I just can’t.”
Can’t what? she wondered, meant to ask, but he held her tight, closed his eyes and nuzzled her neck, inhaling her scent. Held her like he’d missed her every bit as much as she’d missed him, maybe more.
“Liz,” he moaned. “My sweet, beautiful Liz.”
His lips covered hers. Not a slow and tender kiss, but the kiss of a desperate man, a man who wanted her and couldn’t go one more moment without kissing her. A man who needed her.
Her brain warned that she should stop him, that things weren’t right between them. That something terrible had been going on for the past few weeks. That she’d gotten the impression he’d come to break off their relationship.
She knew all those things, but she couldn’t stop Adam any more than she could stop the sun from rising. Not when he was so clearly tormented, when he so clearly did need her.
She melted against the man she loved.
She wrapped her arms around his neck, her fingers tangled in his hair, and she moaned as he pressed her tightly to him. His big hands caressed her back, molded her hips, cupped her buttocks in gentle but insistent motions.
He touched her, caressed her, kissed her, whispered sweet words of endearment to her.
This was insane. Her pride urged her to take heed, to stop and demand where he got his nerve to be on the verge of breaking her heart one moment and making love to her the next. But pride was a poor friend, a poor lover, poor company, period.
Still, pride was all she really had these days.
That thought was strong enough to cause her to twist her mouth free just as his hands slid beneath her T-shirt. “Not like this. Not when I don’t understand. Tell me, Adam. Tell me what’s going on. What’s happening between us.”
“Liz.” He leaned in, rained lingering kisses against her, oh, so receptive nape. Moist heat tickled the delicate skin, sending shivers over her body. His hands shimmied up her ribcage, his touch reverent. “Don’t ask me questions I can’t answer. Not tonight.”
His fingertips skirted along the lower fullness of her bare-beneath-her-T-shirt breasts. Her breath caught, depriving her of oxygen as her body waged war with her mind.
“If you tell me what’s going on, maybe I can help, Adam. Trust me.”
“Just let me love you. Please,” he coaxed in a husky tone.
More kisses along her neck, more urgent ones, more seductive ones. More brushes of his fingers until he palmed her breast in his hand and groaned his pleasure, made her moan with hers.
Too many weeks had gone by since they’d last made love. Too many lonely nights had passed. This, what they shared, the magic that passed between them when they touched, to her was an expression of what was inside, of what they felt for each other.
They shared a connection that transcended all else. Her pride. Her grandfather’s death. His inability to deal with whatever was bothering him so much that he was pushing her away. They shared love.
Maybe that’s what Adam needed. For her to love him. For her to give him all the love in her heart.
She would. They’d make love, talk, laugh at the silly insecurities she’d been dealing with, at how emotionally raw she’d felt. Adam would tell her how wrong she was, that his heart belonged to her and her alone. That this past month had been an aberration on his part and he’d been a fool, that nothing was wrong between them.
When a person wanted to believe desperately enough, she could convince herself of most anything.
Liz wanted to believe in Adam. She wanted to believe so much that she ignored all reason and clung to the hope she wasn’t being naïve.
And if she was? She loved this man, felt his need, not just his physical need but his inner need to be loved, the need for the emotional bond they shared that meant they could face anything together. If she was naïve? So what? She would never turn her back on him when something so obviously ate at him, when he turned to her for comfort. She’d comfort with any means at her disposal no matter what the cost to herself.
She arched into his caresses, molded her lower body against his hips just as his tongue laved her nipple.
Tingles of awareness shot through her. Awareness of Adam’s hands, his lips, his hard body ground tightly against hers.
“I love you, Adam,” she whispered against his lips when they returned to her mouth. “Whatever’s wrong, know that I love you, that I’m here for you and want to help.”
For a moment she thought she’d said the wrong thing, that he was going to pull away from her, but a dam burst within him and fire burned within his eyes.
“This is wrong.” He gave her a desperate kiss. “But I need you so damn much, Liz.”
She’d known he needed her. The fact he was admitting to his need shocked her, amazed her. Adam wasn’t one to verbalize needs. Yes, she saw it in his eyes, recognized the all-consuming desire, but to hear him admit he needed her wound her stomach into knots, reinforced her desire to give him her all.
Adam needed her. Somehow, no matter what was going on with him, everything would work out. Because they had love on their side.
“Adam.” She kissed him back, daring him to deny loving her when the smoldering light in his eyes said he did. “Love me, Adam.”
Adam held Liz close, listening to the sounds of her even breathing, caressing a soft strand of her hair, soaking in her warmth and goodness.
Damn his weakness.
He’d come to set her free, but he ached inside. Ached from his doctor’s visit that morning, learning he really did have MS. Ached that in the blink of an eye he could lose his license to practice medicine, his license to fly a plane, his ability to be a man, his right to have this woman’s love.
He ached for the loss of hope. He’d never be free to accept Liz’s love, never be able to offer her a future, to give her a happily-ever-after.
Perhaps on this day when he’d first learned of the definite diagnosis of his disease, he was self-pitying. Perhaps in the morning light the future wouldn’t loom so gray. But at the moment he mourned the loss of his health, his hopes for the future, his right to a life with Liz.
He hadn’t lied to her when he’d said he needed her. He did need her. He needed the healing only her touch provided. Needed to feel her arms around him, needed to hear her sweet lips saying she loved him. Needed the peace she so freely gave him so he could figure out how he was going to face the future. A future that loomed bleakly ahead like a black hole greedily consuming everything good.
Even if just for one more night, he’d wanted to hold Liz, to be inside her, to feel her pleasure around him, to look into her eyes and see her world exploding within, and know that for the time they’d shared together his life had been good.
Yes, he was weak.
Yes, it was wrong.
But he faced an eternity of hellish loneliness.
Just
