Page 72 of Once Upon A Second Chance

It’s too much, too fast, too good. I slip the last of my clothes off, and her eyes make my whole body burn.

“Now,” she says, the word a low, desperate plea.

She draws me back, wraps her legs around my waist and pulls me inside her. My breath catches at the tight, perfect fit of her, at the way she arches and gasps and moves with me.

I bury my face in her neck, my mouth finding skin as we find a rhythm, slow but urgent. Her muscles clench around me, and I know she’s close when she grabs my hands and winds our fingers together, when she bites her lip and closes her eyes and—

“Richard,” she cries, and I feel her shudder, feel her come apart in my arms.

The sound of her, the sight of her, the way she grips me like she never wants to let go—there’s no holding back. I follow her over the edge, gasping her name like a prayer, like a promise.

We stay like that, tangled and breathless, until the room cools around us and our hearts remember their own pace. I roll to my back and she sprawls across my chest, a heavy, sweet weight.

“Wow,” she whispers, and I feel her smile against my skin.

I laugh, a small, wonderstruck sound. “Yeah. Wow.”

The trail is quiet this morning, sunlightslipping through the branches in broken, shifting beams. A breeze carries the scent of damp leaves and honeysuckle, and for a while, I let the rhythm of my boots on gravel and the sound of birdsong clear out some of the static in my chest.

Mount Juliet has plenty of these little cut-through trails—half-wild, half-maintained. I picked this one because it winds near the river and doesn’t usually see much foot traffic.

Too many people lately.

Too many eyes.

And it’s not even the glares that get to me.

It’s the uncertainty.

The way people I’ve laughed with, worked beside, waved to at grocery store checkouts now blink twice before smiling, as if unsure if I’m still the man they thought I was. As if they’researching my face for the truth, and they don’t like that they can’t see it easily anymore.

I stop at a bend where the trail overlooks the river, take a breath, close my eyes.

The wind rustles the canopy above.

Then—Screaming.

Not the fun, splashy kind.

Panicked.

Frantic.

My eyes snap open just as a voice cracks through the air—raw and high with terror. “Help! Please, someone help!”

Downstream, just around the curve of the bank, I spot them—a couple stumbling along the muddy edge, pointing, yelling.

And then I see the child.

A toddler—maybe two, maybe three years old—caught in the current, arms flailing, head barely above the surface as the river pulls her straight toward me.

There’s no time to think.

No time to shout.

I’m moving before my brain catches up.

Boots hit the bank, then the water.