Broken Charms

Same Mistakes: Part Eight

«Say something, I'm giving up on you

I'll be the one, if you want me to.»  A Great Big World, Say Something

Astrid

I was relaxed and numb and glorious.

Until I wasn’t.

Until the glow faded, and I was assaulted my all the thoughts that my mind had been too preoccupied to think before. His arms were tight around me, secure and comforting and caging all at once. Sex had never been like that for me. It had always been about bodies and sensations and simplicity. Sex with Harry was confusing. It was adding one plus one and getting an answer other than two. It was more than it should have been, and it threw my world off balance.

Harry got up to go to the bathroom, and I slipped my panties back on, and then went to the living room to hunt for my shirt. His suite felt homey. It felt nice and comforting, just like him. Unease flitted around my chest, but I pushed it down. I tiptoed back to Harry’s room, and my nerves started to rattle. I stared at the rumpled sheets on his bed and just couldn’t make myself get back inside it. Harry was wonderful. Mind-blowingly wonderful. Tonight had been one of the most intense moments of my life.

But that was the problem. We’d known each other for so long. I looked at the clock, and it read 3:00 A.M. There at the end, he’d looked at me in a way that no other man ever had. I couldn’t even put into words what that look had done to me.

It wrecked me, completely. It was so honest and raw that it made the rest of my life feel fake and insignificant in comparison. Everything was changing too fast. Even now, thinking about it, I felt like something in me was disintegrating faster than I could hold it together. I jumped when Harry’s arms wrapped around my middle. His chest pressed into my back, and he placed a few kisses down the side of my neck. His touch was almost enough to deflate my worries, but they stayed there, lurking at the back of my throat, making it harder to breathe. Even so, my body was at ease with his. I leaned back into his arms.

His lips hovered next to my ear, and he whispered, “Have I told you how gorgeous you are?”

I swallowed. “Not in a few minutes.”

“Mmm . . .” The scruff on his jaw tickled the sensitive skin of my neck and he said, “As long as you know.” He was too good for me. That much was abundantly clear. He was sweet and thoughtful and generous in every way. He never missed an opportunity to reassure me or compliment me or touch me. I wasn’t used to that kind of affection. I shied away from it in every other part of my life, but coming from him I soaked it up like rain on arid ground.

I was tired of thinking, so I turned in his arms and wrapped myself up in his embrace. His chest was still bare, but he’d slipped on a pair of pajama pants that hung low on his hips. I pressed my cheek to his chest and looked down. Seeing our bare feet facing each other pulled something in my chest, and my breath caught in my throat. The intimacy of this embrace made me panic, but at the same time, the thought of moving out of it was painful. He tugged me down onto the bed and pulled the covers over us. I concentrated on breathing normally as he slipped an arm over my waist. He reached over me to turn off the lamp beside the bed. In the dark, he pressed a kiss to the back of my neck, and I shivered.

I felt like crying.

I just . . . this wasn’t my life. Things like this didn’t happen to me, and if they did, it never lasted. Girls like me didn’t get guys like Harry. Maybe it would take a week, maybe less, but I would end up screwing this up. It was what I did. The only thing I was better at than destroying things was singing, and with my behavior today, I was beginning to realize I was in danger of destroying that, too.