Page 101 of Meet Me After Life

I laugh. Light and free and heavy and caged.

His smile is strained with confusion.

‘Silly ghost.’ I wipe a tear from my eye. A frown pinches between his brows. ‘It’s already yours.’

He looks both pleased and devastated. I could say I feel the same way.

‘Not much of a bargain then, is it?’ His dry humour cuts through enough of the ache that I laugh. That I decide to choose happy. I decide to choose us here and now. I kiss him. I kiss him like it’s the last time. The first time. All the times in between.

I hold him as close as I can. As close as close can be. I want him in my skin. I want to merge into one. Walker’s touches are just as desperate. Just as selfish and claiming. He holds me against him so hard I think I’ll bare his fingerprints forever. I’m thrilled.

My hips continue to move slow but hard, I feel him so deeply inside me it’s more than pleasure; it’s comfort. Walker’s hips lift to meet every thrust of my own, and I feel myself building more than just imaginary lifetimes together. I feel the light inside me reaching for the darkness in him and beckoning our souls to dance. I feel fear and anxiety fall away as we reach for the unreachable. His chin shifts, his nose knocking mine. His breath he exhales into my mouth feels just the same as the bargain we made. I return it in a sigh. And I’m filled with an inescapable resignation. My heart will hurt very soon. But for now…

‘You feel good.’

‘Such flattery,’ he rasps, voice thick and decadent like chocolate cake. Like just listening to him adds ten pounds to my thighs.

A smile quirks my lips. ‘I love the feeling of you inside me. I love being this close to you. And I love⁠—’

That frenzy I remarked was missing earlier comes crashing into me full throttle. Walker captures my lips. ‘I love you,’ he says between kisses. Between love bites and hickeys on my neck, and his hands grabbing a fistful of arse and rocking me hard against him to meet his thrusts. And I see stars behind my eyes as he hits that one spot that never fails to make me⁠—

I fall apart. Moaning his name while he gasps something about having to say it first. He follows soon after. He grunts as he finishes and pulls me hard against him, his hips rolling against me and stirring the remains of my climax. I fall against his chest, breathless and unsteady, sated and sure. My eyes close and my cheek rests against him. ‘I love you too.’

Chapter Twenty-Four

The Attempt

I don’t want to open my eyes. The second I do will mark the beginning of the end. I’m not ready for this to finish. I’m not ready for reality to come back and rip me from this bliss. I want to pretend. For forever. For just a little while longer. Until eternity. Until tomorrow. And if I can just stay here, wrapped in him, maybe the world will wait. Maybe all the questions left unanswered will hold their breath and leave us to be happy, wrapped in each other, sheltered by this forest, tucked beneath this tree. Alas.

‘Roman?’

It would appear, the end cometh, open-eyed or not. I chance a peek and see⁠—

‘Hot Face?’

‘Miller?’

‘Hardy.’

Two of those names I don’t know and there’s only three of us here.

‘What are you doing here?’ Hot Face motions between me and Walker.

‘What are you doing here?’ Walker returns. He is still inside me. How I continue to find myself at the centre of these social quagmires I’ll never know.

‘How—’ I stop myself. ‘Can we dress first and question after?’

This time, clothed:

‘What are you doing here?’

‘What are you doing here?’

Stars give me strength. I pinch the bridge of my nose. ‘So, obviously you two know each other.’

‘Yes.’ Hot Face.

‘Unfortunately.’ Walker.