Page 61 of Dallas

But it’s nothing compared to this.

He moved his hands, and I don’t know where they’re going to go next. And I’m not frightened.

I was so afraid for so long that the feeling of the unknown would remind me too much of being a confused, scared child. But it doesn’t at all. Because it has nothing to do with this. I knew that intellectually all this time. I knew that abuse had nothing to do with this. But I was still so afraid. So afraid that it would poison a beautiful moment, so afraid that it would put me back somewhere I didn’t want to be.

But now, I’m just with him. I’m being held in his strong arms, and there is nothing other than this. Nothing other than our need for one another.

It’s undeniable.

He feels it too.

His mouth is firm and sure on mine, and he guides our movements. His kisses are expert, and I know mine aren’t. I’m driven by my desire, and there’s something like a rush of satisfaction when I realize it’s not desire just for the sake of it.

I want him.

There has been a feeling inside of me that was too big to be contained from the moment that I met Dallas. I didn’t know what to do with it. I didn’t know where it was supposed to go. It made me wild. It made me feel safe, itmade me feel afraid, it made me feel like I might die if I lost him, and there was never a word for it. Never a place that I could put it neatly.

But finally,finallyI feel like I have a way to express it. A way that feels big enough. Strong enough. A way that matches the intensity that has existed in my heart for him for so many years.

Of course, it could only ever be his. All his.

That thought makes me feel like I’m falling. Like I’m sailing through the abyss, because it’s a terrifying, awful, wonderful realization.

That part of me will always feel like I belong to him no matter what. No matter where I end up, no matter where he goes. No matter what happens after this kiss ends.

I will always feel like half of a person without Dallas Dodge and that is both ugly and beautiful all at the same time.

Is it love or is it trauma? It’s very hard to say.

But it’s real all the same.

I’m getting wet out in the rain, from his touch, water drops rolling from his hair, down my face, or maybe I’m crying. It’s probably both.

And it’s appropriate anyway. Because this is like having a drink of water after eternity in the desert. I’ve been lonely, isolated, separate, different, for so long. And right now I feel like I’m part of him.

I don’t want it to end.

Then, he pulls away from me, holding onto my face, looking at me, those blue eyes all I can see. “Sarah,” he rasps, his voice rough. “What’s going on?”

“I don’t want to talk.”

“But we have to,” he says.

I shake my head. “No. I don’t want to talk. I want tofeel. Dallas, for so many years I’ve been afraid of feeling. But I’m safe with you. I know that I’m safe with you. We can talk afterward. I don’t need it to be safe. I don’t need any decisions to be made. I just need this. I need you. I need you to…” I reach up, and grab hold of his wet T-shirt, holding onto him tightly. “I need you to take me. Like you would if I were a girl you met at the rodeo. I need you to treat me like you would anyone, because I’m just so tired. I’m tired of myself. I’m tired of feeling like there’s something different about me that I never, ever change.”

He’s holding my face, fingers blunt against my skin, his eyes intense. “I can’t do that. I can’t treat you like someone else. Because you’re you, Sarah. I’m never going to treat you the way I would someone random. You’re never going to be a stranger to me. But I’ll make you feel good. I promise you that.”

He picks me up, and I wrap my arms around his neck, burying my face against his shoulder as he carries me up the front steps and into the house.

He closes the door behind us, and for the first time I’m aware that he’s clutching a sodden bunch of fabric in his hand against my body. He throws it down onto the floor with a soggy, soft sound.

I frowned in the direction of the black bundle.

“I went for a swim,” he says, setting me down, albeit much more gently than what he just threw on the floor a moment earlier. Then he reaches back behind his head and strips his T-shirt off one-handed, and my mouth goes dry.

His body is gorgeous. I’ve been entranced by it more than once since coming to live with him, but this is the first time that I really let myself openly admire him. This is the first time that I’ve really allowed myself to admit thatit’s sexual desire. That I’m looking at him like that because I want to touch him, kiss him, lick him, even.

My desire is suddenly so intense, so completely all-consuming that I feel like I’m standing outside of my body for a moment, staring at myself. Like I split myself off because I can’t handle the intensity of just being inside that body that has been transformed into a well of need that exists entirely for Dallas Dodge.

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