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He pulled me closer until I was flush against him. “I booked us a room, but we don’t have to go there. You say the word and I’ll take you home.”
“Never let me go,” I said against his neck before I pulled away. I kicked off my shoes, grabbing them before running through the grass. It felt like I’d been here before. Running barefoot away from Dexter.
This time, though…this time was different. We were rewriting our past. Replacing it with moments that caused our heartbeats to trip over themselves.
The satin of the dress was gliding against my skin and I grabbed at the extra material, intent to make him follow me through the darkness, the way I’d followed him.
“You always were a challenge, Blue,” he said, and I thought it was unfair that I couldn’t detect a hint of fatigue in his words.
I ran often, especially to work off the baby weight Dylan had blessed me with. But even I was tired. Maybe it was the bodice of the dress, making it near impossible to take a deep breath. I slowed and not a second passed before he grabbed my arm and pulled me against him again, where I’d started.
“No more running.” His mouth settled beside my ear and I shivered over the whisper. “Unless it’s to our hotel room.”
I nodded and shrieked when he scooped me up in his arms.
Noa
We madeit to our room in record time, my bare feet in the air as he held me the entire way up.
“You can let me down, Dexter.”
“Don’t stop saying my name,” he said as he ran his lips over the sensitive skin between my neck and shoulder.
“Dexter, Dexter, Dexter.” I sighed as the elevator opened, and he somehow managed to pull out the keycard and open the door.
He carried me to the bed and dropped me on it, making me laugh.
“I’ve dreamed of this,” I told him, my eyes still holding onto my mirth.
“Not as much as I have.” He turned me over on my stomach, and I sighed again when he unzipped my dress and bared more skin to his touch. He ran his fingertips over where I knew the ink was on my skin.
It was gentler than any kiss he’d ever given me. He touched me everywhere, as if he thought I’d disappear without the press of his fingerprints on my body.
And then I was naked and he was untucking his shirt.
I lay on the bed in front of him, rubbing my legs together to soothe the ache building inside of me.
His eyes were on me as I dragged my hands up until I felt the cool metal of the headboard against my palms and held on.
Legs spread, I felt him touching me. The brush of his hair against my inner thighs caused me to bite my lip. His beard chafed at my sensitive skin until I was covered in goosebumps. His lips, his tongue, his teeth bringing me up, letting me float back down and bringing me higher still. He climbed up the length of me to kiss my lips and when our bodies took over, knowing exactly what to do, I cried out.
Still, I held on.
It wasn’t until Dexter let go that I let my hands go. I lay there for a moment, breathless, before I sat astride his hips to do it over again.
It was only after hours and hours of making up for years of denying ourselves that we lay beside each other, our hands holding onto the other’s.
“I love you,” I told him, the words so easy to say. It was something I always used to do. Back then, before we went to sleep each night, I would tell him I loved him. It was a side effect of acknowledging our mortality. If we didn’t rise with the morning sun, we’d hear our love last.
Noa
I always hadthis fear of love and of living. I was afraid to get too invested, to get too close to Dexter at first. My brush with death was frightening, and I knew we both had come so close to our ends.
It intimidated me, the idea of loving Dexter and losing him in a way we could never recover from. Because once death had him, there was nothing in my power that would bring him back to me. And after standing for so long in the sun, no one wanted to know darkness again.
Some nights, I couldn’t sleep from fear of it.
I hid my paranoia from Dexter, always waking in the middle of the night and staring at the gray walls in his room, listening to his deep breathing, thinking about how lucky I was. And just how frightening that was.
