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He shook as he held me back, and I reflected back on the words I said to him after Dylan was born. How I’d been so against us. I’d seen the hope in his eyes then. Didn’t he know how dangerous that could be?
So, I’d used his anger against him because I was afraid. But I wasn’t afraid anymore.
I pulled back and looked into his eyes. And then he kissed me and it felt like I was being ripped apart and put back together.
I felt my cheeks wet with love’s relief and I pulled back. “What are we doing?”
“I’m loving you, Noa. Can’t you tell?” He grabbed my face with one hand and kissed me hard.
He kissed me until I felt more like an entity than a person. I was a combined effort of everything we’d gone through and these particles, these events, they brought Noa Cruz together. I was a pixilated mass, synthesizing the sounds of our hearts, our lips, his voice. Our love.
“Love me back,” he said in response to the way I clenched, prepared for something to stop his kisses.
But it was only me holding us back. “If I give you myself, what then?”
He was running his fingers through my hair with one hand. The other dropped to my waist, gripping it tightly. All I knew was how good it felt to stop fighting. Damn the scars, damn the battles and the people who’d been caught in the crossfire amidst the war of us. When we came together, none of it mattered.
“If you give me you,” he whispered in my ear, “I give you me. And then neither of us are empty-handed.”
“For how long?” I asked. I didn’t let myself take back the unfair question. I’d done it too many times before.
“Forever.”
I gripped the back of his neck, bringing his lips to mine. He could promise me the world. But nothing made me believe him more than when his body was one with mine. I clawed at his clothes, anxious to feel that spark of kismet.
No other force on Earth could bring me to my knees the way Dexter Andrews could. I’d been afraid of that, but I was more afraid of living the rest of my life wanting him from afar. I could lie to myself. It would soothe the wounds momentarily, like a distraction. But in the long haul, I would—as the Angel of Death had said—be forever searching and never finding.
I wanted to find Dexter. More than I wanted to be found.
I gasped when his teeth grazed my skin. “I never stopped loving you,” I said, my tears falling.
“I know.” He continued to kiss a path down my skin, lifting my shirt over my head.
“How?” My hands were on the sides of his face, bringing his gaze to mine.
“You just needed to find yourself, Noa. Then, when you were ready, you’d let me find you again.”
“Forever searching and never finding…” I whispered the words against his skin and when I looked up at him, his eyes were closed.
He pulled me back and then drew me close again, our foreheads touching. “You talked to him?”
I nodded, unsure how he would take the news. “The day of Tim’s service. He sat beside me on the swings. Told me you were my soulmate, said that if I drank again, it would be my last. He…remembered taking Anna.”
Dexter’s grip on me tightened and when I felt moisture hit my skin, I realized he was crying silently.
“Shh. Don’t.” I grabbed at him, bringing any part of him to my lips.
“All this time and you knew?” he asked.
I nodded, afraid to speak. I was afraid he’d find another broken piece of me to hate. But no one would hate me the way I had these last few years.
I used to ponder if I could bear the brunt of his hate and mine. But Dexter’s love always succeeded his hate. His light drowned out the dark, and though there were shadows full of whispers of anger, there was more light than there was anything else.
And I envied it.
My hate was what I was more afraid of.
If Dexter walked away again, I wouldn’t make it. It would consume me, and I wouldn’t be able to fight it. I wouldn’t be able to be what Dylan needed. I’d split myself wide open for this man all over again.
