But I don’t. I want to shed my skin and be reborn, and no one is going to stop me.
I’m mere feet away, the water welcoming me with a soothing touch as a light mist cakes my face and my body. I’m almost at the finish line and spread my arms out wide, prepared for whatever fate throws my way.
As usual, fate reveals what a sadistic bitch she is because the smell of the ocean smashes into me before I’m knocked to the ground. The air is ripped from my lungs, and I struggle to breathe. But survival takes a back seat when Cayden wrestles with me, begging me to stop. But I will not surrender.
I fight him, clawing at his shoulders to let me go, but my attempts to break free only have Cayden pinning me down harder.
“Get off!” I scream, hysterical. “You fucking lied to me!” I wiggle my body and kick my legs, hoping to get in a lucky shot and throw him off.
I don’t.
“Don’t you dare do this to me again. Don’t you dare!” he cries, yanking my arms above my head and gripping my wrists in one hand. His words have the desired effect, and I suddenly grow lax, the fight in me dying for now. What does he mean?
“I don’t know what’s real anymore,” I confess, angry tears springing to life. I want to fight him, but I don’t know who I’m angrier with—Cayden or myself.
His heaving chest presses to mine as he searches every inch of my face. “I’m real. And so are you. But most importantly”—he nudges my nose with his, inhaling—“this is real. You are not alone,” he says. It’s an oath, one I believe to be true, but that doesn’t chip away at the betrayal I feel, which is why he returns a little piece of my soul to me. “Everything…is always better after a thunderstorm…”
I gasp, blinking past the raindrops but also the tears. “Wh-why do you say that?” I whisper, not understanding any of this. Our bodies press together so tightly that not a single wisp of air can shift between us, yet this isn’t close enough.
Cayden releases me, only to brush the soaked hair from my cheeks. The hypnotic gray of his eyes threatens to drag me under. “Because it helps us to remember that life goes on. No matter if we want it to…or not.”
I don’t have a chance to talk…think…breathe…because Cayden steals everything from me, and in turn, he makes it ours. He thumbs my bottom lip, coaxing me to allow him in. But he doesn’t need permission. This man has been a part of me from the very moment we met.
His hair is tousled, and the rain darkens the strands to a deeper brown. A raindrop backflips from a dark lock that has flicked forward and lands on my parted lips. Without thought, my tongue darts out to taste it. To taste him. His groan cascades over my quivering form.
The rain thrashes down around us, but nothing else exists. “Did you lo-love me?” I boldly ask, my body undulating as he focuses on my mouth.
“Yes. Very much,” he replies earnestly and openly. With a fingertip, he traces my features, lost in a dream. “But a single mistake cost us both.”
“What does that mean?”
Cayden is unburdening his soul, but that doesn’t come without consequence.
I feel every hardened inch of him as he crushes us together, threading his fingers through my hair. Sealing our fate forever, he once again thumbs my bottom lip, enticing me to welcome him home, and I do. He suckles my top lip. We’re done for. “I broke your heart,” he professes, nothing but sadness overtaking us both. But what he says next ruins me forevermore. “And for the next ten years…you broke mine.”
Time stands still.
I want to say so many things, but no words could ever explain the chaos swirling within. So with no other choice, I end this once and for all. Lacing my hands through his tousled locks, I pull his mouth to mine, stopping a hair’s breadth away. He waits, hovering over me, a mixture of rage, sadness, and frustration consuming him.
In no way am I gentle as I tug at his hair. I’m angry, so fucking angry, and at this moment, I don’t know if I want to slap or kiss him. But then I watch as his tongue sweeps along his bottom lip, and I decide on the latter.
I devour him whole. Consequences be damned.
I don’t have time to sample his taste because it’s sensory overload, and I consume him like he is my last meal. Nothing is gentle about this kiss, and the fact our tongues are demanding the other to surrender is an aphrodisiac within itself. But I refuse to concede.
We fight for domination, but neither of us submits. I bite his bottom lip, but it only spurs him on.
He growls into my mouth, winding his fingers around my nape and holding me prisoner as we kiss like starved souls. We tease. We take. We give. I soften against him as he hardens and demands more.
He licks at the seam of my mouth, tasting me with long, elegant strokes. I’m panting and writhing beneath him because I know what comes next. I know because I could never forget Cayden’s kisses. The sweep of his tongue, the softness of his lips, I remember. I remember because you never forget your first kiss…your first love.
Cayden was my first everything. I know that he was.
He sucks at my tongue, greedily drinking me into him while I bask in his scent. His skin smells of the ocean and sunshine, and I can’t stop the whimper that slips past my lips. So many emotions crash into me. Kissing Cayden is familiar, almost innate, like breathing, because I need it to survive.
I am still angry. Betrayed. But I have an entire lifetime to wade through the bitterness. Now, I just want to feel.
Our tongues roll together in unison, as do our bodies, for a dance specially created for us. We fit together like two jigsaw pieces. Our flesh is slick from the rain, providing the perfect lubrication as I writhe and moan against him.
I cup his face, frightened he’ll disappear because his admission demonstrates that our lives have weathered many hardships. Tears instantly surface. He senses my sorrow and slows the kiss down, gently and deeply making love to my mouth but, most shockingly, also to my heart.
This kiss comes in many shades, but my undoing is when love replaces his passion. He caresses and kisses me like I’m his world. Not just his moon. His stars. The sun. I am his everything. Without me, he will perish, and life is no more.
Tears break the floodgates, and I don’t know when they’ll stop. Cayden’s sadness is palpable as he kisses me one final time. He kisses my cheeks, washing away my anguish, before lifting himself up. I miss his warmth.
Needing a minute, I lie still, peering into the heavens as the rain falls on me. “Why wouldn’t you tell me this, Cayden?”
His breathing is heavy. This is about to break us both. “Because you asked me not to.” I close my eyes, sealing away my tears. “You told me whatever the circumstances, I was to never speak to you again. That I was to forget you because you…had forgotten me.” The hitch to his tone reveals he hasn’t escaped unscathed from my demands.
“I’ve brought you nothing but pain. So when you told me if I ever loved you I was to leave you alone, I listened. You made me promise. And I did. It was the one and only time I didn’t let you down.”
Breathing in and out, I measure my breaths as I’m afraid I’m moments away from passing out. “What did we do?” I say, almost afraid to ask. I can’t face him. Not yet.
Goose bumps prick my flesh as Cayden skims two fingertips down my forearm, circling over my racing pulse. This is what I’ve craved from the moment we met. For him to touch me openly like I’m his. But now, I know what this is. This is goodbye.
“You will always be my biggest regret.”
“She’ll always be…the biggest regret of my life.” Cayden’s admission to Hazel now takes on a whole different meaning because it appears I am the cause of something so heinous, he will forever regret it and me for as long as he lives.
I ama monster.
“I don’t understand. I don’t understand any of this. But I’m s-sorry, Cayden. I’m sorry for whatever pa-pain I caused.” My stomach turns, and the darkness is moments away from dragging me under.
Unlike anything in the past, this is a tsunami, the mother of all storms, and I know there is no coming back from this. I fight the blackness, but suddenly, it feels good to surrender, so I do. The white noise conquers the torture, and I allow it to overthrow me.
But when I do…all I can smell is the ocean. “I’m the one who’s sorry. I’m the one who couldn’t save you, Snow.”