Her head fell, conflicted emotions warring in her eyes.
“I…” The truth clung to her throat, my own desire to wrap myself in the memory of her voice coaxing the words from her like a greedy bastard. I assessed the soft planes of her face with my gaze. She was older, skin a darker shade of cocoa, hair longer and the same rich hue of a coffee bean. My fingers itched to plow through the soft waves of silk, drown myself in everything I’d been missing. The very dream that’d kept me awake night after night.
“I’ve missed you,” I finally admitted, pulling her a few steps farther into my tiny room and closing the ancient door.
We were alone.
My palms prickled with anticipation.
I watched the sweet hollow of her succulent throat swallow before her eyes cascaded up my body, bare feet to naked thigh, boxer briefs to bare chest. “I don’t know why I came,” she finally blurted, eyes watery. “Only that I had to.”
My heart splintered, arms crushing her to me, soft sobs finally releasing as she buried her face in my chest.
“I didn’t know… I wasn’t sure…after all this time…” She whispered on repeat, words stuttering out of her between tears. “I thought maybe what happened between us was something that you’d done before, that what you and I had was…common.”
My own pain rose like a bubble to the surface, tears slipping past my eyelids and soaking into her hair. I wove my fingers deep into her tresses, both of our chests shuddering to the same heartbroken rhythm, and somehow—someway—with her, I came back to life.
“There’s never been anythingcommonabout us, dove.”
