Page 104 of Paper Horses

“Olivia,” I murmured, my hold so tight I feared I would hurt her. “Please don’t…” I hated the pleading in my words, remembering how they had come in a rush of emotion when she’d left me all those years ago.

“I need to,” she said, halting our kiss and dropping her head. “I have no choice.”

“You have a fucking choice, Olivia.”

She lifted her eyes. No doubt sat in them. No tears. Only resignation. “I want to spend tonight and tomorrow pretending this will never end.”

“It doesn’t have to end.” My voice went hoarse, my defenses rising as my mind screamed that it had warned me not to lower them. Not to let her back in. My chest convulsed as if a thousand strokes were lashing it.

“I don’t know who I am anymore.”

I searched her eyes, understanding pushing at my periphery.

“You’re my girl,” I said, tucking a curl behind her ear.

“I am, but I don’t know who she is because I left her behind when I walked out on you.”

Then don’t walk out again.

“What do you want, Olivia? What will make you happy?” Because all I want is for you to be happy.

“Time.”

I nodded, the move an exercise in discretion because I really wanted to shake her and scream that she’d had fifteen years. We’d lost so much time that we had no more to forfeit.

“Then that’s what I’ll give you.”

She scrunched my shirt in her hand and pulled me back to her. “I don’t want to think about it until I can no longer avoid it. I want to spend tonight and tomorrow with you, not worrying about anything but when you’ll touch me again.”

I smoothed my hand over her cheek and tipped her chin, kissing her and hoping she could feel how badly this was hurting me. How seeing her leave on Monday and knowing she might not return would kill me, and I didn’t think I’d ever recover.

Her hands wrapped around my neck, fingers digging into my hair as she nearly climbed my body, as if she could climb right into me. I knew then that she was well aware of what this would do to me because it would do the same to her.

Picking her up, I walked her to the living room and spent the next hour memorizing every fine detail of her while our soup grew cold.

I rubbed my nose, watching as the black sedan approached the house. With every stone that crunched below its tires, my heart cracked a little more.

“Olivia,” I called up the stairs before picking up her suitcase and moving it to the door. Only a week ago, I’d brought it in, never realizing how much would change in a week.

Her heels clicked down the stairs, and I moved to the island, my eyes raking over her body. She was all power and sex appeal. Nothing like the woman who’d curled up in my sweatshirt or ridden carefree across the fields with her long hair streaming behind her.

A red, ribbed turtleneck accentuated her chest and tapered to where her black belt defined the darker-shaded gray slacks. Her hair was loose and pulled to the side, and a rich shade of lipstick stained her lips, her charcoal eyeshadow making the golden hues of her eyes pop.

I tucked my hands in my pockets, fearing I would reach out and touch her, knowing if I did, I would never let her walk out. I really didn’t know why I wasn’t fighting this. Only those words, I don’t know who I am anymore, kept me from doing it.

I’d spent all of Sunday touching her. Only leaving my bed to get us food and use the bathroom. And this morning, she’d woken me, climbing onto me and riding me so hard I’d nearly blacked out. That didn’t stop me from taking her again in the shower. It was the last time she’d let me touch her. Right before she’d donned her mask again, telling me she needed to pack and closing the guest room door. This was the first time I’d seen her since. The suitcase had been outside the bedroom door when I’d gone up to check on her.

She stopped a few feet from me, and it took everything I had not to pull her to me.

“Hudson, I⁠—”

“Don’t, Olivia. Let’s just make this as easy as we can.” Easy? Nothing about this was easy. I didn’t know when she would return, or if she ever would. “I packed up the things I got you Saturday and put them in a bag,” I said, nodding to the brown-handled bag near the suitcase.

Her phone buzzed, and I winced as she looked at it. “The driver’s here.”

“I know.”

She opened her mouth to speak, and I turned my back on her. I couldn’t listen anymore. I knew she needed space, time to figure herself out, but that didn’t mean this didn’t hurt. I tugged the door open and took the bags out, hearing her heels set a constant rhythm behind me.