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I tried to detangle myself.
He was right. I was being selfish.
But he gripped my ass and dragged me tight against him. “Don’t make me have to let you go again. I swear I won’t survive it.”
I closed my eyes. He really hadn’t learned anything since he’d been away. “Ian, that’s why—”
He lifted me against him tighter until I opened my eyes. “No, not because I’ll toss myself off the nearest bridge, for fuck’s sake. But because I’m a better man with you. I’ve always been a better everything because of you. Better lyricist, better musician, better human. It’s because we go together. I keep you from turning into a hermit covered in paint, and you keep me from the darkness.”
I closed him out again, but it was no use. I heard the song in my head. The one he’d released and the world wouldn’t stop playing on every damn radio station from country to rock. The only time I could escape it was in silence or my own playlists.
Because Ian had even brought music into my life. Color used to be more than enough—loud enough.
But now the silence was too much.
My colors weren’t enough.
Maybe they never had been and I was too blind to see it.
“Letting you go
Is what I’m supposed to do
Made you that promise
You made one too
But leaving you behind
Feels like dying inside
The best part of me
Is still in love with you”
I pressed my forehead to his as he finished the husky, soft lyrics against my lips. “Dammit, Ian.”
He smiled against my mouth. “You know it’s true, Magic. We are each other’s other half, better half. And if you need more time to come to terms with that, I’ll give it to you. It will kill me to put you down right now and step back, but I’ll do it.”
“Just shut up.”
“I love you, Zoe Jayne Manning.”
“You’re incorrigible.”
“I love you madly.”
“Insane.” I crossed my arms behind his neck, pressing my chest closer to his.
“Insanely in love with you.”
I covered his mouth with mine. It was the only way he’d stop talking. Even as the words wanted to erupt from my chest. One arm supported my butt and his other slid up my back to cup the back of my head and turn me to the angle he wanted.
Yes.
This was the Ian I needed.
The one who knew how to touch me, how to hold me, how to make me feel everything. He walked me back until we crashed into ladder to my loft area. It wasn’t the most romantic way to lure him to my bed, but I didn’t want to do this down on the lower part of the barn where anyone could come through.
