Page 93 of The Truth About Love

This isn’t how I thought we’d end. But if this really is goodbye, then I need to say it right.

Chapter Twenty-four

Summer-Raine

Auden lifts me like I’m weightless, like I’m treasured gold and lighter than air at the same time. He cradles me against him as he leads us to the bedroom where we’ve both been sleeping for the past week or so. Oh, how cold it will be when he leaves.

My eyes screw shut at the thought of saying goodbye to him for the last time. It’s what’s right, I know it is. That’s why I made the choices I did back in high school. The monsters inside my head will never allow us to be together, I’ve known it for a long time. I’m just not sure I’ll survive it this time.

“Stay present, baby,” Auden murmurs against my hair. “Stay in the moment with me, okay?”

I hold his gaze as he lays me down gently onto the soft cotton bedsheets. His eyes are wild with desire and adoration, two orbs ablaze with the love he has never held himself back from showing me. I’m sure mine look the very same right now.

He sheds himself of his clothes as he stands before me, his gaze never wavering. Even as he pulls his sweater over his head and slides his sweatpants down his legs, he looks at me like he’s frightened I’ll disappear if he dares to look away.

I know how he feels.

How long I’ve waited to feel his hands on me again, to feel the warmth of his body on mine. To feel the safety I’ve only ever felt in his strong arms. And now it’s finally happening, it’s hard to believe that any of this is real.

When he strips me of my clothes and presses his skin to mine, it’s so burningly intense that I almost flinch in pain. It’s even worse when his lips take mine in a kiss so searing and powerful, volcanoes erupt on the other side of the world.

Worse still when he enters me for the first time.

His head drops to my shoulder, both of shuddering as the sheer momentousness of the moment starts to sink in. The space between my legs burns with the sudden fullness. Maybe we should have taken some time to warm up first, but I needed him to complete me, to become one with me, more than my lungs need air to breathe.

I’m only whole when he’s inside me.

It’s not like when he took me against the wall. That was about hatred, this is about love. He doesn’t fuck me. That’s not what this is, not what our bodies are trying to say. Instead, we move together, our bodies grinding against each other like undulating waves.

It’s almost too much. And yet, I can’t help but wrap my arms around him and pull him closer to me.

It’s overwhelming, what’s happening between us. This reconnection of our souls. It’s like my heart has spent the last five years beating out of time and only now with Auden’s heart beating against it like a metronome is it finally able to remember its rhythm.

Our moans melt together as my ankles lock behind his back. He growls, carnal and fevered as his mouth takes mine and whispers silent words against my lips. My god, I’d forgotten what it was like to kiss him. It’s extraordinary. The way he’s so gentle yet commanding all at once. I’ve never known the kiss of another man, but I know that no man could ever kiss me like Auden.

It’s unthinkable that I’ll never get to feel this again.

My fingers tangle in his hair as I bury my nose in his neck, inhaling the smell of him while I still can. I’m terrified that one day I might forget it, though I know it isn’t possible.

The smell of him will surround me when the wind blows through pine trees. I’ll be reminded of him every time I open a book, walk through the woods or simply just take a breath.

I’ll never forget it because it’s locked in my heart forever. It’s as familiar to me as my own perfume and it always will be.

Auden rolls us, trapping himself beneath me before guiding us both into an upright position. We’re chest to chest and nose to nose. He’s deeper this way. We’re so tightly sealed together that we may well be one person.

My eyes close as I wrap my arms around his neck, seeking out his lips with my own.

“I love you,” he whispers into my mouth.

It’s the first time I’ve heard him say those words since I was eighteen and it feels just like it did back then. Maybe even better now. Like nothing bad can ever happen to me so long as I have the love of Auden Wells.

His tongue finds mine and slides against it. I moan and he drinks it down, worshipping me with his kisses until I can’t hold back the breathy sounds falling out my mouth.

“How will I ever be able to say goodbye to you?” he asks, pulling back to look me in the eye, and instantly, tears run in their thousands down my cheeks.

Don’t.

Don’t ever say goodbye to me.

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