Secret Lucidity(91)
“I get it. This is a lot to have thrown at you out of nowhere. It’s okay if you feel confused and overwhelmed. If you need time—”
“I do, but I’m scared I won’t see you again.”
“Me too. I’m terrified to lose you again. But the last thing I want is for you to be scared.” I take her hands back in mine and look her straight in the eyes. “Listen to me. I will never walk away from you. Not unless you tell me to. So, if you need time, take it. I’m not going anywhere.”
She nods with hesitation.
“Can I see your phone?”
She pulls it out of her pocket and hands it to me. I open up her notes and type in my cell number and the name of the hotel I’m staying at along with the room number.
“I’ll be at the Siena Hotel,” I tell her when I hand her phone back. “I won’t leave until I see you, okay? So take as much time as you need.”
I make sure my words come across sure and certain, but the moment she stands and walks away, I grow worried that she won’t come back. Those worries follow me all the way back to my hotel room where I can’t sit still. I pace the room incessantly as fears and insecurities that plagued me in the past come back to haunt.
These four years without her have been hell, and having to sit in sex offender classes week after fucking week with a bunch of fucked-up child molesters and rapists messed me up badly. The shit I’ve heard is enough to supply me with a lifetime’s worth of nightmares. Not to mention the warped mindset I’ve had to battle with being forced to sit among them as if I were one of them.
There was a point I really started to struggle with the idea that I did in fact take advantage of Cam. That maybe I do have a very sick spot in my head, and that I used her to satisfy it. Life got very dark during that time, and there was nothing I could do. I debated seeing a therapist, but I figured they would want to treat me as a child molester as well the moment I told them about Cam. So, I suffered through the perverse thoughts and nightmares that depicted the two of us in a way I never wanted to see.
But Cam did go to therapy, so what if she was treated as a victim of mine? What if she thinks of me as a predator and that’s the real reason why she was so nervous at the coffee shop?
I grow even more anxious when I see the sky darken after the sun sets. I check my phone for the seventh time to make sure the ringer is turned up and I haven’t missed a call or a text. I think about ordering dinner, not because I’m hungry, but more for the distraction of having something to do rather than letting my head mess with me.
My heart nearly explodes when I hear a frantic pounding on my door. The moment I open it, she falls into my arms and I lift her off the ground, kicking the door shut as I crush her against me.
“Tell me what this means,” she begs in urgency. “Tell me why you came.”
“Because I love you, Cam. I’ve always loved you.”
I kiss her in a rush of fervency, and she cries against my lips. I make no excuse to move slow as I part her mouth to taste what I’ve missed so much, because I still love her. Even with time lost and all we’ve suffered through, she’s still the one I love. And in an instant, all the anguish fades when she kisses me back.
Her arms cling around me as I carry her over to the bed, and we are nothing more than broken hearts desperate for healing. Words fall from lips that refuse to stop kissing, confessing our fears, sorries, I missed yous, I love yous, and I never want to be without yous as we lick the other’s wounds.
And when I have her naked on the bed, she stares up at me as if I’m her everything but she has it all wrong. Because it’s her. It’s always been her who has made us what we are when we’re together.
Her legs fall open so willingly for me, like I’m her missing piece she needs to be whole. God knows she’s my missing piece too. I lower my body to hers and take my time as I slowly sink myself inside of her. The moment I have her warmth wrapped tightly around me, fire sparks up my spine, and I know this is where I’m meant to be. That this isn’t something sick and fucked up the way they wanted us to believe.
The intensity between us is infinite, and as if no time has passed, our bodies move together flawlessly. I prop up on my elbows and look at her looking at me as I hold myself still inside her. Her cheeks are flushed pink as tears continue to fall down the sides of her face, and when she runs her hands up my unshaven jaw and back behind my neck, she whispers heavily, “How do you do that?”
“Do what?”
“Make me love you like it’s a necessity?”
She moans so fucking sweetly when I push myself deep inside her, craving her unlike anything I’ve ever craved before. Needy to make up for lost time, we hold each other close with hearts that pound against the other’s chest as we make love the only way we know how: desperately.
When we can’t go on and the room is filled with the smell of our sex, Cam lies peacefully in my arms, using my shoulder as her pillow. I breathe her in and run my hand along her damp spine, and fuck if I didn’t feel like crying myself. To have her back in my arms so intimately, her skin all over mine, is something I’ve prayed so hard for. I’ve slept with her in my tear ducts so often that I started to doubt I would ever be with her again.
She runs her hand up my chest, and I grab her wrist, bringing her palm to my mouth to kiss. I press my lips to the center of her hand, and when I drag my thumb across the inside of her wrist, I feel raised flesh. I pull her hand away and find a deep scar running the length of her wrist, and every bone in me thickens brutally in devastation.