Page 93 of Ex Somnis

“I found you instead. And every day since then has felt like being given something back I never thought I’d have. I know I’m not the only person you want.” His voice drops lower. “I know that.”

His hand settles against the side of my neck.

“But there has never been anyone else for me.”

Nobody has ever said anything like that to me before.

I don’t know what to do with someone looking at me, at all of the weird little things that make me who I am, and still wanting me.

The complete lack of hesitation he has.

The certainty.

This is insane.

“Paul,” I’m barely holding back tears now.

“Tessa was someone I refused to abandon.” His thumb brushes beneath my eye. “You are the person I cannot bear to lose.”

He kisses me again, and this time I don’t hold back, pouring everything into the kiss, the good and the bad. His hand tightens in my hair, and his teeth catch my lower lip enough that I make a sound I wasn’t planning to, and the insane spiral I’ve been running for the last however-many-hours dissolves into a much better kind of insane.

Still, it is insane.

“Paul?” I whisper against his mouth once more.

“Mm?”

“This is insane.”

“Helpful clarification.” His lips leave mine but only to kiss down my neck, making me shiver.

“We’ve known each other for what? A couple of weeks?”

He pulls back enough to look at me. “A little longer.”

“A few weeks,” I repeat.

Paul nods while he puts a strand of hair behind my ear.

“Doesn’t that bother you?”

It should.

It should feel rushed, reckless, and impossible, but instead, it feels like remembering something I forgot, like finding a book I loved as a child and realizing I still know every line.

“What part?” Paul frowns at me.

“That this thing that I’m feeling. It’s not a knowing-each-other-for-a-few-weeks kind of feeling.”

“Ah.”

“Ah?”

“So you’re finally catching up.”

I groan. “Paul.”

“I just told you I dreamed about your eyes for five years before I met you.”