Gio

"Aw, shit. Sorry girl," rubbing my baby's steering wheel after failing to avoid another large pothole in the road. Then, I turn to the most precious girl in my life now, "I really should've brought my truck. I forgot how terrible the road is up here."

I had taken Ren out to dinner at a restaurant overlooking the mouth of the Russian River, then continued on past Jenner before exiting the Coastal Highway. We have been climbing up into the headlands on a very rough private gravel road for about ten minutes. The gravel has given way to dirt now, and it's pretty slow going. As you can imagine, the clearance on my Corvette is damn slim.

When we arrive at the driveway at the top of a ridge, I have to get out of the car to unclip the chain on a rusted green metal cow gate, swinging it wide into the dry grass. Then we descend again down a small, narrow dirt driveway till we slow to a stop in front of the place we are staying for the night—a rustic grey cedar-clad cabin built by Adam's grandfather in the 1960s.

"Wow, this is amazing up here!" Ren gushes, looking out over the uninterrupted view of the ocean in the distance. The sky is turning hazy shades of pink and purple as the calm of evening sets in.

"It's petty sweet, right? Adam's brought me up here a few times. Here, I'll grab our bags."

It's just as rustic inside as outside, with warm cedar-clad walls and old floorboards. Ren sets her purse down on the large old rectangle wood dining table, looking out the sliding glass doors to the back deck overlooking the ocean. Seizing the opportunity while she's distracted, I hurry up the narrow staircase with our two bags to arrange a few things for later tonight. I do it as quickly as I can, and as I come back downstairs, I can hear Ren banging the cupboard doors in the kitchen.

Snaking my arms around her waist, I kiss her shoulder. "Whatcha looking for?" 

"Wine glasses."

"They're right in here."

Ren snatches one in each hand and pours us two hefty glasses of wine.

"For you," she smiles, handing me a glass.

"Yanoe, I've drunk more alcohol with you this last week than I have all last month," I playfully chide her. "You're a bad influence."

Ren looks taken aback. "What? Me? Really? You used to drink quite a bit... even underage."

It's true. But that was before... well, we'll have to talk about that later.

She looks down at her glass, a crease forming between her brows. "Hmm, a bad influence, huh?"

"A little," I hum, setting my glass on the counter and closing the distance between us again. "I don't mind, though, and I think I can handle you." A grin spreads across my jaw as I grab hold of her sexy hips.

"Oh yeah?" she smiles, taking a provocative sip of her wine.

I remove her glass from her hand, setting it down as I penetrate her glittering eyes with mine, "Yeah."

She unconsciously licks her lower lip, and I bite mine in response. Damn. That's it. On impulse, I pick her up and throw her completely over my shoulder, and she yelps in surprise.

"Ahh! Gio! Put me down!" she shrieks with laughter. "Where are you taking me!"

"Upstairs."

"But, my wiiiine!" she mock cries, theatrically reaching for it.

I spank her oh so fuckable ass, "I'll get it in a minute, bad girl."

I carry her up the stairs and throw her on the bed with a bounce. The old metal frame squeaks, and I can't help thinking I'm going to make it get even noisier later. I climb on top of her like a predator ready to attack, but her sultry smile just grows wider.

"I'm going to make you get loud again tonight," I smirk.

"I think this bed's going to be louder than me," she laughs, and she bounces her hips once to prove her point.

"If you don't like the bed... then on the floor, on the deck," I growl low, laying soft kisses up her slender neck. "I'll please you anywhere you want, as long as you want, till I prove to you that you can be louder than this bed," I mouth in a deep rumble into her ear, making her whimper with anticipation, and it sends a shiver through me.

"Do you want that baby?" drawing a slow finger over her shirt to her already perked nipple. Fuck, she is so hot!

"Yes," she breathes, closing her eyes and letting her hands travel up my jeans on the outside of my thighs.

A wickedly low chuckle escapes me because I know I shouldn't have taken it this far this soon.

"But first!" I grin, springing up and jumping off the bed to the floor. "We're going outside to watch the sunset and drink your wine. I'll grab our glasses and the bottle. Be right back."

Ren's jaw drops, "What! Now? After all that? No fair!"

But I just smirk in response. She used to play me like this all the time in high school—a little payback feels good.

"You're such a tease!" she groans.

"I know, I just teased myself too, look," and I grasp my obvious hard-on through my jeans. "But if we don't go now, we'll miss it, and roof deck sunsets here are not to be missed!"

I'm back a moment later, and I hand her her wine. She snatches it and begrudgingly follows me out the sliding glass door onto the upper deck and around the south side of the house. I climb a short ladder to a small roof deck jutting out from the side of the roof and hold my hand out to help Ren up. Blankets, pillows, and a lantern are already waiting for us, which is what I was doing when she was down in the kitchen uncorking the wine.

We make ourselves cozy with the pillows under a big Pendleton blanket, top up her wine glass and watch the sun go down till it's nothing more than a hot poker slit on the horizon, taking its sweeeet time to drop all the way down. At the moment of its final disappearance, I look over at her in awe. Damn. All I can think of is perfection, and for probably the millionth time this week, I can't seem to grasp that she's really here with me. She notices me looking and leans over to lay a soft kiss on my waiting lips.

"I've always loved watching the sun go down with you," she murmurs, snuggling back under my shoulder, my arm wrapped protectively around hers. She feels so good tucked in against me that my heart throbs three times painfully in my chest.

"Me too," I whisper back horsely—more than you'll ever know.

We watch the evening bend to night, the boldest stars popping out one by one into the inky abyss of space and time. I marvel at it all, how it's all worked out. It is nothing less than sheer bliss to be silently witnessing this exquisite beauty unfolding with her—finally together again.

The thought that we were always somehow meant to be, to end up right here like this, enters my consciousness. And what the future might hold. Where does our relationship go from here? The answer, for me anyway, is clear. I'm never gonna let her get away again.

She's got her hand on my bent knee, and I trace my finger over her left hand, stopping at the finger that has that stubborn indented line. As the last of the twilight disappears, a question I've had moves me to break our comfortable silence.

"Did you think about me? When you were in New York."

"Of course, Gio, all the time," she replies without question.

"Until when, though?" I pause a moment to look out onto the blackness, listening to the distant crashing of the waves. "I always wondered... if I loved you harder than you loved me—I just, I just never stopped loving you, but at some point... you did." Dropping my gaze and my voice, "At least enough to marry someone else."

Her sweet voice comes out hesitantly, "I... I guess at some point, I... gave up the idea that we'd end up together... but I never really stopped loving you. Alex... by the time he came along, I think I'd forgotten what it really felt like to be in love like this... or maybe I thought it was better not to love that hard again. It felt very different with him."

"So why'd you two divorce?" I finally ask, point blank.

"Um," Ren cringes. "We are not exactly... divorced yet." 

The shockwave of hearing my girlfriend is not even divorced yet ruptures through me, and my heart rate shoots through the stratosphere.

"What!!" I snap, pulling away from her.

"We're legally separated," she tries to assure me.

But I don't feel reassured; I feel alarmed, "Wait, I don't understand. You're not divorced?"

"I will be. Trust me," she pleads, her brows arcing up. "But we have to wait for a year before we can file in New York. The laws are different there."

Her explanations are not sinking in fast enough. My fucking brain is still erratically exploding.

"You're just separated! Ren! Why didn't you tell me that? How long do I have to wait?" Shit. I didn't mean to say it like that. "I mean, when will the year be up?"

"Officially, in October. Sorry, I totally forgot. I sometimes tell people I'm divorced 'cause it's... just easier," she cringes again.

It starts to seep in as my eyebrows draw together. March, April that's like six more months. Fuck. This feels weird, but what can I do?

"Wow....okay. My girlfriend's not totally divorced yet. It's cool," I say more to myself than to her. I take a big breath. "So anyway, what happened? Why did it end?"

Ren tenses, and for a second, I think she even stopped breathing. She clears her throat and begins softly, "Um, he left me... because..." Her voice goes so high at the end that I can't even hear it.

Fuck. Seeing her struggling like this hurts.

"I'm sorry, you don't have to," I whisper. 

"Because I couldn't get pregnant," she blurts.

"Wait. What?"

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