Lost to You (Take This Regret 0.5)(33)
Author: A.L. Jackson

“And tonight…I can’t even begin to apologize for what happened tonight. I can only tell you I don’t care what my dad thinks about us.” I brought my other hand to her face and squeezed in emphasis. “Elizabeth, I can’t lose you.”

She wet her lips and shivered. She hugged herself, her crossed arms a barrier between us. “I don’t even know what that means, Christian. One minute you’re telling me you want to get past what happened last Friday so we can be friends again, and the next minute you’re holding my hand and telling me I mean everything to you.” Frantic brown eyes begged as they flitted across my face, as if she were desperate to find an answer there. “I don’t understand what you want from me.”

Increasing my hold, I edged closer. “I want you. I want you to take a chance on me. I know I haven’t given you a reason to, and everything between us is a mess right now, but it’s only because we aren’t what we’re supposed to be. I’ve been fighting this so hard for so long because I thought I was protecting our friendship when all I was doing was setting us up to fail.”

Hot tears fell into my hands, and Elizabeth’s mouth dropped open. I resisted the desire to crush her to me, to kiss her, to finally take what I’d always known was supposed to be mine, although in a completely different way than the initial urge that had me squirming in my seat four months prior.

Instead, it galloped ahead of me, a future I’d never believed I wanted. One I knew without a single doubt I wanted to share with Elizabeth.

“Elizabeth, I haven’t touched another girl since that first time I walked out of your apartment. I mean, I tried…but all I could think about was you. All this time, it was you.”

“What?” Shock dropped Elizabeth’s arms from between us. In the few inches separating us, the air vibrated with need. I erased it. My entire body sighed in relief.

Her face was a breath from mine. “This has been a long time coming. I’ve just been too dense to see it for what it is. You are the kind of girl I’m looking for, Elizabeth. The only girl I’m looking for.”

Tentative fingers fluttered up to brush over my bottom lip. “I’m scared of this.”

I smiled beneath them before I brought my hand up to hold hers, pressed her fingers to my mouth in a gentle kiss. “All I’m scared of is losing you.”

Elizabeth softened, body and soul. I could feel it, the way the tension scattered like a gust of wind through a mound of fallen leaves. I took a chance and carefully wound her in my arms. There was no hesitation from her, just the softness of her hands as they ran up and over my shoulders and anchored at the back of my neck.

I leaned in and swept my nose along the sweetness of her jaw, and I whispered at her ear, “Be with me.”

Elizabeth swayed and rocked, let herself go in the security of my arms. Her face was hidden in the crook of my neck, buried in my need and the absolute devotion I felt for her, her mouth pressed to my skin. I danced with her, lifting her from her feet and slowly spinning her around.

We stayed that way for what seemed like forever, the snow flitting down around us as Elizabeth and I said nothing, just allowed our hearts to dance together in an eternal promise.

Because I was never going to let her go.

She pulled her head away to find my face, and I placed her back on her feet. One hand remained firm around her waist, and I brushed aside the hair stuck to the side of her face with the other. Contentment thrummed in my chest, while my need for Elizabeth only grew.

Her eyes were all alight, tender, that honeyed-amber swimming with what I felt beating steadily within my heart.

From the moment I saw her, I knew something about her was different. I just never imagined it would change my life.

It was Elizabeth who pushed the moment. She lifted to her toes and pressed her lips to mine. Her mouth came so cautious and slow, testing, though I felt nothing there that told me she was still unsure. The questions between us no longer remained. Both my hands slid to her hips, and I pulled her as close as I possibly could then wound one hand back up her spine to the base of her neck.

I kissed her slowly, savored her unhurriedly. There was nothing carnal to this kiss. But still, it was enough to reignite the ache she’d left me with for so many months.

Hell, this girl had managed it with one look.

I smiled against her lips, still unable to grasp that she’d brought me this far.

I could feel her grinning, too, before she pulled back. She pressed her lips together as if savoring the remnant of our kiss. “What?”

I shook my head, gripping her tight. “Nothing. I just didn’t realize anything could make me this happy.”

She hid her face in my chest and mumbled, “Neither did I.”

I dropped a kiss to her head and hugged her a little more. She shivered again. Who knew how much time had passed since we’d been standing out in the snow without our jackets.

I stepped back and grabbed two of her fingers because I found I really didn’t want to let her go. “You should get inside. It’s freezing out here.”

She cast a quick glance behind her at her building. The single window to her apartment remained a darkened square against the gray wall.

She turned back to me. “You want to come inside?”

Did I? My body answered with a resounding Hell, yeah. No doubt, the second we crossed her threshold it would be all over. There’d be hands and flesh and need that would no longer be denied. No longer could anything or anyone stop this attraction that had grown, transformed, and solidified as this bond that could not be broken.

My eyes skimmed over her face. Even though she looked up at me with the same desires that spun a path through my veins and coiled in my muscles, I didn’t miss the weariness that lay as purple smudges beneath her eyes.

I shook my head. “No, not tonight.”

Disappointment creased her forehead, and I drew her to me and kissed her again before I pushed my mouth near her ear. “Of course I want to, Elizabeth.” I flattened myself to her. “But I’m not going to. Let’s do dinner tomorrow, instead. I want that time with you, just knowing it’s you and me. Can we do that?”

She sighed and nodded against my chest before she smiled lightly up at me. “Yeah, I’d like that.”

I dropped a small kiss to her mouth plus one against her nose. “Do me a favor and go climb underneath a blanket. You’re frozen.”

She laughed. “Okay.”

She stepped back and hooked her index finger with mine. She swayed our hands between us. “I’ll miss you.”