Page 47 of Painted Truths

Like we had at the Gala, but this feels entirely more intimate. Infinitely more organic.

And now that I’ve seen her in the flesh after all this time, I can’t help being pulled into the gravitational force that makes up her very essence. She moves me.

Doing something that comes more naturally than breathing, but is inherently unlike me, I let her hand go now that she is within touching distance and close my arms around her small, fragile body. Then, sensing that I have done this, as though we are that inextricably intertwined so that she has a place to let it all out without the world watching her fall apart, her forehead falls against my chest as she sobs quietly, locked in the safety of my arms.

Standing still and tall, I feel a dormant part of my soul awaken in recognition of its other half as I inhale her very essence.

The realisation shoots through me like a lightning bolt.

I don’t want to be like my dad as a rule, but more importantly, I don’t want to make the same choices he did. I don’t want to regret choosing the wrong woman like him, or in this case, not choosing the right one, especially when she keeps being set in my path, like serendipity.

Leaning down and placing a gentle kiss on the top of her golden head, I can feel her body jolt, as though she had been in a trance and was just now coming back to awareness.

Speaking with her face still turned in against my chest, I have to strain to hear her hoarse words above the noise of Misdirection and their legions of fans.

“I’m so alone. I’m…” Her voice hitches alongside my heart. “They’re gone. Hearing Brothers and the emotion poured into it, everything just hit me. How much I’ve lost—my sister, my parents, my home and….” She trails off, sighing deeply, and I think she won’t finish her sentence for one long minute.

Instead, she takes a deep breath and swallows audibly.

“You, Henry. I feel like I lost you, which is ridiculous when I never had you to begin with, and that feels like the hardest loss to take because you’re here, and I still can’t have you. I’m an idiot to even think anything could ever be between us.”

The innocuous way she voices all the thoughts that have been bouncing around in my fucking mind all week drives home just how broken she is underneath her fiery, feisty exterior and the idea that she resides in her own lonely world, just like me, takes root in my mind.

Could we be more alike than I had thought? Both of us have lost so much and yet here we are—despite it all.

Could we be the light to chase away the other’s fears, the other’s misgivings, the other’s… brokenness? And suddenly, the vow I made to my father doesn’t seem overly significant. Fixing things with Alex seems an impossibility. The only thing of value is this woman in my arms, giving me honesty and, dare I hope, zero judgement.

“Olivia, look at me.”

Her face remains steadfastly facing my chest as her hand comes around my body to be placed palm down against my faltering heart.

I gently pinch her still quivering chin between my thumb and forefinger, forcing her to meet my gaze. Blue on green, each colour warring for dominance, both wanting so badly to forget everything outside of this moment.

“Peaches. Please.”

She closes her eyes as though unable to face the longing in my eyes, her nostrils flaring the only indication she has heard me before she places both her hands on either side of my face, all fight relinquishing from her body.

And in that moment of her glorious surrender, I know as surely as I know I need air to breathe that if I don’t kiss her now, right this fucking second, I’ll regret it for the rest of my miserable fucking existence.

Releasing her chin, I wrap my hand around the nape of her neck.

Jesus, it feels like home.

Her eyes open and meet mine again, way too innocent to be real, before I close the distance between us. Our lips meet gently, hesitantly at first, before she inhales a ragged breath, deeply through her nostrils, then opens her mouth to allow our tongues to dance together in an age-old rhythm. Her low moan into my mouth shoots desire the length and breadth of my body.

Her kiss is as lethal as a shot of venom straight to my cold, dead heart, but instead of finishing me off, it brings the fucker back to life.

First, a slow throb.

Then a steady thump.

Followed by a galloping beat.

We kiss as though we’d never stopped. Her body moulds to mine like we are meant to be. Her firm breasts are pushed hard against my chest as she presses against me, seeking more, wanting what only I can give her.

What only we can be when we come together.

Surely, she can feel my cock pressed hard and wanting against her abdomen. He knows her and recognises her as I lay claim to my Peaches, uncaring of the hustle and bustle of the ongoing concert around us.