CHAPTER 85

All I wanted was a weekend with our friends and family on an island where Timothy and I could tie the knot in peaceful bliss. I pictured walks on the beach, romantic dinners, couples' massages. Instead, I'd found myself staggering up a beach alone, the rapidly fading sun at my back as I called after a bird as if he knew his own name. It was dark for a while, but when light cut through the blackness, I nearly sobbed in relief. Timothy was there. But now that we're back in our villa safe and sound, something's still wrong. "Stop it," I say again, pushing away his hands. Since the second he found me, he hasn't strayed an inch. It's as if he's afraid I'll vanish if he stops watching me, stops touching me. "This? What you're doing right now? I don't want it," I tell him. His hands fall to his sides. His clothes are damp from the ocean and from the shower. They cling to every inch of his hard body, the normally proud shoulders slumped. Even in defeat, the man I love is strong and stoic. Timothy's throat bobs, and the emotions fighting behind his eyes make me go on. "I don't want your guilt," I murmur. My ankle throbs, but I ignore it as I reach for the buttons on his shirt, unfastening the first. My fingers slip a little, and it takes a second before the fastening gives and I move on. The next button is easier. The third is the same. "I want your love." His eyes soften, and the breath that escapes his tense chest wavers at the edges. When I'm finished unfastening all of them, I spread the shirt wide, pressing a hand against his chest, dark with swirls of ink. My palm lies over his heart as if that's where it's meant to be. "It's all I've ever wanted from you." Timothy's throat works, his eyes shining with emotion. He covers my hand with his. "I will be here for you. I'll swear it tomorrow, but I want to swear it tonight." His words, the low voice, make me tremble. But not with weakness. With conviction. "I don't need you to be here for me," I murmur. "I need you to be here for us. I love watching you create music, and teach, and find your way in the world. But I love you most when you're here with me." Timothy's thumb strokes the back of my hand. "I want to give you and our children the things you deserve because it's easy to lose everything in a heartbeat." My gaze drops to his chest. "We haven't yet. And if we do, we'll figure it out." I lace my fingers through his scarred hand. "We always do. Growing up, I dreamed of being on stage. But mostly, I dreamed of finding somewhere I belonged. I dreamed of you. You're my home." Water runs down his nose and jaw as my hands skim up to cup his face. He's had to be hard, the man I love. Even as a boy, he had to do things to take care of the few people who broke through his walls. No more. We undress him together. The tension that's always between us is beneath the surface, but for once it's content to simmer there. When we're both warm, he turns off the water and we towel off. He carries me out into the bedroom but doesn't pause there. "Where are we going?" I ask. "You wanted to see the stars." He kicks open the patio door and crosses the stone before setting me on the double-wide chaise lounger and returning to the bedroom to grab a light blanket. Timothy slides in next to me, not hesitating before pulling my body against his. My forehead rests in the hollow of his chest, and I breathe him in. "The first time I slept next to you," he murmurs against my hair, his touch stroking down my back, "it felt so fucking right. Nothing in my life ever felt as good as holding you in my arms." My heart melts. I love him with everything in me. "I wanted it forever, and I was rocked with the possibility I couldn't have that. It made me keep my guard up, even when we were friends." I snuggle closer, tracing a finger over the lines of his tattoos. The ship, the compass, the rose. His lips brush my ear, sending shivers down my spine. "When I thought I might have lost you, I was gutted. I thought I was fucking smarter than that by now. Because if you haven't figured it out... you're it. You're everything. Where I'm going. How I fight to get there. The reason I try." We lie like that for a breath. Two. Ten. The darkness surrounding us feels warm,instead of earlier at the cove, when it was cold. "They're always there, even when you can't see them," he murmurs. "I used to tell myself that when we were apart. That you were looking up at those same damn stars as me. I didn't know, so I had to believe." "Now you know it's true because we're together." I used to lie on the patio at home and wait for the sun to come up. It would warm the stones while I lay there, sending prickles and tingles through my body in a gradual awareness that eventually had me sighing in pleasure. Now, Timothy's cedar scent invades my senses, and I drink him in. My hands graze across his pecs, carved from hours of the physical work of being a musician. I sense the moment he feels it too. "Emily..." "Shhh." I press my finger to his lips. In the shadows, his handsome face is a dark outline. I've wanted him my entire life, but the past week has been torture. A never-ending ache just below the surface of my skin. The need for completion, for absolution only he can provide. We don't need light. It's inside us. Between us. I lift my mouth to his. I kiss him with everything I am and everything I have-with acceptance, forgiveness, love. Timothy stiffens a moment as my lips wander, my tongue brushing. I'm asking him a question I already know the answer to, asking him to want me. Except he surprises me once again. Timothy rolls me on top, and my breath catches at the sudden shift. He presses up on his elbows, kissing me back. Yes. It feels so damn right. Here with him, halfway across the world, he's my family, my future. The commitment I've made, the one I will make again. I trust him to the end of this world and the next. "Six..." He brushes my cheeks with his thumbs. "What the fuck did I do to deserve you?" His hands skim down my sides, reverently touching the same places he touched in the shower. This time, his fingers linger. He wants me, and I feel it. He's still holding himself back, his pace steady even as his body hardens under mine. I let him kiss me and touch me, treat me as if I'm precious. But it's not what I want. "Every time you open your eyes, you deserve me," I whisper. "Every time you take a breath. Now show me what you'd do if you believed it." He stills a moment, then his hand sinks into my hair and he draws me against him, groaning. My hips writhe over his, seeking out friction. He's slick between my thighs because I'm slick, and my head swims at the idea of feeling him inside me. I try to slip down onto him, and his fingers dig into my legs, holding me off him. "Not yet," he murmurs, flipping us. His mouth moves down my body, over my breasts, sucking my nipples until I'm writhing, over my stomach and my thighs, down my calves. "You're enjoying the stargazing too much?" I tease breathlessly. "Nah. Let them envy us for a change." He swallows my laugh as he presses inside me. The moment he does, my humor is eclipsed by something bigger, more profound. Being connected to him like this, face-to-face, chest to chest, him as deep in me as he'll go, is the closest I've felt to another person. We're so different and so similar, and the contrast is the most fucking exquisite thing I've ever experienced. My breath mingles with his as his hips pin mine. He rocks inside me, each stroke a chord he's devoting himself to, part of a song he's been writing forever. One I'd trade eternity to listen to. I want to draw it out. I need to. But the dreamy haze has its own mind, and it drags me toward a crest I can't fight off. Not even when I wrench my mouth from Timothy's, our lips brushing as we gasp. "I'm close," I whisper, and his half laugh in the dark makes my heart explode. "I know." I know. He knows me. He knows my body, my mind, my heart. I wouldn't have it any other way. It's that thought that has me crying out, arching shamelessly against him as if I can draw out every sensation between us, make it a little brighter, a little bolder, a little longer. He stills inside me, his shoulders flexing, his ass clenching under my calves wrapped around his hips. When he says my name in that beautiful, raw voice, it sends me spinning. I lock my limbs around him as we tremble together. It's an ode to us. To yesterday, to today, to always.