Coming into awareness, she realized Nathan was asleep, his arms wrapped tightly around her. She froze, not wanting to wake him.The gray light of dawn had just begun to seep through the gauzy curtains.Emotion rose from her core to her chest until her throat tightened with it and her eyes stung. Here she was, in the most beautiful place in the word, in the arms of the only man she’d ever really wanted, and she felt like she was going to weep.Because in the end, none of this was real. This wasn’t her life. Her life was with her fifth graders. She loved them so much. Much more than she loved Crappy Apartment and the lonely nights on her lumpy mattress. But those were part of her life too, and she was working her way up, saving money, planning to buy herself a little condo in Columbia Heights.That was her life. And she loved her life, damn it.But this…what Nathan had made her feel last night…physically, and deeper too. He’d made love to her all over, not only to her body. She’d felt adored, cherished.How could she do this again?
