And then Aaron groaned, grunted, his body stiffened, every muscle tensing as he jerked out of me suddenly, hot, sticky warmth covering my upper thighs as he clutched me to him.

I pulled back after a moment and looked down at him, breathing so heavily I wasn’t sure I’d ever stop, and I said the words he had to know were in my heart. The only time I’d ever said them out loud and to one person… and maybe that was the proof I didn’t need right there. Loving Aaron wasn’t something I could just keep to myself, it burst out, stretching every seam in my soul and body. When you loved someone, you told them. There was no other option.

And I told him my greatest truth, like it was something I was proud of and would tell anyone… because I could and would. “Maybe this is the wrong time, but I don’t care. I love you, stalker.”

With the side of my face to the warm, damp skin of his chest, he whispered the words right back to me as another hand landed on the small of my back. “I love you too, Ruby Cube. You know that.”

Chapter 24

I was sad.

Sadder than sad.

I was so damn sad it made my mouth taste like ash. It made my heart ache.

I’d never really experienced grief before, but this sure as heck felt pretty close to it. So far, I’d been lucky enough to never have anyone close to me die, but this… I could understand how some people never recovered from it if this was a fraction of what it felt like to lose someone.

Neither one of us had said much the last hour and a half since we’d left the beach house en route to the airport. He’d brought me breakfast at the crack of dawn again, but instead, this time, we’d woken up in his bed together. We’d showered together, with him washing my back and kissing my shoulders and hugging me while we were wet and slippery. I’d sat at the kitchen island while he’d cooked, and then we’d headed to the deck together to eat the waffles and side of berries he’d made.

We both knew what today was. What going to the airport meant. It meant this vacation was over. Our time together had come to an end.

It meant that Aaron would have to drive back to Shreveport, say goodbye to his loved ones, and then drive all the way to Kentucky to get back to his base.

It meant I’d go from spending all day with him to… not.

Every single thought that ricocheted around in my head since reality had really settled in had been focused on the fact that I had no idea when the next time I would see him or be near him would be.

And honestly, I’d been fighting back tears the entire time. This didn’t seem fair. It didn’t seem fair at all that now that I had him, I had to let him go. I had to go back home. For the first time in forever, there wasn’t so much comfort in it.

“Did you check in to your flight already?” came Aaron’s low, distant voice from behind the steering wheel. We’d left later than we should have, but I hadn’t really cared or worried too much about how close we were cutting it.

I swallowed hard, fighting back the sadness that seemed capable of crushing my lungs. “No,” I muttered as we passed a sign pointing us toward the airport.

It wasn’t my imagination that Aaron slowed his truck down. “Ruby…”

I didn’t want to look at him. I couldn’t. “I wish I could stay here with you longer,” I said, keeping my gaze focused on the blurry scenery outside the window. “And I feel really bad I’m not as excited as I should be to go see my dad because I’m sad to leave you.”

“Ru,” he whispered, gulping so loud I could hear him.

I wasn’t going to look over. Nope.

“Hey,” he said, steering the truck to a cluster of lined up cars that told me our time was about to run out. “I don’t want to drop you off either, you know that, don’t you?”

I shook my head, still looking outside. Where was a rainstorm when I needed one? I couldn’t even hiccup without him hearing it.

“Ruby,” he repeated, and I pinched my lips together as he pulled into the drop-off lane, trying so hard not to cry. I knew I failed when at least five tears just jumped right out of my eyes.

“Ruby Cube,” he said. “Would you look at me?”

I shook my head again, two more tears jumping to their deaths of shame.

“Hey.”

I swallowed and slowly turned my head to look at him, totally conscious that there were tears in my eyes, and I had no hopes of hiding them, and knowing full well that the second I looked at him, I was going to cry.

And that’s exactly what happened.

One second I was looking out the window, and the next, I was shifting in his passenger seat, meeting those warm brown eyes, and then four tears turned into a hundred and I whispered, “Why does it feel like I’m never going to see you again?” I blubbered.

Before I could register what he was doing, Aaron undid his seat belt and reached for me, his hands going to my face across the center console, palming me, cupping me, bringing us forehead to forehead. His lips hovered millimeters from mine, full and a shade of pink I’d only ever seen on him before, and he said the words that ate me up completely. “This isn’t goodbye. You know that, don’t you?” his voice croaked, pretty much ending my life.

I didn’t get a chance to answer before he answered his own question, his voice breaking and creaking and raspier than ever. “You know that. You know you’ll see me again,” he claimed, to me, to himself, to everyone in the world.