Page 258 of The Fall
I close the distance between us and pour my answer into my kiss.
I am his across any and every life. I will never let him go, not in any timeline, not in any reality, not in any version of our story.
“Ask me,” I breathe.
He guides me to the bedroom, and the air shifts, thickens to gold. Small flames flicker from the surfaces of the dresser and nightstands, ground-level stars whose light softens the walls to suede.
He crowds me against the wall, and his hands lift to frame my head, palms flat to the wall, a gentle caging. His breath moves across my cheek. I want to memorize the look in his eyes, but I am afraid I already have.
I clutch the worn denim of his jeans, pulling him closer. The light catches his jaw, traces the curve of his mouth, and I want to tell him something important, something about time and how it bends, about dreams that feel more real than memory, but the words dissolve before they form.
He tugs my t-shirt upward and discards it. His shirt joins mine on the floor. The candlelight turns his skin to burnished gold, and I want to taste every shadow it creates. I pull him closer, and he grinds into me, a slow and perfect friction.
Then his mouth is on me, and I seize him in return. He melts into our kiss, unaware that I’m trying to change our trajectory with how much, how deeply, I love him.
His hands take mine again, lacing our fingers together as he leads me toward the bed. “I never used to believe in soul mates,” he says softly, laying me down. The words are hoarse and scraped from his throat; they are ghosts. “But you…”
My fingertips catch on the stubble of his jaw as I follow the angle of his cheekbone, the curve of his lower lip. “You are my forever.”
His eyes darken, pupils expanding until only a thin ring of stormy gray remains. His breath stutters against my palm, andwhen he dips his head to capture my lips, I know he’s saying it back without words.
Blair’s hands spread across my sides, each fingertip a brand against my skin. The heat of him seeps through me, and I arch into his touch, seeking more. His mouth moves to my throat, teeth grazing, and the wet heat of his tongue follows.
His thumbs move where I’ve known them before, in dreams that weren’t dreams, in a future that was real, that ended with blood and broken glass and a fall?—
I force air into my lungs, force myself back into this moment, this bed, to this Blair who’s still breathing, still whole, still mine.
I slide down his body, trailing kisses across his chest and his stomach. My hands map the terrain of his chest, following the trail of dark hair down, down, until his breathing shatters. I move between his thighs; his hands drop to my shoulders.
“Torey,” he breathes. His eyes are wide, dark pools reflecting the tiny, frantic flames of the candles as I drop open-mouthed kisses to his inner thighs.
His legs tense beneath my hands, muscle shifting under skin that tastes like salt and warmth and hope. Each exhale from him is low and trembling.
He gasps my name again, softer now, awe-struck. The taste of him lingers on my tongue; longing pools in my belly. Does he know that if I could fuse myself to his skin and stay there forever, I would?
I close my hand around the base of his shaft and draw him into my mouth.
Heat rushes through me, alongside his trust and the soft, broken noises he tries to swallow. Salty-sweet, familiar, sacred; he is surrendering to me one heartbeat at a time. I steady him and let my rhythm build slowly. Every part of me aches to give him more, to carve this memory of me so deeply into his soul that even fate can’t dig it out.
He groans, and his free hand fumbles for mine until our fingers tangle. Those strong hands will go slack when?—
No. If time loops again, if I lose him again, I need these details burned into my cells. I need more than fragments and terror if I wake up alone. I want to mark him, too, to etch myself into him until I’m the air in his lungs and the blood in his veins. Maybe then time can’t separate us.
I hold on tight and take him deeper, desperate to give him everything. I am devouring him; I am worshipping him. He is hot velvet inside my mouth, and I am lost in his slick heat and my need for him. This is how I claim him, until there’s nothing left but us and the golden hush between heartbeats.
“Fuck, Torey,” he moans. “Your mouth...”
I hum around him, and he jerks beneath me. I relax my throat and take him further, and the sound he makes shoots through me.
“Wait.” His voice breaks. “Not yet.” He draws me up, crushing our mouths together and tasting himself as he cradles my face. “Come here,” he whispers, rolling us over so I’m beneath him.
The mattress dips beneath his weight, and the world tilts until there’s only Blair above me.
That look in his eyes undoes me. I want to drag him closer still, memorize every part and piece of him.
Blair leans down again; his nose brushes mine. His body settles between my thighs as I open to him. I close my eyes as he drops a kiss to the hollow of my throat, letting myself drift under the ache of wanting him and being wanted back.
“Your turn,” he breathes.
