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“But you know it’s true, don’t you?” He looks at me, studying my face, and waits for an answer.
I squeeze my eyes shut for a moment as I mull over my own questions—what if I lose him again? What if this time I lose Derek too, or both of them. I open my eyes, staring back into his deep steel eyes, and whisper a barely audible question, “Yeah, but then you have a dangerous job, and what if I lose you both?”
“You can lose either one of us at any time. However, I can promise that I’ll never have a long ass mission that will take me away for more than a week—also, if I’m gone, he’ll stay or vice versa.” Finn glances toward Derek.
“It’s like you have a solution for every problem,” I try to make a joke of it, but the words come out wrong.
“I do, because I want to be by your side,” he says, clearing his throat.
“Why would you want me with you?”
“I never want to stop falling in love with you—for the rest of our lives. Forever. I wanted you even when I didn’t know you. Even before I woke up from my living nightmare. It’s been you. Always you. I didn’t know words, but you kept me alive—your heartbeat was enough for the two of us. I survived. I’m alive, and part of me will always belong to you.
“I don’t want you to hand it over. Sure, Derek is important, and I love that man with all my being, but you are part of us too. I don’t know how else to tell you this, how to explain it to you. I went through hell to slay my monsters, so they don’t come back and destroy what I love. I’m still grumpy and have trouble following social cues, but I need you in my life.”
He takes me into his arms. “You’re my home. Please open the doors and let me in, Pipe.”
All I can do is wrap my arms around him and pull him to me. I kiss him as if I don’t have air and he’s my only chance to stay alive. This time it’s not because our lips happened to meet but because I want to surrender myself to him. I want us to get to know each other again and grow this love between us.
I need him as much as he needs me.
ChapterSixty
Derek
The pent-upenergy inside me doesn’t let me sleep because I didn’t get the chance to have the discussion with Piper. She went to rest after her emotional conversation with Finn. Even after I let Finn fuck me in the shower, I’m still restless. I wish Piper hadn’t gone to sleep early. At least, that’s what I assumed she did until I hear a noise coming from outside the guest room where we’re staying for the night.
“Having trouble sleeping?” I ask when I catch her opening cupboards around the kitchen.
“Maybe,” she whispers.
“Are you about to bake?” I ask the obvious.
“No. I’m actually going to make myself some tea. It’s what I do after an hour of meditation,” her voice is low. “What about you?”
“We didn’t finish talking. I mean, maybe you and Finn did, but us…” I shrug. “It feels as if we’re not done discussing our own relationship.”
She smiles. “If he let you read the journal, you know how I’ve felt about you for…” She shrugs a shoulder. “I just couldn’t do it, knowing he wasn’t here.”
“What about now?” I ask because I know she has her doubts, and though I love them both and wouldn’t want to give them up, I would for her.
“I want this to work. I want us,” she mumbles. “It’s just hard to wrap my head around this when I worked so hard to forget you.”
“Did you accomplish it?”
“What?”
“Forget us?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “Not exactly, but I was ready to live a life without either one of you. And now I’m able to be on my own.”
“But that’s good,” I agree.
“How so?” She gives me a challenging look.
“You’re finally taking care of yourself, loving yourself. You were able to find Piper and be your own person. Not only did you need that, we all did. There’s no way we could be together and live with his ghost.”
“That’s all true.” She sighs and then steps closer to me, resting her head on my chest and tapping her hand slightly against it, imitating the beat of my heart. “I’m not saying I’m glad Archer went missing, but maybe we wouldn’t have ever noticed that we needed you too—that there was a missing piece. You.”
