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Crushing my mouth against hers and swallowing the remnants of her words. A claim that felt all new and like a welcome home. Prickling at the top of my spine and begging me to hear the familiarity in it all while the overwhelming urge to put my own claim on this girl tried to drown out the voice beating on some invisible barrier I was just beginning to sense.
I lifted my hand, curling it around her jaw and tilting her head back to deepen the kiss. Falling deeper into her and getting lost in the way her lips moved against mine.
Soft and sure. Desperate and playful. Driving me out of my goddamn mind when she smiled before attacking the kiss with a renewed fierceness.
All intoxicating whimpers and teases of her tongue that about had me falling to my knees.
And I needed more.
I neededher.
As impossible as it was, I had a feeling I needed all of her forever.
“Chase—no,” Scarlet had choked over her tears, then curled her hands around my neck and pressed her forehead to mine. “No, no, no, don’t do this.”
“One of us has to,” I’d said, my own voice weighed down with exhaustion and emotion. “We can’t keep doing this.Ican’t keep doing this.”
“Don’t,” she’d begged. “Don’t say things like that.”
“Fuck, you think I want to?” I’d gripped her hands, intending to move her away, and had ended up holding her tighter. “But I’m the idiot still waiting around for you to choose him when you won’t.”
“No, no, no, that isn’t it,” she’d said over me. “You know that isn’t it! I’ve chosenyou. I want a life withyou. Only you.”
“Then tell me why we’re here,” I’d demanded through clenched teeth. “Tell me why we’re still each other’s goddamn secrets.” When a choked sob had been her only reply, I’d said, “Anything less than everything isn’t enough anymore, Scar. I need all of you forever or nothing at all.”
“Forever,” she’d cried out. “All of me. You have me, I swear it.”
“Chase.Chase,” Scarlet snapped, panic coating her voice as if she’d been trying to get my attention for a while.
I blinked quickly and found myself looking at the same dark, hypnotic eyes I’d just been staring into.
Only these were different.
Everything about the scene was different, even though it was the same.
There was still sand beneath my feet and waves were crashing close by, but the world was lit up from the late afternoon sun rather than drenched in deep blues and purples from the night sky.
And while Scarlet was clinging to me, it was in an entirely different way, and I only had a hold of her with one arm because the other was still in a sling. And the look on her face...
That love was there in an undeniable sort of way—the same love I’d been refusing to acknowledge over the last weeks. But the pain and grief and fear I’d just been staring at were now a mixture of worry and the heated remnants of our kiss.
“Are you okay?” Scarlet asked as her hand slid over my arm and then up to rest on my chest.
“What?” I asked, slow to catch up with reality when it felt like I’d never left it.
“What just happened?” she pressed anxiously. “You suddenly went still—likecompletelystill.”
My head moved in a slow shake as I tried to make sense of everything. Because I was sure I’d just had a memory—a real one—but it had bled so fluidly into the present that I would’ve never known what’d happened if it hadn’t been for the mind trip of switching from day to night and back again in just a handful of seconds.
“I, uh...” I shook my head harder and pulled away from her, feeling so damn unsteady when I’d finally felt stable for the first time in weeks.
It wasn’t until I eventually turned to look at the water that had been a constant throughout it all that I realized Scarlet was watching me, looking completely lost.
I cleared my throat and nodded toward the rocks that led up to the street. “Ready to go home?”
“Yeah, okay,” she whispered, then slowly started toward me.
Eyes trained on me. Worry lining every part of that beautiful face. And I had no idea what to say to her.
