I feel my pulse right where his tongue stops.
Feeling.
I feel again. His name lingers on my lips, but I don’t have the breath to bring it into existence. There’s too much emotion in my chest. Breathing is its own feat.
He nips and sucks at my flesh all the way up to my lips again, thrusting his tongue into my mouth, claiming all of me.
The swollen head of his cock teases between my legs. What if it’s a dream? What if I’m dead?
I have to know if this is real. “Hard…” I breathe as he sucks the sensitive skin along my neck “…unforgiving…” I pant “…or not at all.”
His forehead drops to the mattress above my shoulder as his hands hook behind my knees. Pulling my pelvis off the mattress, he drives into me.Hard.
I cry out, pinching my eyes shut.
“It’s the only way I know how,” he whispers in my ear between labored breaths.
*
My lips pressto his chest, relishing the warmth of his flesh against mine, our limbs tangled, the sheets twisted in chaos. The physical questions have all been answered with sex.But… to exist in this world together, we have to acknowledge emotion and reason.
I wanted to die, and for a moment in time, I honestly thought he wanted me dead too. Some things—certain emotions—cut so deep they become physical wounds to the soul. They bleed into the next life. Words can’t heal. Time can’t erase. At best, love can make them bearable.
We took each other to the breaking point, and I don’t know about him, but I think I actually broke. I resented every breath my lungs took, every blink, every heartbeat. I found peace in not wanting to exist. The darkness no longer felt cold. The pain evaporated.
“I need you,” I whisper.
Theo kisses the top of my head.
“I need you to help menotneed you.”
He pulls back to look at my face, his head resting on his folded arm, confusion a roadmap on his forehead.
My fingers pinch my bottom lip, tugging at it gently. I feel as much confusion etched in my own face. This is so hard to articulate. “I want to beat this cancer for you… but Ineedto beat it for me. I’m living for you at the moment because I…” Tears sting my eyes. Rolling my lips together, I blink them away. “I’ve lost the will to live it for myself.”
This is the lowest of all lows. Admitting I don’t want to live. I’ve never felt so weak, so pathetic, sonothing.
The pad of his thumb catches my tear before it gets away.
“I need you to teach me to walk again. Show me how to livewithyou, notforyou.” I shake my head, swallowing past the remnants of my pride. “I thought I had it. On Tybee, I felt peace, strength, grounded, unafraid. The cancer started to shrink. I was happy. I was different, and I loved the new me. I lovedlife.”
His thumb brushes my cheek again like its sole purpose in life is to catch every piece of me to do what he does best: put things together—putmeback together.
“But then you left, and I started to fall apart. That’s when I realized everything I did on Tybee was tethered to you and the farther you were from me, the more I unraveled. I was the bird who built my nest in a beautiful oak tree. I was so proud of my nest, my home. Then a storm came along and knocked down the oak tree.”
“I’m your tree,” Theo whispers.
I nod.
His thumb moves to my lips. There’s so many unspoken emotions in his expression.
“Scarlet …”
My name. Will the day ever come that my name passing his lips doesn’t bring tears to my eyes?
My name is Scarlet Stone and kids make fun of my name. I don’t understand what’s wrong with my name.
I didn’t recognize the man who threatened to kill me, and I don’t recognize the man before me with so much regret in his eyes. The muscle in his jaw ticks and his nostrils flare on a long exhale like his silence is the only thing holding him together.
