“You help me now, and I’ll end up needing another bath. Or…maybe I’d just have to join you in the shower.”
Since our kiss the other night, I’ve wondered about the next step. About when she’d be ready for more. But having her break in my arms this morning changed everything.
I know she doesn’t blame me, but that ain’t gonna stop me from blaming myself for the rest of my life.
She sits cross-legged on the little bench in the closet, wrapped in one of my old, flannel shirts, her damp hair curling against her shoulders. Waiting. For me.
“Didn’t mean to take so long,” I say, my voice rougher than I intend. “Just needed…to get my head on straight.”
She studies me like she can see every thought—every emotion—I’m trying to bury. “I just need you, AJ. Straight, crooked, or ass-backwards, I don’t care.”
I scrub a hand over my face, then force myself to meet her gaze. “Grace…the lantern. God—you needed me then, and I wasn’t there.”
“Stop.” She rises, sways for a breath, then crosses to me. The shirt hits her mid-thigh, exposing one of the deep, jagged scars running almost to her knee. She’s still so thin. Still unsteady. But so much stronger than she knows.
“You keep saying you should’ve protected me. But…you did. I don’t need my memories to know that. You’re the reason I didn’t give up. The reason I’m still alive. The reason I’m here now.”
My chest tightens. She’s staring up at me like I hung the moon. But she’s wrong. “Grace?—”
She takes my hand and presses it to her chest. Her heart beats steadily against my palm. “Feel that. Feel me.”
Draping her arm around my neck, she pulls me down to seal her lips to mine.
Her taste is sunlight and spring time and fresh mint. My dick throbs, and under the old flannel, I feel her nipples harden to tight buds against my chest.
The towel I’m wearing like armor keeps us apart when we should be coming together. But it’s too soon. She’s not ready.
Her other hand slides down my back to my ass.
Fuck. Fuuuuck.
“Grace, are you sure? Don’t do this because I’m an idjit who can’t find his way?—”
She silences me with another kiss. Her tongue traces the seam of my lips, and I open for her. Three years fade away in an instant as my wife presses closer, her hips grinding against me.
Pulling back a fraction of an inch, she whispers, “I’m doing this because I’m strong enough to choose you. Because even without all my memories, I know I want you, Aaron.”
The air leaves my lungs.
Aaron.
I never told her what AJ stood for. I couldn’t. It was something sacred I thought we’d never have again. But she remembered. Somewhere deep down, she remembered.
“Then I’m yours, darlin’,” I manage. “Always.”
Hooking my hands behind her thighs, I lift her so she can wrap her legs around my waist, then carry her to the bed.
We sink down together. Her fingers comb through my damp hair as I press kisses along her jaw. The scent of her arousal is sweeter than honey, and fuck if I don’t want to bury my face between her thighs right now and taste her.
But this ain’t about me.
“What are you ready for, darlin’?”
She slides her hands over my chest, tracing the curves of my pecs, down my abs, all the way to the towel knotted at my waist.
I catch her wrist before she can tug it loose. “Grace.” My voice is so raw, it hurts. “Are you sure you want this?”
Tears shimmer in her eyes. “I want…to see you. To touch you. I want you to touch me.”
