was smarter, I would have found a way to protect my heart before this had happened.

Distancing myself now was impossible. The idea took my breath away. I never wanted to be away from him again. I’d let a man become the center of my world. How? I opened my eyes and looked at him again. His long blonde lashes and straight nose. The dark blonde curls from his hair resting against his cheek. He was a man, but he was also achingly beautiful. I didn’t understand how a woman could not want him forever.

Lila Kate and even my own sister-in-law seemed like fools to me now. I hadn’t known Eli when both of them hadn’t returned his love. My mother would say that the heart sees the one it was meant to love differently than any other. That couldn’t be what was happening here because this was a one-sided love. My loving Eli didn’t guarantee he’d ever feel the same for me.

Jealousy began to slowly take hold when I thought of how Lila Kate had talked about Eli’s deep love for Bliss. How he’d never get over her. How he’d loved her his whole life. Was I really going to lie here and hate the woman that made my brother happy because of Eli? I was going mental. Did love make you go mental? Was it possible that Eli was the one my heart was supposed to love and that in time he’d feel the same way? My chest felt lighter at that possibility.

I had to talk to someone. I needed guidance and help understanding this and what I was feeling. It scared me. I wanted to kiss him until he woke up and we were joined again. Making love. I wanted to tell him I loved him . . . and then he’d most likely leave and never come back. That would send him running just like those words had sent me running from men in the past.

Karma . . . this could be karma. Had it finally decided I needed a swift kick in the ass? I muffled a groan in my pillow.

Crazy. I was going crazy. Or was this normal? Is this why men said women were crazy? Did love make women crazy? There was a song about it . . .”Beautiful Crazy” or something like that. Which a man had written so there was hope I could be loved back even with all this craziness I was feeling.

Eli sighed in his sleep and shifted then rolled over onto his back. He moved his arm from around me and laid it over his head to rest on the pillow. The blanket fell down enough so that now I was given the glorious view of his tattooed chest and neck. I wanted to kiss it all. Ask him about each one. Find out what they meant.

My enjoyment instantly vanished as the question hit me . . . was one of the tattoos for Bliss? The girl who had been given his heart and didn’t want it? I felt sick. An all over sick. I hated that idea. I wanted to erase it from my head. Why was I torturing myself like this? There was no reason for it. I had to get a grip.

I knew who I could talk to. The person who would have the answers. She would be able to tell me if I needed to seek professional help. The one woman I knew loved a man with every fiber of her being and had my entire life and before my birth.

My momma. She knew all about love. Finding the one your heart belongs to. Often, I saw married women unhappy or look at their husbands with distaste. I saw their eyes wander to see the grass on the other side of the fence. But never once had I seen my momma do that. When she looked at my dad, it was such a pure look of love and respect it gave me hope in happily ever after.

Their love wasn’t one-sided. I wasn’t sure if it had ever been. What I did know was my dad adored the ground my mother walked on and there was no equal to her. Even growing up, we knew our father loved us, he would die for us, we were his children and we never questioned his devotion. However, he also made it clear that our mother was his one. His other half. Once Phoenix had been angry at Momma and claimed to hate her. She often said hurtful things around the ages of fourteen to seventeen.

Dad had moved quickly. One minute we’d all been sitting around the kitchen table while Phoenix and Momma had a heated argument about one of the bad decisions my sister had made. Then my dad was in her face, taking her arm and standing her up from the seat. Although I wasn’t scared for her because Dad had never once laid a hand on us, I was startled by his reaction. His words still rang clear in my memory.

“That woman is your mother, she carried you, gave birth to you, loved you from the moment she knew of your existence, lost sleep caring for you, and would die for you if asked. But not only that, she is mine. She is what completes me. And I won’t allow ANYONE to speak to her that way. Including our children. Because without her, there would be no you. Do I make myself clear?”

Those words had sunk in deep and stayed there not only in Phoenix but all of us.

Love was defined by those words my father said to her that day. It was how I measured every relationship I’d ever had. None coming close. As thankful and blessed as I knew we were to have parents that loved like they did, in time I had told myself it was impossible to find.

Until now, I was so consumed by these feelings that had broken free inside me for Eli. Only my mother would understand. Maybe she’d be able to help me make him feel the same way. I didn’t think it worked like that, but I had to hope there was a way to keep him. I pressed my lips to his arm and let my eyes close again. I didn’t focus on the worries of loving a man I could lose. Instead, I thought of all the moments today that made me smile and let that happiness go with me into the peacefulness of sleep.