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We both draw a quick breath this time, and then his mouth pulls a hard, clinging kiss from mine.
I feel the spark of it all the way to my toes.
It moves like lightning through every muscle, every bone, every synapse.
Finally.
Heartbeats and breaths stuttering, I kiss him back, and he kisses me, and I kiss him, and I’m on my tiptoes and I’m not steady, but he’s got me. He anchors me so well that I don’t stumble as he walks me backward, I just float up to the edge of the table, and the natural sway of him brings his chest over mine just like the first and last time he kissed me.
And this time, I’msowith him on it. I’m with him on everything.
That’s why, although our hands are fumbling for faces and shoulders and our lips want to part and I’m dying to give in to the heated desperation we’re teetering on the brink of, dying to really burst out of our restraint and eliminate the space between us, I stop kissing him to murmur ardently, “I’m so sorry, Landon. I’m sorry for what happened. Wedoneed you and Idoknow I go perfectly with you and I’m sosorryI said all those things—I shouldn’t have let myself get so scared. I wanted you so much and I knew it, knew you were right, but I was still afraid and I ruined everything.”
He exhales shakily, straightens us, closes me into a hug.
I return it as he murmurs, too, “Oh, Liv, no, you didn’t. It’s okay. I mean, it—it didn’tfeelokay. It hurt like a motherfucker. But I believed it wouldn’t stay that way because I believed we would fix it eventually. Waiting was hard, but I would’ve done it for much, much longer if it was what you needed.”
I sink my fingers into his hair, aching delight welling up in me. “Really?”
“Of course.” Even as he hugs me tighter, I can feel something in him loosening, telling me he’s missed my touch. “And I’m sorry, too. I didn’t mean it when I said I can’t have only part of you. If that’s all you can give me, that’s enough. What I can’t have isnothingof you. I need you with me somehow, so please tell me—I’ll do anything for you, just like I said before, so tell me how this has to be and I’ll accept it happily, I swear.”
As badly as I want to kiss him for that, kiss him foreverything, what I do is take his face in my hands and make him look at me.
“What I want is for us to be together. Really together. Everything you said to me that night, Landon, is how I feel, too. It’s what I want.” I swallow hard. “Do you still want it, too?”
His eyes are light as he nods. “Yes, Liv. Hell yes.” He glances at my lips. “Together-together, right? All the way? A real relationship?”
I nod, too, trying not to get distracted by my growing urge to get my mouth back on his.
“We can take care of Rae together like I was saying? You’re not afraid of it anymore?”
“Right.” After a moment, I speak again on the regret in my chest. “Please forgive me for what I said at—at the end of….”
His gaze softens. “I forgave you a long time ago. I knew you didn’t mean that how it sounded.”
My eyes fall shut at the comforting words. “Thank you.”
I feel his hands drift up and brush loose pieces of my hair behind my ears. “Of course.”
“I promise I’ll never freak out like that again.”
“And I promise I’ll never give you a reason to.”
The sincere words hang in the air and fill me with such hope, such happiness, that I don’t know if I want to laugh or cry. “Okay,” I whisper.
We stand here for a few quiet moments, just breathing this in, before he whispers back, “I missed you so much, Liv-Andria.”
That pushes me closer to crying.
I open my eyes so I can see him. “I missed you so much, too.” Rae drifts into my mind, and I feel tears coming on for sure. “How horrible am I for putting Rae through all of that along with us?”
He looks saddened by the memories, but his voice is soothing. “You are nowhere near horrible. You meant well. You wanted to do right by her. It just got complicated because what was right for her was right for you, too, and it caught you off-guard.”
That’s true. “Yeah.”
“She’s so funny,” he sighs into a laugh. “Do you know she called me yesterday while you were in the shower and said you care about me a whole, whole lot?”
My mouth falls open. “She told you I said that?”
