“Lily, you need to stop trying to push me away, thinking you don’t deserve a second chance. I don’t need time, nor do I want it. I loved you then, and I love you now, possibly even more. Your selfless spirit—you’ve always been mine, mine to love, mine to cherish, and mine to protect. Sure, outside forces might have driven us apart years ago, but we’ve found our way back to one another because that’s what happens when you’re soulmates. You’re mine, and I’m never letting you go again.”
Jaxon threaded his fingers through my hair, angling my neckupward before he crushed his mouth against mine, stripping me of any lingering doubts as he deepened the kiss, flooding my senses with a longing so deep it erased every second of our time apart, folding the past and present into one breathless moment in time.
He gave himself to me entirely without fear or restraint as his tongue stroked against mine with a seamless finesse that felt like coming home to your person.
Warm and familiar.
It was a tangible mix of urgency and reverence.
The tenderness of the way he held me close, the pent-up years of longing and need, poured out from both of us as we gave into the feeling that was uniquely ours. It was the kind of kiss that didn’t just stir a plea, it anchored us with every beat of our hearts, every breath united.
Nothing had ever felt so right as in that moment. I felt centered and safe, in a way I hadn’t allowed myself to feel in years. It was as though every twist and turn my life had taken, in a strange way, had to happen the way it did for the stars to align and bring me to where I ultimately stood.
Back in his arms.
Exactly where the universe always meant for me to be.
“Now do you believe me?” he asked with love-drunk, hooded eyes and a grin that brought every part of my body to life. “Do you trust me?”
“There isn’t a single soul on this earth I trust the way I trust you, Jaxon.”
“I’m going to hold you to that, Lily-Bee.”
He’d barely finished the words before his mouth was eagerly on mine again. And when he whispered that old nickname, the one only he ever called me, I felt my heart begin to mend. It wasas if all the tattered threads holding my heart together had new life breathed into them, weaving through all the cracks and valleys, healing me softly with unhurried strokes of his tongue, pulling me back together piece by piece as I clung to him like the air I’d been missing.
Chapter Eight
Jaxon
“Skydiving?” Lily practically shrieked with a what-in-the-actual-heck expression of disbelief pinching her brows. “You brought me skydiving?”
Yesterday I went to the lake house, planning to finish laying the tiles in the primary bathroom, but instead ended up sulking around the property, lost in my head the entire day, getting shit-all done.
What I hadn’t anticipated was Lily showing up and baring her beautiful soul.
I didn’t lie when I told her the reason she left didn’t matter because what mattered the most was that she’d come back. I’d spent far too long lost in a toxic mix of fear and anger, imagining the worst, then placating my theory about her family.
So, seeing her back here, breathing, and alive—it was enough.
I trusted her to tell me, when she was ready, the backstory, but the weight that left me once I learned the truth was likelifting a veil and shining a light on the shadows that lurked in the corners of my mind.
The reality that she thought I’d be angry with her for choosing her family and protecting me was admirable. My brave girl sacrificed herself, and that was something I’d never forget. But her father—I couldn’t begin to reconcile the weight of what he’d done. How could a father be so selfish?
Yet, I knew better than to search for the logic in human behavior, as there was often no rhyme or reason for why certain people put their interests above those of others in that manner so deliberately. In life, we are all born with instincts, whether we realize it or not, and sometimes those instincts can lead us astray with a single decision. It was often then that we faced a choice: learn from our mistakes and grow, or keep making them.
But betrayal from a parent had to cut deep in a way that was unparalleled to any other kind of pain. Life blessed my brothers and me in the parent department, but I also knew it was a rare blessing these days.
“I take it you’ve never been?” I asked.
“What have I ever done that’s given you the impression I’d want to hurl myself out of a plane from what, ten thousand feet in the air or more?”
“I know you; you’ll hate it right up until the second you absolutely love it because you’re fearless at heart,” I said, smiling, because she was just too darn cute when she was being sarcastic.
“I used to be that girl,” she paused. “Leaving changed me. The old me is gone.”
I reached for her hand and brought it to my lips, placing a soft, reassuring kiss on her skin.
“Nah, she’s not gone. She’s stronger and more resilient thanever, not to mention even more stunningly beautiful, if that’s possible.”
