Page 60 of The Road to You

“You wanted to find the old Elara,” he reminds me, his voice loud so I can hear him over the noise of the plane. “She’s still in there. I know she is. This is how we do it. You don’t tip toe, you don’t hide. You throw yourself out of a plane and remember what it is to be alive.” With that, he turns and within seconds the door opens and he disappears through it, leaving me with nothing but his words whirling around in my head.

I don’t even process the events happening around me. All I know is when Scott, my tandem diver, hollersreadyinto my ear, I feel like my heart is seconds away from exploding.

I want to scream no, tell him I can’t do this, but my words are ripped back into my throat when he leans forward and all of a sudden we are free falling through the open sky. It takes me several seconds to find my ability to breathe, the sudden fall sucking the wind right from my body. But eventually I do. Eventually I find more than just my breath.

The feeling hits me full force. The same feeling I spent my whole life chasing. The pump of the adrenaline through my veins. The rapid thumping of my heart in my chest. The feeling of being alive.

I close my eyes and open my arms, smiling into the force of the wind that presses against my face. This is what I’ve been looking for. This is what I’ve been missing. This is it. And Kane knew it. Somehow he knew exactly what I needed and he knew without ever having to ask. He knew this because he paid attention. Because he listened to Kam when he spoke about me and because he’d been listening to me for days.

My heart swells with this knowledge. The knowledge that even despite everything I’ve been through and everything I’ve done, there’s someone on this Earth that still cares enough to listen. That cares enough to pay attention. That cares enough to want to help me heal as badly as I want to heal him.

As Scott instructs me on the land, I see Kane standing several feet away. I brace for impact, certain I’m seconds away from eating the earth, when Scott leans back and his feet hit the ground running.

I’m pulling at my straps trying to get free the moment we come to a stop. Urgency that I haven’t felt in a very long time is driving through me. Scott helps me shed my restraints and the instant I’m free, I’m sprinting across the open field toward Kane.

He can see my smile before I reach him. I know because his smile matches the one I’m wearing. I don’t slow down when I get close. Instead I launch myself into Kane’s arms with so much force he stumbles back a good two feet before finally regaining his balance.

“That was incredible,” I squeal, legs wrapped around his waist, arms locked around his neck as I stare into his dark eyes.

Then I do something I never thought I’d find myself doing. I lean forward and press my lips to his. Not soft and careful like last night, but a full on frontal assault, our tongues tangling and hands roaming. Every part of my body is high on adrenaline from both the jump and the man whose arms it feels almost too good to be in.

Kane finally breaks away, his breathing ragged, his eyes darker than they’ve ever been as they find mine and hold tight. “Elara.”

“Thank you.” I drop my forehead to his, one hand on each side of his face.

“I’d do anything to have you look at me the way you’re looking at me right now,” he says, straight to the point, no bullshit.

“The jury is in,” I mutter against his lips, dipping my face back down to press a light kiss to the corner of his mouth. I know he knows exactly what I’m talking about.

“Is that so?” He pulls back and meets me with a heart stopping smile. “And what’s the verdict?”

“So much better than I expected.”

If I thought the smile he was giving me moments ago was heart stopping, then the one he’s giving me now is powerful enough to stop the world from spinning.

“I’m not done yet,” he tells me, gently setting me to my feet as Scott and Rick approach where we’re standing.

I don’t have time to learn what’s next because shortly after we’re picked up in an old pickup truck and taken back to the airstrip we took off from. Kane holds my hand the entire time, smiling at me whenever our eyes meet.

By the time we’re back in the rental and heading toward our next destination, I feel like I’ve died and gone straight to heaven. And while it’s impossible not to get caught up in everything happening around me–Kane, Italy, skydiving, all of it–a small part of me is still hanging onto the hint of guilt that has buried itself deep in the pit of my gut.

I’m starting to believe it will always be there and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t deserve worse than that. But even with such dark thoughts seeping in, they don’t put a marginal damper on my day. And that has everything to do with the man sitting next to me.

The man whose smile makes me blind to the world. The man whose kiss makes me feel something I have never felt before. The man whose eyes are currently locked right on mine, telling me he feels it to.

---