Page 102 of Easy Reunion
Chapter 40
Kelsey
The expression on his face is like nothing I’d ever witnessed. The tenderness, gratitude, and love shine brighter than the fatigue I can read beneath his eyes. Running my thumb gently under one, my voice is raspy when I ask, “Did you sleep?”
The angles and planes of his bared upper chest catch the morning light as it filters through the windows. Ry shakes his head. “I didn’t want to miss a single moment with you.”
“Ry,” I protest, but any words are stopped by the graze of his lips against mine.
“Overnight, I realized you were right. I won. You can’t imagine the pleasure I get from holding you while you sleep, but touching you? Ah, Kels, that makes every moment of pain worth the price.” He glides his hand down over the sleeveless arm of the rumpled dress I slept in, sending goose bumps up and down my skin. Slowly, he begins inching the hem upward.
“Nothing was worth that kind of price,” I counter even as my body begins to react to his.
“Your love is,” he corrects me, just before he captures my lips in a kiss so fierce my head is forced back against the pillows, as if he needs to prove to himself I’m still here. As if there’s anywhere else I’d be knowing he hasn’t walked away from me in his heart. I slide my hands up his bare chest and hold on. Tearing apart, he pants out, “I’ll do anything to protect you, Kels. Anything—know that.”
I barely get the chance to nod before he’s fused his lips back to mine like our kiss is a lifeline because maybe it is. I can feel the wet heat of Ry’s tears mingling with my own against my cheeks. The searing agony he’d held inside for so long, too long, finally open. Exposed.
Love and pain swirl up and settle over us like the humid summer air, full of weight and heat. How had he been carrying this burden for so long? I wonder before his hands wander down to the curve of my hip, lifting me flush against the hardness of his body and taking away thought by driving pleasure in its place. “Ry,” I moan out his name.
Warmth pools between my legs as his bare thigh—when did he strip off his clothes?—slips between mine. Tangling my fingers into the hair at the nape of his neck, I pull his head back just enough to breathe into his mouth the words I need him to understand down to the core of his soul, “I love you, Ry. Always,” before I fuse our lips together. Wrapping my arms tightly around his neck, I open myself up for whatever he needs to take.
Because that’s what I need to give.
And even though I wish I could do more, right now, he needs this. Needs me. I might wish I could go back in time and stand for him the way he stood for Lisa. I’d bear the burden of being humiliated a thousand times, a million times if I could have spared him an ounce of the agony he endured. But that’s not what he needs.
Twisting to free myself from the force that he’s clasping me to him, I growl and push him to his back. He rolls, allowing me to smooth my hands over his shoulders, trying to replace the memories I know are burned into his skin with new ones. Maybe the memories we’ll create will eventually ease the ones that have been festering there for what seem like a lifetime. I know nothing can wipe them from his mind, just like nothing can take away mine.
My lips tear away, leaving nothing but our harsh breathing in the room. “Kels,” he moans. His hands clench on my ass as I rock against him.
“Shh,” I whisper. My lips brush his lightly before traveling over his jaw, down his neck, and onto the wide expanse of his chest. I’m making love to every inch of skin I can touch. I’m branding Ry with tenderness instead of terror. My lips and fingers are doing what words will never be able to, attempting to heal wounds I never inflicted but ones that need to be cauterized for us to move on.
Slowly, my lips trail across his collarbone until I’m just above his heart. There they linger. “This is the part of you that I fell in love with.” My eyes well with tears. “The man who would sacrifice his soul for those he loves is worthy of more eloquent words than that, but there’s a beauty in their simplicity. There’s a beauty in you, Ry.”
He shakes his head vociferously. I reach up to capture one of his hands to hold it against my heart. He stills, feeling the rapid beat against his palm. “Yes, my love.” As much as I try, I can’t prevent the wetness from falling down my cheeks. “I wish you could understand I would endure anything to take this pain from you.” My voice is cracking. “But it doesn’t make you less of a man; it makes you one of the most courageous ones I know.”
“I never wanted you to look at me differently,” he chokes out.
“How could I not?” He turns his head away, but I pull it around. “Ry? You are so much more than the man I fell in love with. Your strength and honor make me humbled. And every day for the rest of my life, I pray you’ll give me more reasons to look at you in a new way,” I whisper as I lean down until my lips press against his bare chest. Leaving a firm kiss there, I sit up so he can read the truth in my eyes.
I’m hurting for the boy who endured a hazing that was pure physical abuse, but the man doesn’t want my pity. He’ll always have my compassion and understanding.
And my love.
Blindly through my tears, I find his lips. They’re wet and salty beneath mine. He presses his to mine hesitantly, still on an emotional roller coaster after what he shared. All these years, he’s been living with his pain, his torment, while trying to save everyone from theirs. Now, it’s my time to show him there are no words to right the wrongs.
There’s only love.
For a long time, I brush my lips against Ry’s chin, his cheek, his chest. In comfort. “Let me show you how to love yourself as much as I do.”
A bittersweet laugh escapes his chiseled lips. “I don’t know if that’s possible.”
“I do,” I assure him with the utmost confidence.
A glimmer lightens Ry’s eyes, making them shimmer like the deepest water of the ocean. “How?” he murmurs. His hand, balled in the material of my dress, comes up to brush the matted hair tangled in the wet of my cheek.
With a tender smile, I lay my lips gently against his when I whisper, “Because you turned my life inside out. You helped me conquer my fears to understand I was always worthy of love—your love.”
Ry groans as his arms wrap around me. “I don’t know what I did to deserve you,” he whispers into the top of my hair.
