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“I’m honored you trusted me enough to be your first.” I lean closer and softly press my lips to the little raised scar on her forehead.
“And you’ll be my last,” she replies with confidence beyond her years as she slips her panties back on. “I’ve been fantasizing about you since I was twelve years old.”
I nearly choke on my tongue. I had no idea twelve-year-old girls thought about sex in any way. “Really?” I force out. “Are you serious?”
Nodding, she says, “My feelings for you aren’t new, Alex. Ever since I was little…” She pauses and breathes in like she’s grounding herself. “I knew someday we were going to be together. I can’t explain it. I just knew with every single cell of my being that you were mine, and I was yours. I’ve just been…” She stares off behind me, suddenly a million miles away. “Waiting,” she finally says, turning her gaze back to me. “I’ve been waiting.”
I hold her face in my hands and give her a tender, lingering kiss. I want her to know—to feel—how much I care about her. I don’t want her to ever doubt my feelings for her. “I hope the wait was worth it because I’m falling crazy, madly in love with you.”
A faint gasp rises from her throat.
“And I was thinking…” I reach for her hand that’s adorned with the ruby ring. “That maybe this could be a different kind of a promise ring now. A promise that I love you, and I’m going to do whatever I can for us to be together—really together in every way, not in secret—someday soon, hopefully.”
Her silence has my insides shaking like a leaf. I can’t believe I’m taking a huge leap of faith by promising my love to a woman almost half my age. But she captured my heart a long time ago. She helped me heal. She showed me happiness again. She inspired and motivated me endlessly. She showed me that I’ll always love Brianna but that I can also move on and love again—without guilt.
I can’t imagine a future without her.
“Shit,” I say nervously when she continues to stare at me quietly. Her eerie silence and blank expression are unnerving. My heart is threatening to shrivel back into the dark hollow of the last eighteen years. I’m beginning to wonder if I read this whole situation between us wrong.
As I search her face, her eyes widen, dark and glassy like an owl’s. She runs her hand through her hair, pausing to rub her temple, then shakes her head as if she’s trying to clear it.
“Penny? Am I scaring you away?” I let out a clipped laugh. “I never thought I’d feel like this. Is it too soon?”
Finally, she lets out a shaky sigh and touches the center of my chest with trembling fingertips.
“I’m not scared,” she says. “Are you?”
“Sometimes. A little.”
She smiles. “I’ve been in love with you forever, Alex. Your heart is safe with me for eternity. That’s my promise to you.”
Her words set off a string of déjà vu sensations in my head, but they’re quickly forgotten as soon as she cups the back of my neck and guides my mouth back to hers. She kisses me so softly, so intentionally filled with love, that it lulls my soul. I feel as if I’ve slipped into a dream and I’m almost afraid to breathe because I don’t want her to stop making me feel this way. Closing my eyes, I silently thank the universe for not giving up on me.
Happiness and love have found me again.
“But you said it wrong,” Penny says with a bemused smile when she pulls away. The tone of her voice has shifted again, and her eyes have taken on a startling, greener hue. “You’re not supposed to say you’re falling in love with me. You’re supposed to say, I love you like the stars love the moon. Endlessly, for shining light in the dark and guiding my heart to a safe place.”
A shudder zips down my spine, scattering goose bumps over my skin. Cocking my head at her, I narrow my brows.
“What did you say?” I ask.
“I said—”
Quickly cutting her off, I shake my head in frustration. “I heard what you said. Why did you say it?”
She pales. “Because it’s what you’re supposed to say.”
I feel as if an icy hand has seized me by the throat. Her words, her ashen face, and the sudden loud static in the air surrounding us have engulfed me with unease.
“How do you know that, Penny?” I ask suspiciously. There is absolutely no way she could possibly know I once said those words.
Twenty years ago. Before she was even born. To Brianna.
Penny’s bottom lip quivers under my expectant stare. Her voice wavers. “You know why. I was there.”
A feeling settles over me that I’ve never felt before. It could only be described as walking into a pitch-black room and suddenly plummeting through the floor, falling endlessly.
