Page 110 of Goldrage
But tonight, we have this, memories and wine and the slow, painful, necessary process of letting go while holding on.
Aurelia’s hand lingers in mine and all my heart needs is to be with her. I squeeze and she squeezes back, an unspoken agreement that nothing else matters, not for the next few hours. We retreat to our bedroom without words, without the pretense of hunger or thirst or sleep. Only the need to be together.
We undress each other in the blue dark, my hands more reverent than urgent. I pull the sweater up over her head, careful not to catch the chain of my necklace at hernape, then slide it down her arms and let it fall. Her hair crackles with static and glows against the gloom. She stands there in her bra, her eyes searching mine for the tiniest sign of hesitation, and finding none, she unhooks it.
Her pale skin is mapped with years of life and experiences—faint lines, a scatter of freckles, round cigar burns. I press my mouth just above the scar on her breast and feel her heartbeat thrum against me. Alive. My Aurelia is alive. Her fingers thread into my hair, anchoring me to her as if I might dissolve with the next breath. Maybe I will.
She pulls my face up to hers and kisses me with a hunger that surprises even her; there’s a tremor in her lips, a desperation in the way her teeth graze mine. She wants to be obliterated, to drown, and who am I to hold her back?
We stumble until the backs of her knees hit the mattress and we tip together, landing messily, a tangle of limbs and longing. She pulls me with her as her nails rake down my back.
I drag my mouth down her throat, following the pulse of her life with my lips. She arches up for more. Her hands move with frantic reverence, unfastening, undressing, always touching, as if to convince herself I’m really here.
All I want is to be worthy of her. I want to make her feel something other than loss, if only for tonight.
Soon, we’re both naked and I lower myself over her, skin to skin, the weight of my body pinning her to the mattress. She laughs, then bites her lip to stop it.
“What?” I ask, kissing her again.
She shakes her head, tears mixing with the sweat on her cheeks. “I just… I missed this. I missed you.”
“I’ll never leave your side again.”
She parts her knees and hooks her ankles behind my thigh, urging me closer. She looks up at me as I enter her, eyes glazed and unblinking, and I nearly come undone from the way she gazes at my face.
“I love you with everything that I am,” I whisper in the dark.
I move slowly at first, then not at all, and just hold her. Aurelia’s hands splay across my back. She feels like sunlight, a warmth I never thought I’d know again. The press of her hips against mine is insistent, but her mouth says please don’t ever let go. So I don’t.
Tiny sounds escape her as I begin to move again. The friction is desperate and imperfect. My face is wet and I’m not sure if it’s her tears or mine, but we keep going. My thrusts become deeper, faster. Her moans become louder as she clings to me.
I lose myself in her. Each movement, each gasp draws us closer to the end. It isn’t explosive, it isn’t cinematic. It is the slow collapsing of two broken things finally allowed to rest in each other.
When she comes, it’s with a sob that breaks me open. I join her, my body shaking, mouth sealed to her throat, promising, promising, promising—until there’s no language left, just the raw insistence of breath and the dizzying fullness of loss and love intertwined.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
AURELIA
Sunlight streams through the kitchen windows, painting golden stripes across the marble counter. Lorenzo flips pancakes while Roby colors at the breakfast bar. The smell of butter and maple syrup mingles with fresh coffee. Life here is so normal that it still catches me off guard some mornings.
It’s been four months since we buried pieces of ourselves alongside Julian and Valentine in that cold cemetery ground. Some days it feels like yesterday. Others, like a lifetime ago.
“You’re burning them,” Eleanora says from her perch beside Roby. Her coffee mug is cradled between her hands.
Lorenzo doesn’t even glance her way as he slides another pancake onto the growing stack. “Stop. They’re perfectly golden.”
“If you consider charcoal a shade of gold.”
Roby snorts into his orange juice.
I reach for the syrup. “Can you two go five minutes without bickering?”
“Where’s the fun in that?” Eleanora’s lips quirk.
Completely ignoring the tension between the adults, Roby says, “Can we go to the zoo today?”
Before anyone can respond, Adrian steps into the kitchen. His presence soothes me to the core as we drift to each other. Then I’m in his arms and he’s kissing the top of my head.
