Page 111 of Falling Into Forever
That’s where I find my answers. In his eyes, I find myself.
“It was so much easier to retreat from the world and teach myself to avoid feelings in an effort to protect myself. Happy, sad, and everything in between became muted until they felt like a shadow in my life. Then you came home, and you injected me with all the emotions I’d pushed away. You see everything in vivid color, and you suck all the gray from my life until I’m blinded by every color of the rainbow. And it—it scares me because those shadows are always there, on the periphery, trying to drain those colors.”
He tenderly wipes at the skin above my cheekbones when moisture pools there, then he kisses the tears away before they can fall.
“It’s terrifying, Dante. Never knowing if today is the day the darkness wins. When all I saw were shadows, I knew what to expect. Now every day is different, and I’m scared of the unknown. What if…” I blink, trying to clear my vision, and this time the tears slide down my cheeks. “What happens if I can’t fight the shadows one day?”
Dante cradles me like I’m precious but not like I’m fragile, and the distinction matters more than he’ll ever know.
He lowers his face until his cheek rests against mine, inhaling me like I’m his first taste of oxygen. “Then I’ll turn on every light, open every shade, flood this place with sunshine until those shadows crawl back into the hell they were created in. I’m not scared of your secrets or your shadows, Sayls. In your darkest days, I’ll be the light that pierces your storm. Your pain is my pain.”
He rocks against my pussy.
“Your joy is my joy.”
His lips hover over mine, and he feeds me hope through his kiss. Our breaths mingle like our lives should have always been.
“Your love and fears and dreams? They’re all mine too.” His voice has taken on a husky edge that makes goosebumps race across my flesh.
Dante releases my face with one hand and uses it to hitch my thigh up to my chest, then he notches his cock at my opening, and the brightest of rainbows explodes in my vision. He rocks in shallow thrusts until his tip teases me open.
“I’ll research and learn everything I can,” he says. “I promise that the next time you feel broken or empty, alone or overwhelmed, I will be here to hold your hand. To remind you who you are and what you mean to me.”
His cock slips inside. Deeper and deeper until he’s fully seated, moving agonizingly slowly so every delicious inch of him marks me as his.
“I’m not perfect either. But we’re a team. When I push too hard to fix things that are not my job or my responsibility, you’ll pull me back to reality.”
The next thrust of his hips steals my breath.
“We fit together in every way, Saylor. Your body was made for mine.” He picks up speed until my breasts bounce with each movement. “Your heart is the missing piece of my life. Your mind and your sass challenge me in every way.”
“Dante,” I breathe. Perspiration glistens on my skin. The moment is so intense, not only because my body is primed for a mind-numbing orgasm, but because he’s reached inside my fears and massaged the knots from them until everything I am is at his mercy.
“I know, baby. Fuck,” he grunts. “When you’re overwhelmed, I’ll carry some of the burden.” His thrusts intensify after each declaration, making it hard to breathe. “When you’re sad, I’ll pick you up. When you’re happy, I’ll thank my lucky stars. But no matter where you are, I’ll always meet you there.”
His words, the purest form of love, and the way his body glides over mine like it’s been programmed just for me, bleed together into one all-consuming sensation. And those colors we were talking about? They set off fireworks behind my closed lashes as my body writhes and convulses in the most intense orgasm I’ve ever had.
“Jesus. Fucking. Christ,” he groans. His muscles coil beneath my fingers, but all I can see, all I can feel, is blinding, soul-crushing love. “Damn it, Saylor. Stop trying to push me out.” He means physically, but I hear it as a warning for emotional detachment too. Dante slams into me, then grinds his hips against my pelvis, and a new orgasm builds before the last one has even ended.
“It’s too much. It’s too…”
“I’ve always got you, Sayls.” His voice is ragged against my ear, and I wiggle my body, trying desperately to nuzzle closer. “I need you to come again. I want your walls to milk my cock, and your pussy imprinted on every ridge of my dick. I need all of you.”
He was always a dirty talker, but this is rougher, more desperate than I’ve ever heard him, and I remember with blinding clarity that he needs to know we’re real too.
“I love you, Dante. I love you. I love you. I love you,” I chant like a promise, a vow, a commitment for life. And then I shatter below him, because no matter how many pieces I break into, he’ll keep each one safe, then hand them to me one by one while I put myself back together again.
He comes with a roar that doesn’t sound human, and it rattles the windows. It’s agony and regret. It’s hope and promises. It’s love that’s finally allowed to be set free. And I take it all. When he collapses on top of me, two bodies coated in each other, I silently build one wall against the shadows.
One day at a time, this man guides me from the path I was lost on for far too long. And he helps me feel like I can finally take the reins of my life and live with purpose. Live with light. Live with so much love it makes even the sassy side of me happy.
“I love you, Saylor,” he says sleepily. “None of this will be easy, but we’ll get through it together.”
I drag my fingertip over his skin. D. A. N.T. E. Over and over again, but when I trace his name this time, it’s not a way to survive what my mind is fighting. No, this time, when I do it, it’s a promise to live fully for him, for me, for us, because I deserve the happy ending.
I’m the creator of my story, and I’ll write it word by word.
I gasp when a fully formed idea finally sinks its claws into my consciousness and doesn’t slip away into the ether. Dante slides off me, and even though he keeps his arm draped over my middle, he’s asleep in seconds.
