Total pages in book: 185
Estimated words: 180510 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 903(@200wpm)___ 722(@250wpm)___ 602(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 180510 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 903(@200wpm)___ 722(@250wpm)___ 602(@300wpm)
I never thought I’d let her go.
I never thought I’d miss my opportunity to say all the things I kept inside for so many years.
Yet, there I was … suffocating in a miserable bubble of unshed tears and unspoken emotions. My heart clogged my airway, throbbing, burning like my eyes. I wasn’t sure I could live without her, but I had to try.
She pushed me away and stood, taking my hand and tugging it until I stood and followed her into the woods. We didn’t make it far before she grabbed my shirt again and pulled me to her as she rested her back against a tree trunk. Sticks and winter’s compost crushed beneath our feet as I pressed my body to hers.
Her fingers teased my abs beneath my shirt before she worked it up my torso. I broke our kiss and discarded my shirt as she did the same to hers.
Again we kissed. Never feeling her hands on my body again felt like its own torture. Would I die for my country? I didn’t know yet. But I would have died for Josephine Watts. I would have died in that moment had it meant I never had to let her go.
“I love you, Colten. I love you more than anything or anyone,” she whispered as I kissed my way down her neck.
That lump in my throat doubled. It stung and pulsed. A monster of grief with a chokehold on me. I could barely breathe.
Her fingers teased the waistband of my jogging shorts. I moaned into her mouth. When her warm hand slid into my briefs, my hips jerked, and I broke the kiss, moaned louder, a growl of sorts, while my forehead rested on hers. “Josie …” I whispered.
“I want this,” she whispered while her hand tormented me. “I want this with you.”
Pulling her hand from my cock, I took both of her hands and held them to my chest. And we remained idle, sharing each breath, saying everything without saying anything.
Again, her body vibrated with emotions, stifling new sobs while my nose rubbed against hers, while my lips ghosted along her face, while I pressed one last kiss to her lips.
Josie wasn’t some girl in my life; she was my life. The sun. The air. Gravity. My whole world and reason for existing.
Did she feel it? Really feel it in her soul?
“Good luck, Josie. You’re going to be a huge success.”
When I took a step back, she squeezed her eyes shut and covered her face with her hands, trembling with emotion. I grabbed my shirt, turned toward home, and didn’t look back.
But I heard the two words she whispered, and they hit me so hard, my steps faltered under the weight of their real possibility.
“Don’t die …”
I had what I needed to get my diploma, so I did not go back to school. I skipped my graduation (another solid “fuck you” to Coach Mosley), and I never saw Josie Watts again, until seventeen years later.
Life never went as planned.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
I’ve never had huge aspirations. No plans to cure cancer. No intentions of being the best at anything. I went to medical school because everyone thought I’d be a good doctor. And … Colten Mosley left me half naked in the woods after rejecting me, after not saying those three words to me.
Here we are, seventeen years later, and he’s once again following me.
“Are you really leaving without saying goodbye to your parents?” Colten asks as I get into my car a little after five in the morning.
He tosses his bag into the back of his vehicle and shuts the door.
“When did you become an early riser?” I mumble, sparing a tiny glance in his direction.
“Marines. Four a.m. every morning. We really should have ridden together.” He has the nerve to act like nothing happened last night, like I didn’t discover the truth behind his cowardliness.
“No. We should never do anything together again.”
“Never is a long time.”
I grunt. “Tell me about it.”
Before he can respond, I climb into my car and shut the door. For six hours, he follows me home, stopping once for gas and to use the restroom. He doesn’t say anything; he hangs back like a cop tailing a suspect. A few miles before my exit, he goes right toward his house, and I take my first full breath in six hours.
An hour later, my phone rings and “Detective Mosley” illuminates my screen. I hop off my stationary bike and take a sip of water, thinking hard about not answering it. I’ve had enough of him for a few lifetimes.
“What is it?” I answer as clipped as possible.
“You’re breathing hard. Are you having sex?”
I click End and toss my phone on the chair. Again, he calls me. I ignore it this time. Then it chimes with a text.