Page 109 of Shattered Oaths

It comes to an end quickly before another one begins to play but we don’t part. Even when everyone else moves away from the dance floor, some gravitating to the bar, others returning to their tables, we keep our arms wrapped around each other us two songs become three and only when the third one comes to an end, do I gain the courage to finally speak.

“I miss you, Bella.”

She lifts her head to look at me. “I moved back in a week ago.”

I shake my head. “I don’t mean like that. I mean I miss you.This. I miss touching you. I miss having you in my bed at night. I miss us.”

Her eyes close and she drops her head, but I lift it once again, forcing her to look at me. “Give me another chance, baby. Please?”

“Noah-”

“I love you, Bella.” I drop my forehead against hers. “So fucking much it hurts.”

“Noah,” she says again, this time forcing me to look at her.

I open my eyes, scanning her beautiful face as my heart thumps wildly in my chest with the need to lean in and kiss her. To drag her home and lock her in my room and just keep kissing her until she forgives me.

I’ve been in hell for weeks and the desperation I feel when I’m around her is becoming too much to bear.

She’s right there, but she’s so far out of reach.

A soft hand cradles the side of my face, and I lean into the touch, relishing the way her skin feels against mine after so long without it.

And then she leans forward, brings her lips so close to mine I can smell her fruity drink on her breath and whispers three words that have the power to change everything.

“Take me home.”

CHAPTER 48

BELLA

Noah’s hand doesn’t release mine the whole way home. It isn’t until we step through the front door that he lets go and takes a step back, a hand clutching the back of his neck as if he doesn’t know what to do next.

It’s kind of adorable.

He was so full of confidence when he came up beside me at the bar and asked me to dance in a way that sent shivers racing down my spine and a jolt of electricity through my core.

I thought that by refusing him, I could fuck with his emotions the way he was fucking with mine, but somehow it backfired on me,again.

If I’m being totally honest with myself, I’ve been thinking about having his hands on me since he kissed me in the woods yesterday.

That was all it took. A few heartfelt words and a soft brush of the lips and suddenly I couldn’t remember why I was still punishing the man.

I was just delaying the inevitable.

Maybe that makes me a weak woman. Maybe it doesn’t. I’ll never know.

One thing I do know, is that I love him.

Something shifted in me when I turned over that test in Savannahs bathroom and saw the single line on the tiny rectangular screen.

In those seconds before, I was afraid. But just as my hand reached for the little piece of plastic that had the power to change my life, the fear became acceptance, and then it quickly dissolved into disappointment.

I thought I was crazy for feeling that way. That was until Noah sat beside me in the forest and laid his heart bare for me to see. It was then that I knew I’d forgiven him. Because everything he saw for his future, I saw too.

Icravedit.

And the only person depriving me of that future, was me.