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“I wish I could go back in time,” I said. “Undo everything I said to you that night.”
“There’s no need for that, Char.” He reached for my hands, and I let him take them. “Trust me. That’s the biggest lesson I’ve learned in life: the clock never moves backward. As sure as death and taxes. So me wishing it to tick back is useless—it only hurts me in the end. I’ve learned to live with the past, but not inside of it.”
He came closer to me, and I didn’t move away. I didn’t want to. Never again.
I melted into him. His arms came around me, and I wrapped mine around him. I breathed him in, riding a rush of relief. Finally, I remembered, and I found home again. As much as it hurt to relive the trauma of that night, of my repressed and hateful self, I knew, deep down in my bones, that it was needed.
I had felt the raw burn of guilt, the rough stab of anger, the bitter taste of regret.
Finally, stronger than all and brighter than the sun, came love. Appreciation. Happiness. Comfort. Austin’s arms around me, his lips on mine, body against mine, it was a blanket of love, and I had no trouble admitting it now. Drinking it in like I’d found the fountain of youth, every sip a new explosion of magic.
My head against his chest, my walls down, my love off its restraints, I spoke without a filter. “I need you to love me again. The way you used to love me.”
The words barreled through me with the force of a dozen hurricanes. Every wall I had built up, every lie I had told myself, every wall in the house of cards I had built, everything all came tumbling down. The truth was laid bare, and so I spoke it.
And then Austin spoke his truth. “I never stopped loving you, Charlie.”
Austin pushed in, pushed me back, the counter bracing me, his hands finding my hips and his lips crushing against mine. Our declarations were sealed with a kiss of indefinite passion, unraveling me like a ball of wool thrown down the side of a sheer cliff. I gave the kiss everything I had, letting everything go so that the wild current of this moment carried me away.
“I love you,” I said, again and again, with my breath being stolen from me between every word, with every kiss, with every new “I love you.” Austin echoed me, the words tattooing themselves over the scars. It tasted so sweet, living in this truth. It made me feel a swift slice of sadness over younger me being so terrified of this.
Bliss.
I’d been scared of this bliss. I should have known that I was powerless to fight against my true feelings. Love was strength. Love was power. Love came raw and bold and bright, and it always tasted sweeter than the lies I’d fed myself for so long.
Too long.
No more.
“I love you, Austin,” I said again as I came up for breath. Austin answered me with kisses on my neck, hands rubbing up my back, pulling me harder onto him. I moaned, loud, my body uncontrollable in the joy and pleasure and relief I was feeling. I pushed onto Austin, wanting to be on him, on top of him, one with him.
“Take this off, please.” I wasn’t one to beg, but this moment seemed to call for it as I tugged on the hem of Austin’s shirt, my fingers grazing over skin. The kitchen grew a thousand degrees hotter as Austin grabbed his shirt and ripped it open, buttons flying like shrapnel across the room.
“Fuck… that was hot.”
Austin grinned and licked his wet lips.
“Those next,” I said, pointing at his pants while I took off my shirt (the old-fashioned way).
Austin looked like a fucking god, standing there with his trimmed chest, his tan skin making the gold in his necklace and bracelet pop like he had plucked them straight from the sun. His chest rose and fell with his breath, nipples already perked, matching the stiffness that pressed against his white briefs.
His hard cock was outlined perfectly against the soft material, tucked against his thick thigh. A patch of dark hair poked from the waistband and made my mouth water and my body fill with need.
I went back to kissing him, wanting my body all over his, never wanting this night to end. It started off rocky but was quickly turning into a night of love until the sun came up. I would have happily dunked us in amber and preserved this moment for the rest of eternity, keeping us together in this bliss and starry warmth until the end of time.
If I had known what was in store for us, I would have worked way harder for that amber.
