Page 28 of Jace

Hooking her waist and spinning around, I place her body against the couch cushions, before covering her body with mine.

“I feel for the guy,” I confess. Pushing hair back away from her face, the feel of her soft skin against my fingertips. “He’s not bad, just had a hard time expressing himself. He loves her,” I allow the weight of my body to get to her. “He never had anyone who loved him before her. So he’s lived a lonely life, never had to worry about anyone else, until her.”

I’m lying there channeling some fictional character in a movie, but it’s hard not to. The guy is me.

“Don’t let me fuck this up,” I say the words before I change my mind and her smile shifts, as her expression softens. “It’s the biggest fear I have. I want this, I want you, but I’m so worried about you realizing you are far too good for me.”

“I think maybe you need to stop worrying so much about messing things up and maybe instead be here with me. None of us are perfect, none of us are innocent and never mess up. The problem is you are so worried about being you, that its interfering with you being your true self.”

She cups my jaw, and I lean into her touch.

“You terrify me,” she confesses and I swear in that moment my heart stops beating. “You are the only man I know that can make me completely lose myself. I was willing to give up everything I’ve ever wanted just for the chance to be with you.”

“I don’t want you to give up anything for me.”

Tears pool in her eyes, and my chest feels tight, like I can barely breath.

“You say you are afraid of me waking up and deciding I don’t need you, but truth is I’m afraid of those same things. I think our fears are overshadowing everything we should really be focusing on.”

When I don’t answer, she does.

“Us,” she whispers, “getting to truly know the other. Enjoying the beginning phases, the falling, and all the excitement that goes with it all.”

What I want to say is that I’ve already fallen, but for now I offer her a kiss.

“No more fear,” I say ensuring she is looking into my eyes. Needing her to see me and to hear me. “We stop worrying about what-ifs and instead focus on the now.”

Our night shifted quick. What started as fun became serious and heavy. Both of us hanging on the edge, and I could let it all go. I could do what I always do when shit got real and I could shift it.

But instead I ask the question I’ve been wanting to ask for days.

“Why do you sleep with the lights on?”

Aurora’s lips part and she looks away, but I cup her jaw and force her attention back to me.

“The nightmares, the need you have to be able to always see your front door, why?” She closes her eyes, and I know she is fighting her demons, but I’m here. I need her to understand that.

“Ror,” her chest rises as she takes a deep breath. Then slowly she opens her eyes. “Talk to me, baby.”

“Because I never again want to be caught off guard,” she confesses. “It was never from fear of him coming back. It was always more from the idea that he took something away from me that day. He took something from all of us, and I know that I’m still allowing him to take things from me. I’ve never been one to be afraid to be alone, or the kind of person that was always looking over my shoulder, observing my surroundings constantly on guard and ready. It may be a bad thing, but I was always so relaxed and went with the flow.”

She worries her lip.

“He took away that part of me. He changed me. I became the kind of girl that fears every little noise, I was jumpy and nervous every day all day. He took away my security.” She shrugs. “I think I hate that more than anything, but the harder I try to get it back the deeper I sink.”

“Promise me something,” I curl my body, repositioning myself at her side. “You can look at this however you want, jealousy, possessive, whatever. But if you are ever scared, you call me.”

Aurora holds my stare and after a few seconds she nods. “Truth be told, you were always the one I wanted.” He words are nothing more than a whisper, as she tucks in closer and lays his head on my shoulder. With her hand on my chest and her hair tickling my nose together we relaxed and I held her right there on her couch throughout the entire night.

She slept heavy.

She slept hard.

And I loved being the man who held her through it all.

Chapter Nineteen

Aurora

---