When August Ends

My breath hitched as I pulled on her hair. “Christ, Heather. You don’t think I feel the same things you do? You think I’m superhuman, that it’s easy to resist you? I’m just trying to do the right thing.”

“I wish you would stop trying.”

The scotch must have gone to my head, because I asked, “You want to know what I did with those panties?”

“Yes,” she whispered.

“I put them over my face to smell you. I couldn’t get enough. Then I wrapped them around my cock while I jerked off and came all over them. I got so angry at myself for doing it, that I ripped them to shreds. That’s how crazy you make me.”

Her chest rose and fell. “I knew you wanted me.”

I gritted my teeth. “I never said I didn’t want you. Did I? Not once. I wish I didn’t want to fuck you.”

Her breathing was heavy. “Let me taste the scotch.”

“I said you can’t have any.”

“I don’t want you to pour me one. I want to taste it on your tongue.”

Fuck. Me.

That sentence obliterated the last resistance I had. I gripped her waist and pulled her into me, giving her exactly what we both wanted. My lips smashed against hers before my tongue sought entry.

Her hot, hungry mouth was everything I’d ever imagined it to be, the moans emanating from it making me so rock hard that my dick physically hurt, aching for more.

I kissed her harder as she worked to keep up with the pace. Neither of us broke away long enough to even breathe.

Heather’s fingers raked through my hair as I devoured her mouth. I didn’t even recognize the damn sounds I was making, the sounds of a long starvation finally satisfied. Anyone who drove by would have seen me practically attacking her, and I didn’t care.

Her lips, her mouth, her tongue tasted so good I thought I might never come up for air. I ran my hands through her soft, silky hair. It felt surreal. But this was wrong. So damn wrong. I was stealing something I had no right to, but fuck if I knew how to stop. Nothing had ever felt this good. It took everything in me not to carry her inside the boathouse and take everything else, too. I knew she’d give me whatever I wanted. And that scared the hell out of me.

As if she’d read my mind, she spoke over my lips, “I want to feel you inside of me, Noah.”

Her words were like a slap in the face, a reality check.

You have no right to do this.

I pried myself off of her. It felt unnatural—downright painful—to pull away when all I wanted was to disappear into her. But nevertheless, I somehow managed to do it.

Licking my lips to salvage what was left of her taste, I closed my eyes and caught my breath, intentionally looking away from her. I knew if I looked into her eyes, this would be too difficult. But it had to be done.

I could ruin her life with one bad decision. I wasn’t going to be responsible for that. I wanted to own her body, but I cared about the soul within it a hell of a lot more—more than anything. I needed to get myself in check before I ruined everything for her.

When I finally met her stare, she looked distraught, with glistening eyes.

“Why did you stop?” she asked.

“I have to, Heather. You have no idea how badly I want you, but I have to stop this before we go too far.”

Tears formed in her eyes. “I don’t understand you. I never will.”

At that moment, a car pulled up to the front of the main house in the distance.

She glanced over to look at it. “Shit. He’s here.” She wiped her eyes. “Tell me not to go with him, Noah, and I’ll stay. I want to be with you. I don’t want anyone but you, don’t want anything but you. I’m so crazy about you. I—”

“You should go.” That sentence might have been the hardest thing I’d ever had to push out of myself.

Her pupils darkened. Now she looked pissed. “Really? You want me to go?”

My mind was in turmoil. The words were right there but wouldn’t come.

Don’t go.

Stay with me.

Be with me.

I wouldn’t let them out.

“Go,” I barked.

I’d never seen her face so red with anger as she turned away and headed toward her house. As her date exited the black beemer to open the door for her, I couldn’t even bear to look at him.

I went inside and slammed the door. I sat on the edge of my bed with my head in my hands. My ears were ringing.

It’s the right thing to do.

You need to ignore these feelings.

This is not what you came here for.

Maybe you should go back to Pennsylvania.

Bouncing my legs up and down, I needed a reality check. There was only one person I could trust enough to talk to about this. While my father knew why I’d come here and knew about Heather, he didn’t know about my feelings toward her. I needed to confide in someone who had enough sense to talk me out of a huge mistake. I needed someone to talk me out of doing what I wanted to, which was to run after her and stop her damn date.

Dad sounded surprised to hear from me. “Noah?”

“Hey.”

“Is something wrong?”

“Yes. I need your advice.”

“That’s not something I hear very often.”

I got right to it. “I fucked up.”

“Are you in some kind of trouble?”

“Depends on how you define trouble. I’m not in danger, but I’m pretty sure I’m in trouble.”

“What’s happened?”

Running my fingers through my hair, I said, “Things here have gotten out of hand.”

I spent the better part of the next ten minutes admitting my feelings for Heather to my father—without going into the specifics of what I’d said to her tonight. I prayed he’d be able to knock some sense into me.

“You kissed her, and now she’s out with some kid?”

“Yes. A kid her own age.”

“You do realize that when I met your mother, I was thirty-five, and she was twenty-three?”

“That didn’t exactly work out, did it?”

“It worked out plenty for a very long time, wiseass. Got two great sons out of it. For the record, I’d take that woman back in a heartbeat. She’s the love of my life, and I don’t regret a thing. But I digress—the age difference never mattered. You’re beating yourself up for something that has happened to men throughout the ages. You fell for a beautiful young woman—who’s of legal age. That’s not a crime.”

Pulling on my hair, I said, “This wasn’t supposed to happen. You’re not supposed to be encouraging it.”

“It’s not enough to believe you’re not supposed to fall for someone. It doesn’t matter what you believe is wrong or right. It’s already happened. You’ve already fallen. Am I right? It’s not a crime to care about someone or to covet them.”

“I was supposed to help her, not complicate her life even more. This trip was supposed to be about her…not me.”

“No matter what I say, it’s not gonna change how you feel. Stop trying to change something that’s out of your control.”

“Maybe I should just leave.”

“You’re going to walk away now? Never look back? Never see her again?”

My chest hurt just thinking about leaving any earlier than I was supposed to. Leaving was inevitable, but I wasn’t ready to say goodbye.

“I’m so damn confused. Tell me what to do.”

“How about be honest with her? There’s a novel idea! And I mean really honest. Tell her everything. Stop carrying this burden around with you.”

“You think I should tell her everything? It’s gonna shatter her, particularly the fact that I’ve been hiding it in the first place. She trusts me.”

“I think that’s part of the problem. You’re walking around with all of this guilt, trying to be some kind of saint. You’re only human. Tell her the truth. Then once you’ve let that go, just let life happen naturally without trying to manipulate everything.”

“What if she hates me?”

“From everything you’ve told me, she seems like she’s a pretty smart girl—and tough, too. Hopefully, she can handle it.”

That was true. Heather was tough. But she wasn’t prepared for this. My father was right, though. My biggest problem was that I didn’t feel I deserved how she felt about me because she didn’t know why I was here.

I hung up with him, still torn over how to handle things.

As the night wore on, I felt more and more like telling Heather the truth.

As much as I was tempted to find out where she was and go to her, I didn’t want to be a dick and interrupt her date. I had no right to do that after I’d kicked her out.

I just needed to let her know one thing—the one thing I was certain of.

So I sent her a text.

Noah: I made a mistake. I shouldn’t have let you go.

She didn’t respond, and I couldn’t blame her. I had behaved like an erratic teenager tonight. I was a grown man and needed to start acting like one. I owed her the truth. I owed her brutal honesty—not only about why I was here, but also about my feelings for her. But the latter couldn’t come without full disclosure first.

A long while after I’d texted her, a response finally came in.