did.
Brody enjoyed it, too, if the expression on his face was anything to go by. When I felt his muscles go taut, I knew he was close. I reached down and cupped his balls, giving them a gentle squeeze to seal the deal. Our orgasms were almost simultaneous. Just as Brody was groaning his release, the first wave crested over me and my body rocked with the force of it. As the second wave was building, I collapsed on top of him, breathing heavily.
Brody pulled me to him, caressing my sweaty hair as I rode to the top of my summit. It would have been a hard road down, if he hadn’t been right there. We lay in silence for a few minutes, concentrating on inhaling and exhaling, which was all we could do right then.
When my blood began to cool down, I turned to Brody and smiled. He looked sleepy and I knew I probably did, too. I reached out and stroked his cheek, grinning as my fingers caressed his stubble. His mom was always after him to shave more. In that moment, I thought things would always be as perfect as they were just then. I should have known better; things can never stay the same.
“We should get dressed,” I suggested as I sat up.
He smiled back and I looked at him expectantly, unable to see the train that was headed for me. He didn’t give me any clue; he didn’t drop to one knee or anything like that. Instead, he took my hands in his and rocked my world with a sentence. “I love you so much, Shana Rae. Willyoumarryme?”
It came out in a jumbled rush that took me a minute to decipher. But I’d been deciphering Brody for a long time and I knew that he always talked super-fast when he was nervous. When the words untangled themselves and their message reached my brain, I felt frozen in time, stuck in between knowing that what we had was precious and knowing it couldn’t last—wouldn’t last, once I broke his heart.
Once I thought about it, I found it strange that I didn’t feel excited, like I’d always pictured myself being when he popped the question. I wasn’t anything, I thought when I looked deeper. I felt numb, paralyzed by the staggering disappointment I alone knew was coming. I tried to keep my breathing even and my pulse steady.
“Shan?” He laughed nervously.
I forced myself to smile even as my heart was breaking. I looked at him, taking it all in while we were still in this moment, before the hope in his eyes evaporated. His light brown hair was still spiked a bit up top, no matter how many times he tried to brush it down. His brown eyes had specks of green in them that shone deep and dark as emeralds after we made love. Every time I saw the green glittering beneath the brown, my sex clenched even as my heart became light. He had sharp features and a high forehead—the face of a man meshed with the face of a boy who was still growing into his natural good looks. My eyes lingered to his lips—those soft, pink kissable lips. On impulse, I leaned forward and brushed my lips over his. I sighed when I pulled away—it was now or never.
Before I could say anything, he beat me to it, reading my thoughts as he’d been doing for years. “That didn’t feel like a yes.” He sounded as stunned and numb as his proposal had left me.
“I’m sorry.” Hopelessly inadequate words that were swept away with the wind as soon as they left my mouth.
“Why?”
The anguish on his face was almost enough to make me change my mind. Almost. “Because our lives are just starting. We can’t… we’ve never even dated anyone else, Brody.”
“I don’t want to date anyone else, don’t you get it? I just want you . It’s always been you.”
“You feel that way now, but if we got married you’d… you’d realize, sooner or later, that it was a mistake.”
“I wouldn’t!” he burst out. “What are you even talking about? This is crazy. I thought you wanted the same things I did. Why have you even been with me if you didn’t want to be together long term?”
How could I answer a question like