AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Her words pulse through my veins like the electrifying thud of a hard rock baseline. I smell the jasmine and vanilla notes of her hair mixing with the scent of summer. It's dizzying. Goddamn hypnotizing. Just being this close to her is enough to make me lose my inhibitions completely and forget my own name.
She's always had this effect on me.
But now so more than ever.
Because she's finally giving me the one thing we've been missing since we were kids.
Trust.
Staying away from her has been hell. Forcing myself to put distance between us when all I've ever wanted is to be right by her side was the hardest thing I've ever had to do. But god if it wasn't worth it. It gave her the space she needed to finally rebuild the parts of her soul that had fractured at the hands of cruel men. She slayed her dragons, drove a dagger into the heart of her predator and helped other women do the same. She held their hands when they did, then celebrated in unity when they finally took him down. And though I couldn't be there physically, best believe I was cheering her on the entire way.
Then, after all that, she came home to do something I never thought was possible.
She forgave the failings of her father.
She gave him grace in death and forgiveness when he didn't deserve it. For that, I guess she's a better person than I am. Because I wouldn't have been able to do it.
The journey to get here may have been one she had to go alone, but it was a victory she needed for herself. Not for me, or her mama, or for clearing her name in this town.
It was just for her.
And I'm so fucking proud of her for it.
“Can I kiss you now?” I ask, my hand already cupping the side of her face.
Brushing my thumb up and down her cheek, I run it across her bottom lip. She shivers and I feel the hiss of her breath against my skin.
“Please,” she whispers.
But my mouth is already on hers, reclaiming her lips as my own even though that's what they've always been.
Mine.
She has always and will always belong to me, no matter how many months or years pass between us, no matter how many times she breaks my fucking heart. She is mine, just as I am hers.
Sighing into my mouth, her small hands run up the column of my neck to hold the sides of my face. It's a simple touch, but it lights me up like gasoline, the familiar crackle of electricity I feel whenever she's around fizzing to life.
Five months I've been without the taste of her lips and I've been like a starving man ever since. I ache to feast on her, to quell my hunger for her mouth and satiate my cravings with her sweetness. Because her lips are the land of milk and honey. They are my fucking promised land. But somehow, I force myself to hold back, to go slow, to give us the kind of tenderness we both need from this moment.
Goosebumps break out across my skin, tingling like a drug high as our tongues welcome each other home. Thea shivers, her fingers in my hair digging deeper into my scalp for just a second before she pulls away.
“You okay?”
She nods, but there's sadness hiding inside the green of her eyes. “Do you hate me?”
“I could never hate you.”
Her brows pull tight, her bottom lip disappearing inside her mouth. “But how? How could you not hate me after the way I've hurt you? How could you not resent me for making the same mistake time and time again?”
I slide my hands from where they rest on the small of her back around to her waist. “Because I understand the reasons why you did.”
“But I broke your heart,” she argues, as if trying to compel me into hating her.
“Twice,” I say. “And don't go thinking for one minute that I'm not mad as hell at you for it. But I don't hate you, Thea. It’s the opposite. I love you so fucking much that I don’t know who I am without you, without your scent in my nose and your taste in my mouth.”
She sniffs, her shiny eyes reflecting the golden light of the late-afternoon sun. “Yeah?”
I nod. “Yeah.”
