Page 104 of The Long Way Home
I close the distance and do the thing I’ve been dreaming about since I was twenty years old. Over a decade of restraint ignites in one devastating collision of mouths.
I kiss her, and she becomes my oxygen.
My world narrows to her lips. To the warmth of her breath brushing mine. She makes a soft, broken sound when I pull her closer, and I feel it travel through her chest into mine. I slide my hands to her waist and grip, my fingers pressing into the curve of her hips as I draw her in.
I lift her onto the counter. I let the movement drag, let the friction build. Her fingers bite into my shoulders. Her body arches, answering before she thinks. I step between her thighs, and she opens for me, legs easing apart as if she’s been waiting for that space to be filled. She fits against me, her body rising to meet mine.
“Mine,” I breathe against her lips.
I drag my lips along her jaw, tasting skin I’ve memorized in my head for years.
“Mine,” I repeat, lower this time.
My mouth traces her collarbone, lingering where I know she is sensitive before returning to her lips.
“Mine.”
When our eyes meet again, everything stills. The pull between us feels ancient. Inevitable. I’m certain I could stay suspended in this moment forever and never need air.
“You have always been mine,” I tell her.
Her hands slide from my shoulders to the back of my neck, fingers threading into my hair. She pulls my mouth back to hers, biting my lower lip sharp enough to rip a groan out of me, and I swear she is punishing me for every year I kept my distance.
“I should’ve said something sooner,” I murmur, tracing her earlobe with my mouth, letting my breath skim the sensitive place beneath it. “Should’ve told you. Should’ve fought for you. I should’ve never left, Sunny.”
My grip tightens on her waist. I have been waiting so long for this moment, I feel the need to commit every curve of her body to my memory.
“I don’t care about any of that anymore, Rhett.” She kisses me again. “I don’t care that you waited,” she continues, her voice steady even as her hands tremble in my hair. “I don’t care that you left. I don’t care how long it took you to figure this out.” Her forehead presses to mine. “I’m here now. We’re here now.”
Her head tips back like she is offering herself to me. I lower my mouth to the column of her throat. Her pulse jumps rapidly against my tongue. My hand slides to the base of her neck, holding her steady while she trembles for me.
I kiss her again, slower this time. This is something fragile and holy, and if I only get one chance to do it right, I want to take my time with her. I want to memorize her mouth—the way she softens and then answers me, the quiet sound she makes when I tilt my head just enough to deepen the kiss. I want this burned into me, etched under my skin, something I can pull out years from now and say this wasreal,this wasours.
When her teeth catch my lip, it sends a sharp, bright jolt straight through me, and I can’t stop the way my body reacts. I press my hips into hers, letting her feel what she does to me. To let her know this isn’t casual, this isn’t passing. Her gasp hits me, and I swallow it greedily, and when her nails dig into my shoulders, I want to let go.
I could lose myself here. Iwantto. But wanting her has never been the problem for me. Wanting her has been the one constant I’ve never been able to outrun.
“I don’t share, Sunny,” I murmur, the words leaving me rougher than I intended. My hand slides up to her jaw, thumb brushing her skin, reverent despite the hunger roaring in my chest. I tip her face up gently so she has to look at me. I need her eyes. “I need to know this is what you want. Because if we do this,” I swallow, “there’s no pretending afterward. There’s no going back to before.”
Because before nearly killed me, and that was before I tasted her, before my body learned exactly how right she felt against my mouth.
I see it then, the flicker of worry in her eyes, and it guts me. She thinks I mean distance. Loss. That I’d walk away if this went wrong.
My grip softens immediately. “No,” I breathe, shaking my head. “That’s not what I’m saying.”
I rest my forehead against hers for a second, steadying myself.
“Once you let me have you,” My voice trails. “I won’t know how to stand on the other side of that line again.” I won’t know how to stand next to her and act like I haven’t imagined this, dreamed of this during hundreds of quiet nights when I told myself wanting her was selfish.
“I don’t want anyone to touch me but you, Rhett,” she whispers.
I know I shouldn’t risk this. She may want me to touch her now, but what if she’s swept up in the moment?
The world after Josh almost killed me once, and now I’m staring at the woman who makes me want tolive. Who makes me want tofightfor every goddamn heartbeat I have left.
I can’t survive losing her. Having her back in my life has made me achingly aware of how empty and dull everything was without her.
If this goes wrong, I don’t just lose the possibility of her.
