Page 69 of Salvaged Heart
He had looked me in the eyes at the hospital and begged me to stay. He had told me he loved me, and the expression on his face, that look in those gorgeous blue eyes, made me feel like I was his entire world. It had scared the shit out of me. Hell, it still did.
But now I was stronger.
Now, I could do this with him.
But I was too late.
I had to pull myself together. It wouldn’t be long before my mother sent my sister or Paulina to find me and drag me back down the stairs. I paced up and down the upstairs hall, breathingin deeply,one, two, three, four.Holding,one, two, three, four, five, six, seven.Breathe out,one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.I allowed the memory of Beck coaching me through my last panic attack to soothe me. The phantom feeling of his hand rubbing up and down my spine, the way he circled his finger on the back of my hand.
I shut my eyes and leaned into the wall, pressing my forehead to the cool paint. It must have been recently redone because there was a soft lingering smell there, and it took me back to the house on the lake. Beck grinning at me, with paint smudged on his cheeks and into his hair.
If only I could turn back time.
“Anders.”
Oh, God, I had been so lost inside my head that I hadn’t even heard Beck approach. Either that or the ache in my heart had been so great, and my need for him so intense, that I’d managed to summon him out of thin air. I twisted my head to the side to look at him, standing just a few feet away. He was just as gorgeous in person as he had been in my memories.
“Did you get back together with Laurel?” My throat felt so dry, but I had to know before I did something truly embarrassing.
Confusion and something that looked a lot like hurt flashed across his face. I didn’t think he would answer me, but that would have been confirmation in itself. I braced myself, going to turn back away from him, but he swallowed hard and took another step closer.
“No.”
Every instinct told me to pull away, not let him touch me, but I was unable to move. I knew I missed him. Every night, when I fell asleep in rehab and at Kara’s, it was so I could see him in my dreams. Every morning I woke to the bed cold and empty waslike reliving losing him again and again. But now he was here, inches away, it was excruciating.
“We are just keeping up appearances. She didn’t want to tell them with everything going on.”
Me.I was the ‘everything' going on.
“I miss you.”
The words were a knock-out punch to my chest. The look in his eyes was breaking the little resolve I had left. “Please, don’t…”
“I couldn’t stop if I tried.”
“Beck.” My voice was entirely too breathy, his name sounding more like a plea than the warning I’d intended.
“Anders.”
He was now standing right in front of me, barely an inch of space between our two bodies. Like a moth to a flame, I found myself turning into him, desperately seeking the warmth I had been hopelessly missing for months. His hand came up to cup my cheek, his forehead leaning into mine as his other hand snaked around my back. I’d been a fool to think I could resist him, completely delusional to think I could walk away.
But my eyes were wide open now.
“Do you have something you need to tell me, Anders?” His voice was all gravel and thick, heavy emotion.
The sound of it made me whimper like a wounded animal.
“Just tell me, and I’ll wait as long as it takes.”
It was the same thing he had said to me at the hospital, but now I couldn’t lie anymore. The words came stuttering out of my mouth before I could give them further thought. “I love you.” The three words made him practically crumple against me. “I love you so fucking much, Beck. I don’t need you to wait. I should never have let you go.”
That was seemingly all he needed to hear. Beck brought his lips to mine in a bruising kiss, the hand on my cheek movingto the base of my skull, angling me so he could kiss me deeper, harder. It was all teeth and tongue. Fire and electricity. Months of longing and missing and fucking yearning, finally boiling over into an all-out frenzy of need. It was entirely too passionate of a kiss to be having on the second floor of my childhood home, almost directly overhead from where my homophobic stepfather sat with Beck’s ex-girlfriend–my damn sister–eating Christmas dinner. It was a fucked up situation, but I found myself unable to care.
I pulled away from him for the sole reason of desperately needing to replace the oxygen he had emptied from my lungs. My cheeks were damp with tears. I hadn’t realized I was crying, but they streamed down Beck’s face, too.
“I thought I’d lost you forever.” He whispered.
“I know, I’m sorry, I’ll never…”
