That night, she was my ecstasy. My hallucinations.

I loved the taste of strawberry lip gloss on her lips.

Her nude body hid under me and my lips explored her neck as she arched her spine.

“Do you know how beautiful your eyes are?” I asked, sitting up with her pinned beneath me.

She smiled again. That’s beautiful too. My finger outlined the curvature of her body, taking in every inch of her.

“They’re just brown,” she replied, combing her fingers through her hair.

She was wrong. They were more than that, and I noticed them more each night I held her against me. If I looked closely, I could see the few flakes of gold floating around the rims of her eyes.

“They’re beautiful.” There wasn’t anything about her that wasn’t beautiful.

My tongue washed against her hard nipple. She shivered. Dependency on my touch dripped from every fiber of her being as she begged me to explore her deepest fears and her sweetest tastes. I slid my hand behind her back and lifted her so we were both sitting up in my dark bedroom. I stared into those beautiful eyes as I spread her legs and positioned her against me. She nodded once, granting me permission to do exactly what she had come over to my place for.

I grabbed a condom from my nightstand and rolled it on. “How do you want it?” I asked.

“Huh?”

My lips rested against hers as I spoke in a whisper, my breaths filling her up inside. “I can be rough. I can be gentle. I can make you scream. I can make you cry. I can fuck you so hard that you won’t be able to move. I can fuck you so slow that you’ll think I’m in love with you. So tell me how you want it. You’re in control.” My finger circled her lower back. I needed her to be in control. I needed her to take charge, because I was losing my grip on reality.

“Well, aren’t you the gentleman?” she nervously said.

I cocked an eyebrow.

Sighing, she avoided eye contact. “Gentle and slow…like you love me,” she whispered, hoping not to sound too desperate.

I didn’t tell her, but that’s exactly how I needed it.

That’s exactly how I would’ve loved to love Jamie on her birthday.

God, my mind was fucked up.

What was scary was how Elizabeth’s thoughts were almost a carbon copy of my own.

How did two people so broken find each other’s shattered pieces?

I was slow to enter her at first, my eyes watching how her body reacted to my being inside her. Her eyes wanted to close as I pushed in deeper, her lips parting, allowing a small moan to escape. When my tongue ran across her bottom lip, I was in the strawberry fields, tasting all of her.

My hands were shaking, but I stopped the nerves by focusing on her eyes. She caught her breath, placing her hand over her heart for a moment. Her eyes were with mine, staring as if we’d never see one another again; it felt as if we were both terrified of losing that small bit of comfort.

Did she see him when she stared my way? Did she remember his eyes?

I could almost tell that her heart was beating as hard as mine, working as intensely.

“Can I stay the night?” she whispered as I lifted her thighs and placed her back against the headboard.

“Of course.” I sighed, rolling my tongue against her ear, massaging her breasts in my hands. She shouldn’t stay the night. But I wanted her to. I was so terrified of being alone with my thoughts that the reply fell from my mouth like I was begging. “We can pretend till morning,” I offered.

She shouldn’t stay here, my brain ordered me. What are you doing?! it scolded.

Harder. We both wanted it more and more now, our eyes locked the whole time. Our hips moved in harmony. “Oh my God,” she muttered, breathless. Our heart rates intensified as we allowed our bodies to become one for a while. I slid into her tightness and she arched her back for more.

“Steven…” she whispered, but I didn’t even care.

“Jams…” I muttered back, and she didn’t mind.

We were so fucking insane.

Deeper. I yanked on her hair as she wrapped her fingers in mine. Each second it grew a bit rougher, a bit wilder, a bit more untamed. “Fuck.” I sighed, loving how it felt being between her legs, loving the sweat that rolled down her body. It felt good to be inside her, it felt safe.

Faster. I wanted to feel all of Elizabeth. I wanted to bury myself so deep inside her that she would never forget the way I made her skip reality. I wanted to fuck her as if she were my love and I was hers.

Lifting her right leg, I placed it over my shoulder. I allowed her to feel every inch of me as she told me to make love to her harder. Did she realize what she’d said? Had she really said love? I knew it was what we had agreed to, but hearing the words fall from her lips made me lose focus for a moment.

I wasn’t him.

She wasn’t her.

But my God, it felt good to lie to ourselves.

She was out of breath, and I liked the way her head fell back to the headboard. I also liked how her nails dug into my skin as if she never wanted to let me go. Then she blinked once, and when her eyes reappeared, they were holding back tears. The tension of struggling tears strived for an outlet, yet she took a breath instead.

Slower. She asked me once more if she could really stay the night. She was probably nervous that I’d kick her out afterward, and she would be forced back into the reality that she was alone. And I was alone. Pre-rejection was swimming in her eyes. But I’d promised I wouldn’t. I could see it in those brown eyes of hers: she hated being by herself with her own thoughts.