“I know I kept secrets. I know I hurt you too. I know I don’t deserve for you to trust me. But it still hurts that you… that you don’t.”
I kiss his chest, his shoulder. “I want to. I’m… I’m trying.”
“I know you are, baby. You’ve spent so long depending on no one but yourself that it makes sense you’d immediately assume you had to take care of things on your own. But it’s not going to work if you keep doing that. I mean, if you even want it to work between us.”
“I do.” I’m close to tears again, but they don’t fall. “I want it to work between us, Micah. I’ll… I’m going to try.”
“Okay.” He pulls me up farther so he can nuzzle my hair.
“Okay?”
“Yes. It’s okay. You forgave me when I let you down. Did you think I’d let something like this be the end of us?”
“I… I didn’t know.”
“Well, Idoknow. It won’t work if your self-sufficiency is the most important thing to you, if that’s more important to you than me. But if you’re gonna work on it, then I’m good.”
“You mean it?”
“Yes, I mean it, baby. I love you. You know that, right?”
“Yes, I know it.”
“I want a life with you. All the way. Forever. So if Ineed to wait a little while before you’re secure enough to really trust me, I can do that. I can do it happily. It means you want me enough to work for it, and that feels kind of like a dream come true.”
I can’t hold back the throaty sound of emotion. I find his face in the dark and kiss him, deep and urgent and all in.
He responds immediately, sliding his tongue into my mouth, moving me on top of him, and pulling my thighs apart so they’re straddling his hips. We kiss for a few minutes, all heat and raw feeling. His cock grows hard against me, and soon I’m aroused enough to be comfortable. So I lift up enough to let him slide into my pussy, and we both moan at the penetration.
He’s there. Inside me. All the way. Right where he’s supposed to be.
He pulls me back down into another kiss as we move rhythmically together. We’re both exhausted and emotionally stretched, so we don’t last very long.
After a minute, our carnal motion causes enough friction against my clit for me to come in a wave of pleasure, and he falls out of rhythm almost immediately afterward, jerking his hips up in clumsy thrusts as he grunts against my mouth.
He lets out a hoarse exclamation as he yanks himself out at the very last moment, coming onto my stomach instead. Then he pulls me down into a hug.
“Kat, baby, I love you.”
I feel it. I want to say it too. But there’s still a block in my heart that holds back the words. Instead, I murmur, “Thank you for saying it. I’ve never known anyone with a heart as big as yours.”
He kisses me gently. Then his body shakes with soft huffs of amusement.
“What’s so funny?”
“Of course the body part you praise for its bigness would be my heart.”
This makes me giggle. “Well, the rest of you is pretty big too, but your heart is the biggest.”
“Okay. I’ll take it.”
We lie together in tired contentedness for several minutes. His breathing slows down so much I think he’s actually asleep.
But then he says into the dark room, “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For bringing back my sister. I always figured it would take a miracle to get my sister back, but I should have known that miracle would be you.”
