Page 23 of Gone Away Home

Marnie keeps her distance the rest of the day and I’m grateful for it. I’m not in the business of hitting women, but she was challenging my long-held belief.

Taking my woman home after a long as hell day, is all I can think about. She stood up for me, for us, today and didn’t back down.

Talk about a huge fucking turn on. But, then again, everything Zayla does turns me on.

CHAPTER 10

ZAYLA

I was worried about today, but it needed to happen. Dustin, right from the moment he showed up on my doorstep to make my dreams come true, dreams I had buried long ago, was willing to go at my pace with how we went public with our relationship. I knew why, and I’ve been grateful.

The more time we’ve spent together, which is a lot considering I never told him to move somewhere else and we went from not seeing each other in 14 years to living together seamlessly, the more I realized not being open was bugging me. Everyone who has the kind of love Dustin gives me should be shouting about it from every rooftop, water tower, and high rise. They should be spreading that love and showering it on the world.

Because doesn’t the world need a little more love? A little more understanding? A little more connection?

I’m lucky to have found it in a man who changed his entire world just to come home to me when he didn’t have to. He could have stayed away. He could have kept his feelings to himself.

I would never have been the wiser. It would have been a shame, but I wouldn’t have known differently beyond not feeling whole.

Dustin gives me a feeling of being complete and content. But it’s so much more than that as well. He makes every day exciting, even if we aren’t doing anything more than building a pillow nest in the middle of the living room and watching movies.

When the most mundane thing becomes an adventure, you have something special. And Dustin is special. He makes me a better person.

After the disaster of Thanksgiving, I realized I couldn’t hide the amazing way Dustin loves me, and I don’t want to.

When we get home, I’m tired, but the feeling melts away the moment I’m lifted into strong arms and cradled against a solid chest. I’ve never felt safer.

My body melts into his. It always does when we’re this close. My soul knows his and it’s all there is to it.

He carries me until we’re in our bathroom and only then does he set me back down on my feet. Our gazes lock and our hands move at the same time, pulling our clothes off while staring into each other’s eyes the entire time.

With every breath we take my pussy gets wetter, and I get more turned on. The tension between us builds, anticipation zipping around the enclosed space along with steam as the shower heats up. Everything this man does seems to turn me on like nothing I’ve ever experienced before.

“Do you know how hard I’ve been all day, Zayla?” His voice is a husky rasp which feels like his fingers ghosting over my skin. He doesn’t give me a chance to answer, but he doesn’t need to.“You stood up for me today. You put that chick in her place and didn’t give a single fuck about what anyone thought of you or what you said to her.”

He hooks his arm around my waist and pulls me closer. My hands land on his shoulders right before our bodies touch. We’re plastered together from knee to chest and it’s everything.

The heat from his body seeps into me and makes me feel loved.

Fuck. I missed him so much while he was gone. I never allowed myself to feel it, really feel it, because it was consuming, and I would have been lost to it.

“Did I ever tell you how much I missed you? I would dream about you, Dustin. About you coming home finally. About you whispering sweet words in my ear. About you showing me the man you’d become,” I admit something I hadn’t told anyone, but need him to know now. My hands slide from his shoulders and up his neck until I’m cupping his jaw. “The reality of you? Being loved by you and feeling it with every part of me? It’s better than those dreams.”

I see the emotions swimming in his eyes, the hope for us being together he banked, the regret, the pain because of all the time we lost. But we didn’t lose it, not really, we just had to wait so we could be better, stronger.

When he kisses me this time, it’s slow and sweet. He explores my mouth like it’s our first kiss. The way he savors me has me pressing my body against him while holding him closer. I wish I could crawl inside of him and stay that way.

But, then again, maybe I’ve already found a way to do that because I’ve given him my heart and he’s given me his.

Dustin easily picks me up and steps into the shower as he kisses me. I hiss out a breath when my back meets the shower wall. It’s still cool even though the water is the perfect temperature.

“I love you so damn much, Zayla,” he whispers against my lips. “I was barely living, barely holding on. I needed you and thought I couldn’t have you because of a past that wasn’t even of our own making. I’m sorry I deprived us of everything we could have been for so long because of it.”

“You have no reason to be sorry, Dustin,” I insist, “you thought you were doing the right thing. Maybe you were. I wouldn’t have been strong enough then to hold my head up high and not give a single fuck whether anyone looks down on us or not. We know the truth and it’s all that matters. Those who support us will have our backs and everyone else will have to get out of our way.”

“Fuck,” he groans, his fingers flexing on my ass as he lifts me higher against the wall, “you have no idea how fucking sexy you are, sweetheart.”

“No?” I look up at him from underneath my lashes, a coy smile playing on my lips. I grip his cock and angle him just right as I challenge him, “How about you show me.”

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