It feels right. Like coming home.
"Firebird," Bash breathes. "I've missed you."
"Is it too late for us, Pretty Boy?"
He cups my face gently, slowly easing forward, giving me time to pull away if I want.
I don't want to pull away.
I'm free from everything that held me back before. I know it's fast, but I'm ready to take our relationship somewhere we've never let it go.
So I close the distance.
Our lips meet, soft and warm. Months of distance dissolve in a single heartbeat. My hand slides to the back of his neck, pulling him closer as my fingers tangle in his hair.
The kiss deepens. It's slow, careful, then turns hungry, filled with everything we've both been holding back for far too long.
My hand slides under the collar of his shirt, gliding happily across the front of his chest, fingers curling into the fabric.
And then I feel it.
A small, familiar shape beneath.
I stop, fingering the object through his shirt, tracing the outline.
"Bash?" I whisper against his mouth.
I feel him smile, watching me as I slip my fingers past the buttons on his shirt.
Pulling it free, the chain slides warm against my palm.
My breath catches.
The gold skating charm falls free and dangles between us, the tiny diamond catching the low light of the pendant lighting above us.
"You're wearing it?" I ask incredulously.
His arms circle tighter around me. "I've never taken it off."
Tears pluck at my eyes as the beauty of this moment steals my breath.
"Why?"
"Because I wasn't done loving you."
The world around us fades until there's only him and me and that symbol of love between us. My fingers closearound the necklace resting against his chest. The same one he gave me at Christmas that once rested against my skin. The one I chucked at the house in my anger that day he tossed me out.
He kept it.
Wore it.
Carried it.
I've been with him all along.
My lips crush his with such reckless abandonment that I feel it to my toes. It's as if that kiss says it all. The hope, the love, the desire. Everything I've felt for him all this time.
Finally free to breathe.
