Page 53 of The Fall
That’s all it takes. “Blair!” His name rips from me.
I shatter in one endless wave of release. I cry out, and he covers my mouth with his own and takes my scream inside of him. The kiss turns filthy, me clinging to him, him possessing me, my hands fisted in his hair, holding him to me, neither of us ever letting go as he follows me over. His come spills across my skin, scorching-hot, and this time I swallow his moan as he shudders apart.
Finally, a millimeter of space opens between our lips as we exchange trembling breaths.“Blair,” I whisper. “Fuck, Blair.”
I’m boneless, weightless, and drifting. Blair is no better.
We collapse, tangled together. There’s a shaky exhale; Blair’s or mine, I can’t tell. If our teammates are still awake, our secret is out.
Oh well. I can’t care about anything after that.
Sweat cools on my skin, and our hearts begin to beat in sync in the hazy aftermath.
“I love you,” he whispers. “So much it terrifies me sometimes.” Fear shimmers in his eyes.
The world feels stripped down to this, our skin pressed to skin, our hearts still racing.
I brush my thumb along his jaw. “Me, too,” I whisper back. My voice is rough from everything he’s taken from me tonight.
He finds my lips with his again, softer this time. “I love you,” he breathes between kisses. “I love you, I love you.”
Ribbons of silver fall on Blair’s shoulder, moonbeams that I want to trace with my lips, envious of the skin they caress.
Outside, Pittsburgh is quiet, and across the city, the arena waits for our game. Inside, I lie on my side, propped on one elbow beside Blair, watching him sleep. I brush a strand of hair from his forehead.
I’m so close to being whole again. My body remembers what it needs to do, and my heart knows how much it wants to love. But how is it possible to feel so utterly complete when my past is a fracture of half-remembered moments? It’s terrifying how life can change in a heartbeat and erase everything you know and love about yourself.
Something flutters inside me, like wings beating against glass.
“Blair,” I whisper.
Even asleep, he turns to me, tucks his face against my neck, holding me fiercely enough to stamp stars in his eyes when he wakes up.
I think I’ve found the answer to all the questions I’ve asked. How do you know when you’ve gotten everything you ever wanted, even the things you didn’t know you needed? Does it feel exactly like this?
I close my eyes and breathe, and tiptoe into my memories of Vancouver: the burn of the spotlight and the freeze of my failure. My desolate isolation. The puck sliding past my stick, yet another miss. The sound of the crowd’s boos. A coach’s disappointed glare.
What happened between then and now, here and there? What am I missing?
The clock on the nightstand flickers: 2:37 a.m.
Two a.m., the time for questions that have no answers. There weren’t any on that beach or in those black waves, and there aren’t any here with me tonight, no matter how much I want there to be.
The only thing I know for sure is that I want to be this Torey forever. I never want to slide back to those dark days and nights when I was alone and when no one relied on me or trusted me or wanted me for any damn thing. I wantthis. I want to be Blair’s warm body in the night, the hand he reaches for, and the man he opens his eyes to.
Blair’s chest rises and falls.
What about tomorrow? What about next week? Next month? I need to be ready for anything—another hit, another concussion. Another year gone?
No, I can’t think like that.
I burrow closer to him. “I love you.”
You are the part of me I never knew was lost, my missing piece I never knew I needed.
I’m awake before the sun, still tangled in Blair’s arms. The sheets are warm and smell like him, and he’s exhaling into my hair, little puffs of breath as gentle as kisses. I don’t want to leave, but I have to.
I pull on my clothes from yesterday, my wrinkled T-shirt and joggers that absolutely look like they’ve spent the night crumpled at the foot of someone else’s bed. If that weren’t enough evidence, I smell like sex and Blair and my hair looks like I’ve been thoroughly fucked, like hands have been grabbing it and manhandling me around. Which…
