“Go ahead, Claire, ask me what I dream of when I close my eyes every night.”
“Me?” I breathe.
Vaughn steps close and bends his head so his lips brush feather soft over mine. Heat coils deep inside me and spreads over every inch of my skin. “You, Claire. Always you. Your lips. Your skin. Your laugh. Every night I would dream of you and you got me through it all.”
His lips brush against my cheek, the corner of my lips. The lightest touch that sends shivers across my skin. His breath steals mine and I fall into him, knowing I’ll never be able to climb my way back up from him.
“I waited for you,” I say against his mouth. “I wanted you to find me. I was so scared you wouldn’t. I was afraid your mother—”
“Don’t say her name,” he growls, hushing me with a finger to my lips. “Neither of us ever did anything wrong, Claire. We fell in love at fifteen and lost each other because of all the thingstheydid wrong. I’m not going to lose you again, and I’m not going to give up on you, on us.” The corners of his eyes glisten. It makes my heart ache. “You see, Claire, I havea problem. No matter what I try and do, I can’t shake you. No matter who I spent time with, or how I tried to forget, I couldn’t ever get you out of my dreams. Back then or now. Without even realizing it, I’ve been looking for you in every other person since we were kids, and—”
“I’m yours, you got me. Now shut up and kiss me again.”
And then his mouth is on mine and I realize I will never have enough of this man, his taste, his touch, his everything. Loving him is engrained inside me and I don’t know how to not love him.
He kisses me deeper, harder. Every part of my body melts and dissolves into his. My heart drums to the same beat as his, I feel it through his clothes and skin. I will never let this man go, ever again.
I never understood my mother’s and Silas’s affair. I never understood her willingness to be someone’s secret, living on the few crumbs of love Silas Montgomery would toss her way. All for a secret kiss, a lover’s embrace, a soft sensual touch. I think I finally know exactly how hard this feeling captures your heart, compressing it so tightly you know, without a doubt you would cease to breathe if it ever let you go.
