We’d touched and kissed and fell into each other, and I was grateful they were here. Alive and safe.
I didn’t want to think.
“I’ve never let women do that to me,” Damon said quietly, breaking the silence.
“Do what?”
“Put their mouths on me,” he replied. “Down there.”
He didn’t let other women use their mouths on him?
“I just never…” he trailed off. “It’s not something I…”
He struggled to find the words, but I realized what he was talking about, and I tried to keep the sadness from my voice.
“I know,” I told him, saving him from having to say it.
His mother and what she did to him.
He didn’t like that, and the reason had to do with her.
“Why did you let me?” I asked, keeping my tone soft.
“I didn’t even think about it until it was over,” he whispered. “It was like she wasn’t here. It was just you.”
He sucked in a breath and tightened his arms around me. “I love you,” he said.
I immediately broke down, tears springing to my eyes.
Happy tears.
He turned me over, slid on top of me, and kissed me as he nestled himself between my legs again.
“I love you,” he whispered over my lips again.
I held his face in my hands. God, I love you.
And as I sucked in a breath, feeling him push inside of me again, I knew what he was talking about all those days ago. The anger and fury and heat and need—years of it leading to this moment when we finally knew what we were and who we lived for.
Red.
Out of all the colors, I liked red the best.
Winter
Present
Devil’s Night.
I woke up, unsure how long I’d been asleep, but I knew it was late when we came to bed. It had to be morning, which meant tonight was the night. Devil’s Night.
I felt bodies on my left and right, and a tiny cyclone swirled through my stomach as my hands rested on my belly, and I clutched the T-shirt I wore that Damon had found in one of the drawers in the room last night.
Everything from the night before came flooding back, and even though my cheeks warmed with embarrassment, I couldn’t negate how good I felt right here, right now. Every muscle still slumbered, and my mind was at peace, if even just for a few more moments.
Raising my right hand, I reached up and cupped a face, feeling Damon’s jaw and straight eyebrows, his nose and warm neck. Raising my other hand, I found Will asleep on his stomach, his soft hair falling over his forehead.
All three of us.