“Whatever it is, you don’t give it to me, what’ll you do with it?” he asked.

I shook my head again.

“Give it to me,” he whispered.

“I have to go, Sebring.”

“Give it to me, Olivia.”

“Please get off me.”

We stared at each other.

He stroked my neck.

I battled the burn in my throat.

Finally, he dipped his head, his nose gliding along my cheek until he touched his mouth to the skin just in front of my ear.

And then he shattered my world.

“You didn’t take that deal and I get that, Olivia. It’s smart. I know, I’d do the same thing,” he said there, his lips skimming against my skin. “You didn’t take what I was offering but in this moment, I gotta say something. I’m gonna say it once and it’s what you need know.”

With that introduction, he pressed closer and gave it to me.

“If you let whatever you got inside you loose, you’d make a man incredibly happy. You’d be a dream he couldn’t build. You’d be everything. You should not be fuckin’ a man who can give you nothing. You should find one you can trust who knows nothing for certain in the world except you’re his everything. I want you to come back to me tomorrow night. And the next. And the next. But I hope like fuck one day you disappear and I never hear from you again, no one ever hears from you again. And I hope that because I’ll know that’ll be the day you get what you deserve. Bein’ able to let loose with a man you trust who thinks you’re his everything.”

When he stopped talking, I turned my head and drew in a slow, deep breath, taking him in, my nose brushing his skin, knowing, the day I died, my last thought, my last feeling, the last scent I’d experience was going to be the memory of that breath.

Drawing in what I wanted but could never have.

Drawing in Nick Sebring.

Drawing in a Nick Sebring who’d just told me that man who I could trust who would think I was his everything was not nor ever would be him.

Then I whispered, “Sebring, please get off of me.”

It felt like I took more of his weight, like his powerful body slumped in defeat, right before he got off me.

And unfortunately, so gently to the point it was tenderly, he helped extricate me from the sheets and put me on my feet.

I got dressed. He did too so we could dance our dance, one neither of us enjoyed, one neither of us had the strength to stop.

In other words, so he could walk me to my car.

We stood at my driver’s side door and I wanted a hard, rough kiss to remind me of what we were.