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I turned on the pillow to look up at the ceiling. “I don’t know what to feel, Noah. Happy? I am happy, so happy to see you, I feel like I’m glowing. But you were so close. All this time, you were right there in front of me, in the audience, and I never knew it. Is that fair? That you knew where I was and what I was doing and I didn’t?”
“I wrote to you so that you wouldn’t worry,” he said. “It was all I could think to do, to try to make it easier on you. Just knowing you were in the same room was torture. But talking to you would break me. I’d have quit instantly.” He shook his head. “It was exhausting, doing this. I just got so tired. So many times, I wanted to give up and ask someone to point me in your direction. Even if you were still on the goddamn stage, I wanted to storm it and grab you and kiss you in front of everyone and never let you go.”
Despite the anguish for me, that inexplicable contentment behind his eyes never wavered.
“But that would have been selfish. It would have been me ruining your performances because I couldn’t stand my struggle anymore. And I had to struggle. I had to keep going, through every frustrating setback, through every wrong turn, every missed bus or train, every stranger I had to ask for help, until I found you. And when I did, I had to sit and listen to you play and know that the concert would end, and I’d have to make my way to the hotel alone, in another strange city, and start all over again the next day and the next, until I knew that I was ready. Until I could do it without rage and bitterness eating me up inside. I had to do this, Charlotte, until I stopped fighting it. Until I just…let go. And I did it for you. And me. And for us.” He shifted, his brows drawn. “Can you forgive me?”
“We’re in bed together, so…” I sniffled a short laugh, then the tears threatened again. “I just missed you so much. My heart ached, mybonesached…”
“I missed you too, baby,” Noah said. “And believe me, I never stopped thinking of how you must feel. But it would have hurt you worse, in the long run, had we kept going as I was. I know this, Charlotte, with the same certainty as I know my own name.”
“Okay,” I whispered. “If it means that we’re together now, then I’m glad you did it. If it brought you peace, then yes, of course I forgive you. Maybe there isn’t anything to forgive anyway.”
“There is. But it’s the last thing I’ll ever ask of you. Thank you, Charlotte. For waiting.”
He kissed me softly and sweetly, but when we pulled away, his eyes swept over me with such a strange, heartbreaking longing.
I stroked his cheek. “What is it?”
“A last wish I’m afraid won’t ever fade. I’ve made peace with my blindness, but if I could see just once more—just one thing in this world—it would be you. I would only need a second. One second, and I would hold the image of you in my heart forever.”
I kissed him softly, basking in the love between us. I marveled that he was here with me after what felt like years apart, saying these things to me—things I knew he’d never say to anyone else. Only I ever saw this gentle side of him. My joy defeated every lingering shred of regret, and I thought I knew a way I might be able to grant him his wish.
“You don’t need to see what I look like, looking at you. I can show you what you do to me, Noah. I’ll show you…”
Still lying and facing each other, I slipped my fingers into his silken hair at the base of his neck, holding him close. With my other, I took his hand and put his fingertips to my lips.
“Can you feel my breath? How uneven and fluttery it is?”
He nodded, and his eyes sought mine, missing, as they always did, but not empty, oh no. His beautiful hazel eyes were full of thoughts. I loved how they came so close to finding mine but missed, because that was him. That was who he was, and I loved him with every particle that was me.
“You steal my breath away, Noah, and what you’re feeling is me, trying to catch it back. But I never can. Not when you’re this close to me.”
Noah swallowed; I watched his Adam’s apple bob. I resisted the overwhelming urge to kiss him and moved just far enough to keep talking, our mouths brushing as I spoke.
I moved his hand lower, to my chest, over my heart. “Do you feel my heart pounding? Can you feel how it slams against my ribs? It does that constantly. Whenever you walk into a room, or when I see you, or hear your voice. It crashes so hard I’m afraid…” My voice tapered to a whisper. “I’m afraid it’s going to break.”
“Charlotte…”
I moved his hand lower, to my stomach. “Butterflies fluttering. Can you feel them? It’s the most pleasant anxiety…trying to navigate being with you, wondering if we might touch or kiss or argue, or just sit and talk. Either way, no matter what, when I’m with you, they’re there too.”
He nodded, his expression pained but full of longing too.
“I love you, Noah. With my heart and my soul and this body. With every part of me. I love you so much you don’t have to see it. You can feel it.” I swallowed hard and moved his hand lower and pressed his long fingers between my legs. “Do you feel it?” I breathed, brushed my lips against his. “Do you feel what you do to me?”
“Yes,” he hissed. “God, yes.” He sought to kiss me, and I gave him only a little taste, then pulled away again.
I pushed him onto his back and sat up, straddled him, and his hands clutched my hips, holding me still as his breath came in harsh gasps, drawing the lines of his muscles in even sharper definition.
I took him in hand and stroked him gently, but he was hard and ready again. Slowly, I guided him, watched my body take all of him. A little whimper of want escaped me at the exquisite pressure of him inside me.
Noah groaned, tilting his head back in the purest expression of ecstasy I’d ever seen, and gripped me hard, his fingers digging into my flesh. I rolled my hips slowly, torturously slowly, and bent over him. I brushed my lips against his with feather-light licks until he uttered a feral growl of frustration. He tangled one fist in my hair and crushed my mouth to his, and I felt a surge of heat race through me at the rawness of his kiss.
When he broke for air, I sat up, my hands on his chest, my back arched, taking him in and out of me in deliberate, languid movements until he obliterated my slow pace with his own bucking hips. Then I writhed. I lost myself, and when Noah sat up, I immediately moved to wrap my legs around his waist.
I’d never been this close to another man. His skin was flush with mine; there was no air, no space between us. I was bound to him in every way as we moved in tandem that was at once rough and lustful and yet more intimate and tender than anything I could have imagined.
His hands clutched me, lifted me onto his thrusts. I rolled my hips forward each time, taking him so deep inside me I wanted to cry.
