AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She nods, her breathing quickening as the first wave hits, pulling me under with it.
I groan into her mouth as she cries out my name. My body switches to autopilot, and keeps moving, keeps sliding inside her as we come together. Breath, lips, tongues, words, hearts… all tangled together in one.
All existing for the other, and for this exact moment in time.
Nothing more. Nothing less.
We ride it out, until exhaustion finally wins over. Not only physical, but emotional. The emotional weight of today and all that’s happened.
I pull out and roll onto my back, keeping one arm around her waist so she comes with me, nestled into my side.
We lie back against the blanket, and I stare up at the completely darkened night sky. Rose sighs and rests her head over my heart, tracing my compass tattoo absentmindedly.
“Get some sleep, Sunbeam,” I whisper into her hair with a kiss.
It doesn’t take long until her breathing slows.
Then I close my eyes and tighten my grip on her.
The fire’s almost burned out when I wake up. And my hoodie is still over us, where I covered Rose during the night. It must be around five thirty, because the first rays of orange are lighting the sky behind the estate’s treeline. Soft, glowing beams signaling a new day.
Rose shuffles in my arms, sleepy noises making way for a yawn as she blinks her eyes open.
“Morning.”
She twists her face to look at me, and her eyes light up. “Morning you.”
The corner of my mouth curls into a smile and then I lean down and graze her lips with a kiss.
She kisses me back, sighing happily against my lips when I suck on her bottom one.
Something has changed between us overnight. Maybe not changed, exactly. But grown. Grown and embedded itself. Until it’s no longer small enough not to acknowledge out loud.
Last night, I made love to Rose. It wasn’t sex. It wasn’t fucking. Not that it’s ever been just that with her.
Last night changed something.
I knew what I had to do before I even wrote that note and burned it in the fire.
But now I don’t just want to do it. Ineedto do it. Every part of me is screaming at me to do it now. To let go of the past and to grab on to something else.
Her.
Rose rests her arm over my body, her fingers curling around my side and stroking my stab scar.
I force away the memory of the blade sinking into me that day. It’s still as fresh as the day it happened. The sound of theflickas he extended the blade behind me. The sour smell of his breath against the side of my face as the blade broke my skin and he kept pushing it deeper. Then the metallic taste in my mouth, and the bright red blood on my hands as an alarm was set off, vibrating off the concrete walls of the dining hall we were in.
I can’t prove Julian was responsible for paying the guy who did it to me. But I know it was him. Instinct tells you everything sometimes. He didn’t just want me locked up. He would happily have had me dead. All for what? Money and the chance to take over the estate and business if Jasmin had to sell?
Rose continues stroking the healed skin and I take a deep breath of morning air.
Another sunrise. Another new day.
“Dax.” Rose’s eyes move between mine and I know what’s coming, because it’s on the tip of my tongue too. It’s been on the tip of my tongue all night. And at the front of my mind a lot longer. “I lo—”
“Shh.” I kiss her, cupping her neck in one hand and tracing my thumb over her pulse. “There are some things I need to do first. I need to be completely here for you when you say it. Because fuck, Sunbeam, I want to tell you too. I want to tell you so fucking much.”
I screw my eyes shut as I kiss her again. “Do you understand what I’m saying?”
