“Oh my god.” Esme hugs me. Hard. She breathes raggedly against the shell of my ear while she crushes against me. “You’re such a good man. I have doubts, but you being anything otherthan the best human in the whole world isn’t one of them. We’ll get through.”
She kisses me, moving from the side of my mouth, over to my chin, back up to my lips. She tastes my lips, taking her time like she’s sipping at them. Her breath mingles with mine. I rake my hand through her hair and cradle her head, cupping it so gently, while my other hand splays over the small of her back, steadying her, holding onto her.
Her lips seal over mine, working slowly, but consuming me all the same. I didn’t know that it could feel like this, all these different kisses, conveying so many things. There’s still heat in this, but it’s more consuming with less hunger. It feels more like Esme is reaching right down to my heart and soul and taking it in her hands.
I shudder against her.
“We’ll go slow. We’ll fall. Together.” She kisses my cheek and then my nose, and peppers kisses along my jaw. “I already love you. It won’t be hard to tip the rest of the way into it. You lead. I’ll follow. Show me how you want to be adored.” She lifts her head. “Actually, no. I mean, yes, but I’ll take the first step.” She backs off and gives me her hand. “Let’s do the security, then we can go for a walk and explore this place. It’s so pretty out here. We can cook dinner together, and then have another fire, or whatever you’d like. We can fall asleep in the same bed. Not to do anything. Just you beside me and me beside you. We can wake up together as the start of something new.” She blinks rapidly past eyes filling with moisture. She sounded so confident and hopeful, but she still has questions in her eyes when she turns them up to mine. “Does that sound okay?”
My heart stutters, stops, and overflows. This time, I’m the one who tips her face up and kisses her. “It sounds perfect.”
Chapter 17
Esme
The bed is a king, so there’s plenty of room between me and Wizard. It still feels like we’re pressed right up against each other. Hearing his deep, even breaths, feeling all the heat he’s throwing from his side of the bed, smelling the lingering woodsmoke, fresh air, cologne scent that’s uniquely his… it turns me inside out.
After we got in from the fire, we changed and brushed our teeth in separate rooms, but we got into bed together. We were as stiff as two people could be, more boards than humans. We laughed about it, which was nice. And then, he turned on his side, told me goodnight, shut his eyes, and was just… out.Hard.
Fresh air, emotional turmoil, hard work, and a lack of sleep finally took their toll on him.
I might have been through most of the same, but tonight, it works the opposite.
I keep running everything through my head, repeating Wizard’s sweet words and gentle promises from earlier like a mantra, until I can fit inside of them comfortably.
I replay all the details from earlier. The press of his body against mine, the way we swayed and bumped together, the sounds he made as he poured himself into our first, and second, and third kiss.
Thinking about building a life with him, about there no longer being justmeis already changing and rearranging me from the inside out. If this works—no,whenit works,whenwework, it’s going to be epic. It might feel like throwing that Hail Mary pass, an all-out, pedal down to the floor, balls to the wall, wild and crazy leap, but I’m leaping with someone who always felt, at the heart of me, like home. Like an extension of myself. I want those tight stitches threading us together in seams that can’t be torn apart. Day by day, stitch by stitch, I want to relearn what home can actually look and feel like.
Wizard grunts. His breathing changes. It goes from steady to sharp inhales and forced exhales. His chest rises and falls, but jaggedly, in panting bursts. Is he having another nightmare? I definitely want to cut that off.
“Wizard?” He wakes up as soon as I shake his shoulder. He blinks up at me, pupils blown out, eating up all the green. The glow from the lights outside illuminates how beautiful he is, rumpled and sleepy, how soft and sweet and unguarded he appears right as he wakes fully. “Hey. Sorry.” I stroke his cheek. “I thought you might be dreaming again. I wanted to wake you up before it got bad.”
“Thanks.” He’s awkward and the word groans out like wind through a long tunnel. His eyes dart away and won’t meet mine.
“Are… you okay?” I lay facing him. I want to wriggle closer. I want him to pull me into him, to twine our bodies together until every part of us is touching again. Golden light spills over the bed, broken by shadows from the trees and the roofline. I take a chance and reach for his hand. It’s on top of the covers already. “Wizard?” Our fingers brush. He doesn’t jerk away. I don’t mind being the one to make the first move, but Ialso don’t want to do something he doesn’t want. Sharing this bed is intimate on a completely different level, even if we’re not touching.
He seems to be struggling for air, then as soon as he gets it, he blows out a long breath. “Iwasdreaming, but it wasn’t bad.”
His words are weighted. My heart squeezes tight before I realize what he means. “Oh. Is that… does that happen often?” Probably. Because he’s been fucking tortured half to death with my silence and obliviousness over the years.
He mumbles something under his breath. When I have the courage to look at him again, I know it’s not a trick of the lights. He’s reallythatred.
“I—sometimes. Not all the time. I’m a guy so… probably more often than it should.”
“I don’t think dreams are something to be ashamed of. I don’t think giving yourself pleasure is shameful either.”
He groans like I’m killing him. “Esme…”
“Would you like to?”
“To what?” he gasps.
“To touch yourself.”
“No!” His eyes fly wide open. “God. No.”
I swallow nervously, but it’s only because my heart is pounding. Desire explodes through me, nearly taking me away like a flash flood. I kept asking myself why there weren’t signs earlier. Why didn’t my body tell me that Wizard was it? Maybe there were some signs, though. A racing heartbeat. A smallflutter in my stomach. I just didn’t recognize it for what it was. I had so much going on in my head that I wasn’t fully aware of what my body was trying to tell me.
