Page 90 of The Promises We Broke
"No, I'm okay. Just scared." My voice was still shaky. "I kept thinking about all the things I should have said to you this morning, all the things I would regret if something happened to either of us."
He cupped my face in his hands, and I could see my own desperate relief reflected in his eyes. "I was terrified," he admitted. "When I got home and you weren't here, when I couldn't reach you..."
"I'm here now."
"You're here now," he repeated, and then he was kissing me with all the fear and relief and desperate love that had been building between us for the past two hours.
I kissed him back with the same intensity, my hands fisting in his wet shirt, pulling him closer. When we broke apart, both breathing hard, I could see something raw and desperate in his eyes that matched exactly what I was feeling.
"I need you," I said, my voice rough with want and relief and the kind of desperate hunger that comes from thinking you might lose something precious. "Right now. I need to feel alive, to prove that we're both here and safe and together."
I was already pulling at his shirt, my fingers fumbling with the wet fabric.
He lifted me up, my legs wrapping around his waist as he carried me toward the bedroom, both of us still dripping wet from the rain but neither of us caring about anything except the desperate need to be connected.
He set me down beside the bed, his hands immediately going to the buttons of my blouse. "You're shaking," he said softly.
"I'm okay," I said, but my hands were trembling as I worked at his belt. "I just... I need you, Gage. I need to feel you."
He understood. This wasn't about gentle lovemaking or sweet romance. This was about desperation and relief. The primal need to affirm life after staring down the possibility of loss. This was about passion in its rawest form, about two people who'd been terrified of losing each other and now needed to prove, with their bodies and their breath and their desperate hunger, that they were both alive and together.
When his mouth found mine again, it was with a fierce intensity that took my breath away. His hands were everywhere. Tangling in my wet hair, tracing the curve of my spine, making quick work of the rest of my clothes until I was standing before him with nothing but want and desperate love shining in my eyes.
"Beautiful," he murmured against my throat, his lips trailing fire along my skin. "So damn beautiful, Billie."
I worked his shirt off his shoulders, my hands exploring the solid warmth of him, the proof that he was here and whole. When he lifted me onto the bed, I pulled him down with me, needing his weight, his heat, the reassuring solidity of his body covering mine.
There was no slow build this time, no careful exploration. This was hunger and desperation and the kind of passion that burned away everything except the essential truth of what we meant to each other.
When he entered me, we both gasped at the intensity of it. Not just physical but emotional, the relief and love and desperate gratitude all mixing together until I couldn't tell where one feeling ended and another began.
"Look at me," he said, his voice rough with emotion. "I need to see your eyes."
I looked up at him, seeing my own desperation reflected back at me, along with something deeper. Love and commitment and the unshakeable certainty that this was right, that we were right, that nothing could tear us apart again.
We moved together with a fierce urgency, both of us driven by the need to connect, to affirm, to prove that we were alive and together and stronger than any storm that tried to tear us apart. When I felt myself climbing toward release, I dug my nails into his shoulders, holding on to him like an anchor in the chaos of sensation.
"I love you," I gasped, the words torn from somewhere deep in my chest. "I love you so much, Gage."
"I love you too," he said fiercely, his movements becoming more desperate, more urgent. "Always, Billie. Always."
When we came apart together, it was with an intensity that left us both shaking, clinging to each other as if we could somehow merge into one person, one heart, one life that could never be separated again.
Afterward, we lay tangled together in the darkness, listening to the storm rage outside while we held each other close. The desperation had faded, replaced by a deep, bone-deep satisfaction and the kind of peace that comes from knowing you're exactly where you belong.
We fell asleep like that, wrapped around each other while the storm gradually spent its fury outside. And when we woke up the next morning to bright sunshine and the sound of birds singing, it was to discover that a massive tree had fallen across the house renovation site, crushing part of the roof and setting our timeline back by months.
But somehow, lying in bed with Gage's arms around me and the certainty of our future settling warm and sure in my chest, even that setback felt like just another adventure we'd face together.
The storm had passed. We were both here, both whole, both ready for whatever came next.
And for the first time since he'd come home, I wasn't afraid of the future anymore.
Chapter 32
Billie
The December air was sharp and crisp as I walked through downtown Willowbrook, my breath forming small clouds in the cold. Christmas decorations adorned every storefront window, and the bare trees were wrapped in twinkling lights that made the whole town look like something out of a holiday movie.
