Page 84 of Simply Yours

He folded forward, pressing his head against her chest, and for the first time since she had known him, he shattered.

His shoulders shook, his breath uneven and ragged, his grip on her unrelenting as if letting go meant losing her all over again. The weight of him wasn’t heavy; it was grounding, devastating in the way a man could break without making a sound.

She had seen fear in his eyes before, but never like this.

He had seen death too many times.

And she had nearly become another ghost in his past.

Her throat burned, but she forced her arms to move, slipping her fingers into his hair, stroking through the thick strands. The tenderness in the gesture was all she could offer. Words weren’t enough, and her body wasn’t capable of much more than this, but it was enough to let him know—I’m here. I came back to you.

The weight of the moment pressed against them, thick with emotion neither of them could verbalize. So instead, she let silence speak, let her touch remind him of everything they were, everything they would be.

Minutes passed. Maybe hours. She wasn’t sure.

And then, because humor was as much a part of them as love, she murmured, “Can we get a dog?”

Jason stilled against her before a broken, tearful chuckle rumbled from his chest. He lifted his head just enough to look at her, his eyes red-rimmed and glistening, the ghost of a smile teasing his lips.

“A big ‘fraidy dog who barks at everything,” she continued, the words slurred with exhaustion.

“Catnip, you can have whatever you want… just be okay for me.”

“I am.”

His jaw clenched, his fingers twitching against hers. “You weren’t.” The words were hoarse, filled with the kind of emotion that left scars on a person’s soul. He buried his face against her again, not in desire but in desperation, in relief, in something deeper than words could express.

Her protector.

Her love.

The weight of everything—the fear, the pain, the raw emotion—pressed down on her like a suffocating tide. It was too much. Too heavy. But he was here. Solid. Unshakable. A presence so fierce it held her together when she felt like she might shatter into a million irreparable pieces.

“Thank you for being there for me,” she whispered, her voice barely more than a breath, yet laced with the kind of vulnerability that could bring even the strongest man to his knees.

She heard him inhale sharply, the quiet tremor in his breath betraying the emotions he was fighting to rein in. A rough sniffle. A throat clearing. The controlled exhale of a man pulling himself back together, brick by careful brick, even as she could feel the unspoken weight in the silence between them.

She knew him better than anyone. Knew his pride. His resilience. Knew that, for him, tears weren’t a weakness—but letting her see them might be.

So she kept her eyes closed, granting him those few precious seconds to rebuild his walls, to reclaim the steadiness she knew he needed to offer her.

“I love you,” she breathed, the words an anchor for herself as much as for him. A salve for the raw ache in her heart. A whispered plea to mend something fragile between them.

His answering breath was uneven, but his touch was sure as he leaned in, pressing the warmest, softest kiss to her forehead. It was reverent. A vow. A silent declaration that he wasn’t going anywhere.

“I know,” he murmured against her skin, his voice a caress, a thread of tenderness woven through the steel of his resolve. “I think I’ve always known.”

A lump rose in her throat, thick with emotion, as she forced her exhausted body to relax against the pillows. She was so tired. But she fought against it, fought against the darkness tugging at the edges of her consciousness, because she didn’t want to let go—not yet.

“Just close your eyes,” he urged, his thumb brushing over her knuckles in a slow, soothing rhythm. “Rest. Don’t worry about a thing.” A pause. A breath. Then, softer, “We’ll have the rest of our lives to have those picnics under the stars together.”

A weak, wry smile tugged at the corner of her lips. “You promise?”

“I swear it.”

She sighed, the sound full of trust, of quiet surrender, as her fingers curled around his like a lifeline. He was here. He wasn’t leaving. And she knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that if the world burned around them, he’d still be sitting beside her, holding her hand like it was the only thing keeping him tethered to the earth.

There was nothing quite so potent, so beautiful, or so achingly simple as belonging to someone. Not just in words, but in the marrow-deep certainty that no force in the universe could shake it.

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