Page 90 of Risking it All

“Would you like to kiss me now?”

“Nothing in the universe could make me happier.”

Lust darkened her gaze as she leaned up on her toes and pressed her lips to mine. Kissing Macie was an experience, a thrill ride, it was flying through the sky as if I had wings. Her mouth opened and I accepted the invitation. Our kiss deepened as our hands wandered and our touches became demanding. Macie’s hand slipped underneath the back of my shirt and each of her caresses set me on fire.

Rustle in the leaves near us, we broke off our kiss, both panting with the need building between us, and Macie had a laugh that reminded me of wind chimes as she spotted a squirrel watching us with curiosity.

“What do you want to bet the squirrel’s a spy for my dad?”

I chuckled yet understood. I’d do anything to protect Macie from any type of danger at any time. I’d lay down my life for her. Why would her family be any different?

Reality caused any happiness in me to drain away, and Macie frowned as she watched my expression change. She rubbed atthe corner of my mouth where a split second ago I had been smiling. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s changed. Is it right for me to kiss you knowing you and we won’t be together after tomorrow?”

“That’s where you’re wrong,” Macie insisted. “We’re going to figure this out.”

I wanted to believe her, wanted to fall into her wide-eyed innocence, but while Macie understood some of the harshness of the world, her naivety to my issues made it impossible to comprehend the tsunami I was standing before. “Tonight is all I have to give.”

“It may be all you think you have to give, but I’m taking forever,” she said with the tenacity of a warrior. “Now, come on. You’re delaying your surprise.” Macie gave me a conspiratorial wink and tugged on my hand. Whatever part of me hadn’t surrendered completely to her fell. I loved her. Mind, body, and soul. For tonight, I’d allow myself to belong solely to her.

Chapter forty-two

Macie

Butterflies, nerves, anxiety, hopes, expectations, and a whole lot of nerves again overtook me as I led Relic to the back of the property. Relic felt like sand in the bottom of the hourglass, already deposited into the memory of time. He had given up, relinquished himself and us to these brief few hours of this evening, and whatever little time we had tomorrow as I tried to describe the tattoo. But I couldn’t allow him to renounce this beautiful life he had been building for himself or these treasured relationships he had been building with Demarius, Lev, Melanie…and me. He deserved more. He deserved better. He deserved the world.

When we reached our destination, I took a deep breath and tried to smile past my nerves. “We’re here! What do you think?”

Relic took in the area, and he had that stoic look that he wore when he didn’t know what to think. He studied the white playhouse that had purple shutters and trim, then the tree fort built seven feet off the ground, complete with ladder andswinging rope. He walked to the edge of the fire pit centered in the wooden deck. From there, he stared upon the wildflowers popping up through the brown dirt and the babbling brook that cut off our property to the one behind us.

“I used to call this Fairy Cove,” I said into the silence. “When I was little, I thought this was the most magical place in the world. I used to play here all the time. My dad, along with his friends, built the play and tree houses and this deck. I even hammered in a few nails myself.”

Relic smirked. “I believe that. I can’t imagine you sitting out on anything.”

But I had sat out, for the last few months. Relic had brought me back to life, though. “I thought we could make a fire. I hauled a cooler down here and I brought hot dogs to roast and all the fixings for s’mores. What do you think?”

There was an awe in Relic’s expression and a heaviness that made me want to wrap him up and never let go. “I think this may be the best night of my life.”

Mine, too. We stared at each other for so long that it felt like time stood still. I glanced away and cleared my throat. “Do you know how to make a fire?”

“No idea, but I’m game to learn.”

“First off, we need kindling, so try to find small sticks to burn.”

***

The fire before us flickered into the night, and Relic and I sat next to each other on a blanket eating the s’mores we had made. He had a smile on his gorgeous face, his blue eyes danced with our conversation, and all the weights that had been chained to him when he first arrived seemed to have evaporated into the air with the ash and smoke. I finished telling him a story of a guestrun-in that had gone humorously wrong, and we both laughed at the end.

I loved his laugh. Loved how it came from his soul. Loved how it echoed into the night. Loved how it felt like it seeped past my muscles and bones and wrapped my soul up tight in a hug.

He finished the last bit of his s’more and glanced over at me with eyes that were still laughing at my story. “You’re great at what you do. I bet you’re great at whatever you put your head to.”

I didn’t know much about my life, not anymore, but that didn’t bother me. I was now learning how to go with the flow, how to embrace life’s twists and turns. “I’m not scared of living anymore like I have been after what happened. What’s super weird is that I feel like I should say that I’ve returned to normal, but I haven’t. I wasn’t scared of living before, but I wasn’t exactly alive either. I did what I was supposed to do. Checking off one box just to go to the next. Now there aren’t any boxes. There’s whatever it is I want in life.”

Relic’s gaze flickered over my face. “I’m going to remember you, right here, in this moment for the rest of my life. Looking so damn beautiful with the firelight softly highlighting your face. The bright light in your eyes and a smile I’d easily die to see again. You look like sunshine even in the middle of the night, radiating all the possibilities I wished belonged to me.”

“You don’t have to remember anything.” I took Relic’s hand and placed it over my heart. His eyes snapped to mine, as placing it there also meant his touching the swells of my breasts. Desire deepened his blue eyes to the color of the Caribbean Sea, and I wondered if he could feel my heart thundering beneath his touch. “I’m yours, Relic. Not just tonight, but always.”

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