Chapter 12: CHAPTER 11 NICK

I knew I'd fucked up kissing her the night before, but I couldn't help myself —she'd been there shouting at me, blaming me. Me! She'd called me a liar. A liar? I didn't even know what the hell she was talking about, but it didn't matter: either I kissed her, or I lost control completely. Seeing Luca's disgusting hands on her body, his lips on hers… Noah destroyed what little self-control I thought I had left. The sight of her with another guy made me relive all those images I'd managed to wipe from my mind. Now that I'd seen her again, it was obvious I was back at square one, just like the day I'd found out she'd cheated on me. Feeling her slender body, beautiful but much thinner than I remembered, I'd lost my mind for a few moments. My senses were in a whirl; I was suddenly the same guy I used to be, completely in love, completely lost, thanks to one girl. When I stepped back to look at her, to fill myself with the light that always emanated from her, I saw it in her eyes, that same longing, that same barely suppressed desire, the very thing that brought us together, but there was something else, too: penitence, desperation, nostalgia…and it was as if a knife was stuck into my heart and twisted, and I suffered just as I had when I'd found out the truth months before. Those images…those goddamned images my imagination used to torture me flashed once again on the screen of my mind. Noah naked in bed, sighing with pleasure, so sensual, so innocent, so full; those sounds that came from her lips, those sounds that drove me wild, that brought me to my knees. But I wasn't the one provoking those sensual sounds; it was another: another man's hands on her body, stroking her, not slowly, trying to please her, but roughly, squeezing her, without the love that invaded me every time I touched her. And Noah liked it, she enjoyed it, and she wasn't shouting my name… When I thought of that, it was like someone had drenched me with a pitcher of ice water, and I had to push her away even if she refused, holding on to me with all her might. Maybe she thought I wasn't strong enough to do without her, but I had been, and I hadn't regretted it. And now, after a sleepless night, I was having another moment of weakness when I wanted to say to hell with everything, go to her room, beg her to finish what we'd started. It was time to go. I packed my bags, left my room in silence, but stopped in front of Noah's door like the complete idiot I was. I closed my eyes, furious at the thought that she was there just a few feet away and had probably cried all night because she'd held me again, but there was nothing she could do to fix things. As soon as I was strong enough, I left. I put my bags in the trunk—I hadn't brought much—and splashed my face with water from the bottle I found in the console to try and wake up. I hadn't slept a wink. After the reception, I'd rented a surfboard at Georgica Beach and surfed for a few hours, trying to calm down, trying to figure out the reason why I was staying away from Noah, because when I'd kissed her,all justification had seemed to vanish. I surfed there till the sun peeked over the horizon. Then I'd decided to go back, shower, and get away.