I bring her mouth to mine and kiss her deeply, cutting off the sarcasm I’m sure was about to fall off her lips. My tongue sweeps across hers and I taste that same strawberry sweetness that resides in her blood. Every part of her is perfect: her taste, her smell, the feel of her. She has bound me, body and soul, and I would happily die tied up. But Joanna clings to me, pulling me to the side of the living with every breath, every touch of her lips against mine.
She is my light.
I see it in the way her skin glows, her expression brightens, and the very core of her soul sings to me.
She falls on top of me on the couch, and I grunt from the impact, still a bit weak.
“I’m sorry!” she cries. “It’s too much. You need to recover.” She inhales. “And shower.”
I squeeze her tighter and shift so she can lie beside me in the narrow space. “The only thing I need is you.”
We stay that way for hours, dosing in and out of sleep as we cling to one another, both afraid we’ll wake up and find the other gone. But that doesn’t happen. Our strings are strong.
At one o’clock in the morning, I open my eyes to find Jo looking back at me. I press my nose to her temple and inhale the sweet scent of her. She’s still here. And she’s real.
“How long have you been awake?” I ask as my hand absentmindedly massages her shoulder.
Her lips part, eyes glossy and bright. “Not long,” she admits. “I’ve just been thinking.”
I touch the side of her face gently. “Talk to me, Jo.”
She closes her eyes and ducks her chin, but I force her back up. “What is it? You can tell me.”
She swallows hard. As she speaks, I feel her warm breath fluttering across my jaw. “I’ve never done this before.”
“I know,” I tell her.
“I’m not always going to do the right thing.”
“I know.”
She sniffs and wipes a tear away with the back of her sleeve. “I’m so sorry,” she says, her voice cracking with defeat. “I was scared. You were right, I couldn’t talk about my feelings because they were too much. But they’re real. I felt them just like you.”
I close my eyes in relief. It’s all I wanted. I just needed her to say it.
“I’m still scared,” she admits. “I don’t understand what any of this means, but as long as you’re with me, I think I’ll be okay. You’ve been here all this time, even when I didn’t ask you to be.” She drops her forehead to mine. “I trust you Aidan. I trusted you with my body, so I should have known I could trust you with my heart too.”
I pull her against me and press her close.
She buries her face in my chest, then relaxes, resting her cheek just above my heart. “What if I retreat back into myself?” she asks fearfully. “I don’t want you to get mad at me.”
I press my lips to her temple as I mouth the words. “I won’t.”
She looks up, her deep brown eyes gazing desperately into mine. “You promise?”
I nod. “I swear it.”
Chapter Thirty-One
JOANNA
After falling back asleep for the fourth or fifth time, Aidan and I finally wake around seven A.M. Tuesday morning. I’m not worried about how my breath smells or if I was too clingy throughout the night—I just want to be as close to him as I can. I savor as much of this as my courage allows. For the first time in my life, I’ve stopped hiding and let myself feel something. It’s messy and it’s intense, but I did it. And now I’m here with the man who made it possible.
I don’t want to move from this spot on the couch, but it’s starting to get a little cramped, and I might have a spasm in my neck. And Aidan really does need that shower.
He strokes my hair lightly and kisses the bridge of my nose, then my mouth. His skin has regained most of its color by now, and I can see his spirits are higher.
“Are you feeling better?” I ask as I try to sit up. I was right: the muscle in my neck is fucked, but it was totally worth it.
