I move closer to her on the bed, watching her with need. She looks so vulnerable yet so fierce at this moment, and I know what she's asking without words. We both need this closeness. I carefully take her in, lying next to her, scooting as close as I can until our noses touch. I place my hand on her waist, slowly reaching for the back of her dress zipper and opening it so carefully without losing eye contact.
“The distance between almost losing you and having you here,” I start, as the sound of the zipper fills the quiet room and eases it down her spine. My fingers brushing against her skin, feeling her shiver beneath my touch. “Showed me that all my fears of loving too deeply were nothing compared to the horror of loving too cautiously.”
The dress falls away, revealing bruises forming on her beautiful silhouette and the anger chokes me but I’m enthralled by her beauty, everything I feel for her brimming to the surface, everything I hold for her and needing more of, knowing it might never be enough.
I trail soft kisses across her face. “This is a kiss for every bruise, scratches, every time you felt abandoned, when you were left wanting to die.” I kiss her vehemently down her collarbone, pressing a hand to her dense breast. “A kiss for each self-inflicted scar.” As I trail a finger over her raised small scars on her thigh. “These scars are a testament to the choices you made to stay. You’re mine, Sara.” She sighs almost imperceptibly at my words, her bottom lip quivering.
“I've never been religious,” I whisper as I carefully slide the fabric lower, revealing her lace underwear, “but I made promises to every god I could name if they'd just let you walk out of that place.”
“What promises did you make?”
“Promise that I'll never imagine a world without you in it again.”
My voice breaks on the last words, and I watch as something shifts in her eyes, a light returning.
“A promise that I see you. You’re allowed to break Sara. You’re allowed to feel, to stop carrying everything alone.” I bring her hips a little closer to my body, the need to be next to her is so instinctive. “I know you’re strong, baby, but no one has asked why you had to be. You didn’t have a choice, but I’ll gladly carry anything you need to me to take away.”
She shivers in my arms. I know she’s never been armored and surrounded by someone who has cared enough to stay. I unhook her bra and slide the straps down her arms as she adjusts closer inside my chest. My hand holds the back of her head, she looks up for a fraction, a glimmer of surrender, and the pure euphoria of her goes straight to my dick.
“You scare the shit out of me, Liam.” She kisses my chest, her hand over my heart, and I can’t help letting out a chuckle.
“If I didn’t scare and haunt your thoughts just a little… I’d be doing something wrong.” At that, she smiles, gesturing for me toremove my shirt, and I grab the back of it and take it off. Her hand instantly trails over my chest, and everywhere our bodies touch, there’s heat.
“I don’t know how, but at this is the time I feel so lucky, Liam.”
“Me too, baby, me too,” I say without breaking our gaze, hers wide and glistening, I lean in close until my lips find hers. I kiss her with so much care and gentle fervor that I feel something fundamental shift inside me, my entire being aroused for her. This burning desire coursing through my veins makes me realize I'm a done man. There's no coming back from this and there is no returning to the person I was before her.
I strip off the last of my clothes, my jeans falling to the floor beside her dress. The need to feel her against me is primal, urgent. I guide her onto her back, peeling away her underwear with careful fingers, mindful of every bruise and scrape that marks her skin.
Finally, when there's nothing left between us, I pull her closer, skin against skin. The sensation of her body flush against mine is all I needed.
“Holding you like this…Fuck, you’re going to undo me.” I exhale against her hair, my voice raw with emotion I've never allowed myself to show anyone before her. She presses herself even closer, her hands splayed across my back, fingers tracing my tattoos, I brush her hair away from her face. “I need you to know something,” I clear my throat. “When I said you were never meant to be mine, I still would cross and burn every bridge if it led me to you.”
She watches me with those brown eyes that see through every defense I've built, her hands resting against my chest where my heart hammers beneath her palm. I can’t recall when this small, fiery woman looked into my soul and saw a man for everything that I never knew I was. She saw my shame, my sadness, my loneliness, my fight, my regrets, and didn't look away.
She looked straight at me and showed me that I’m not that hard to love.
The damage my father had done, the lies that I was a filthy, useless child when I begged my hero and role model to love me back, was never true. I let him take that power over me, I let him win when I internalized that I’m safer as long as I’m unloved, untouched, unapproachable. She triggered buried desires that were so far from my consciousness after years of convincing that I didn’t deserve any of it, let alone that anyone would deliberately want to give those things to me…and she’s brought a beast out of me, and that beast is hungry for her, one that can’t fathom a life without her.
“Promise me,” she whispers, her voice barely audible. “Promise me you'll still be here when I wake up.”
“I promise, Sara.” I pull her closer, my arms encircling her completely.
“I'll be right here. Every morning. Every night. Every fucking damn day.” I swallow, looking into her eyes. “Can you make me that same promise?”
She folds in my arms. “Yes, I promise.”
I guide her beneath the covers, pulling the soft duvet over our intertwined bodies. She nestles against me, her head finding its place in the crook of my neck. Her breaths come slower now, the panic and adrenaline finally releasing their grip on her.
“Sleep, baby,” I whisper, my fingers tracing lazy patterns on her bare back.
Thirty-Five
Sara
Three days later I finally feel better, clear minded and ready to face the things I needed to put on the side, locked into one of my little mind boxes,“Let’s ignore it for now until I gain mental stability.”
Liam is the one who fully endorsed me resting; between bringing me food in bed and his insatiable desire…I found myself again. That man can’t stop touching me, kissing me and I can’t keep my hands off him either. We spent hours in bed, forgetting the hour of the day, finding ourselves tangled, lips tolips, attached to each other, skin to skin, making love covered in sweat as the sun rose or set.
