Page 122 of At First Flight
She kisses me. And it’s not slow or cautious. It’s not careful. It’s the kind of kiss that says she’s sorry. The kind that says she missed me too much to admit. The kind that erases every moment she was gone.
Her breath shudders out of her. “I love you, too.”
She sets down her glass and then kisses me like she means it. Like she never wants to stop. Like this deck, and this moment, and this life could be enough.
Like we could be enough. We don't make it to the bed right away. Instead, we're a tangle of limbs on the hallway wall, halfway between the kitchen and my room, where she halts with her back pressed to the drywall, her breath shaky and her eyes impossibly wide. I kiss her again, slower this time, savoring it. Her lips part for me like they remember the shape of this, and it’s something she never wanted to forget.
“I thought I lost you,” I whisper against her mouth.
“You didn’t,” she breathes. “You just… scared me. This scared me.”
I close my eyes, forehead against hers. “I know.”
The apology is unspoken, tucked between the lines of our breath, our touch. We’re both tired of explaining ourselves in words. For now, our hands do the talking.
Lila slides her fingers into the waistband of my jeans, and I grip her thighs to lift her against the wall. Her legs wrap around me like muscle memory, her back arching as she grinds against me with quiet desperation.
She clings to me like she’s trying to anchor herself, like I’m her only tether to the ground. Just like she is for me.
Inside the bedroom, the room that hasn’t felt full since she walked out, the air changes. Softer. Slower. Her breath catches as I lay her on the bed. Her hair fans across my pillow like she never left it. She’s watching me with a look that’s part hunger, part hesitation.
I pause, kneeling beside her. Letting her see that I’m here, waiting. Not pushing.
“I need you to say it, Lila.”
She nods slowly, eyes never leaving mine. “I want this.”
Relief cracks through me like thunder. I lean down and kiss her collarbone, her pulse fluttering against my lips. Every inch of her skin feels sacred now, mapped in memory and stitched together by longing.
I trail kisses down her chest, slow enough to make her sigh, soft enough to make her tremble. Her hands roam over my shoulders, nails digging in when I find the sensitive dip of her waist, her thighs opening beneath me with silent invitation.
When I finally slip inside her, it’s not just heat or pleasure or lust.
It’s home.
Her breath stutters, and I still, letting us both feel it—really feel it. How we fit. How this was never just physical.
She cups my face, her thumbs stroking over my jaw. “I’m right here.”
And then we move. Together. Every thrust is a question and an answer. Every moan, every gasp, every whispered name is a vow we haven’t dared say out loud.
She clings to me, body trembling, mouth pressed to my shoulder as I push her higher and higher. Her breath hitches, and she breaks. I follow seconds later, letting go in a way I haven’t let myself in years.
After, we stay tangled in each other, skin slick, hearts thudding in sync.
“I love you,” I murmur against her damp temple. “Even if you’d chosen to leave. Even if all I had left was a memory of you. I would’ve loved you anyway.”
She presses her forehead to my chest. “You never asked me to stay. Not really.”
I tilt her face up gently. “Because I wanted you to choose it. For you. Not because I needed you or the kids needed you or the town whispered that you were already half ours.”
“And I do,” she says quietly. “Choose it. Choose you.”
Something inside me softens and releases. Like a grip I didn’t realize I was holding finally loosens.
“I’m going to screw this up,” I admit. “I’ll mess up pancakes. I’ll get grumpy when the dryer eats my socks. I’ll probably talk business at inappropriate times.”
She laughs, the sound curling into my chest and blooming there.
