Page 113 of Out of the Shadows
COSMO
Slowly, sleep recedes and I peel open my eyes. I need to stretch out my limbs but more I need to stay right where I am.
In Daniel’s arms.
My heart trips and the butterflies in my stomach awaken and take flight. I fell asleep in his arms, and I’ve woken up in his arms. He’s the only man who has held me through the night, and he’s the only man who ever will.
“I know you’re awake.”
Daniel’s voice is rough, hardly a surprise given we’d sat up for hours and talked and talked and talked, putting everything right between us that had gone so horribly wrong.
“No, I’m not.”
He answers with a laugh; it rumbles through him, and I smile and snuggle in closer. I could stay here all day into tomorrow and all the tomorrows after that. But somebody else has other ideas, as they thump onto the bed.
“Hey, boy, I’ve missed you.”
I unwind myself from Daniel’s arms. Wallace, unofficially the officially ugliest cat in the world with more bald patches than fur, clambers up the bed. I tickle him behind what’s left of one of his ears.
“You never said that to me.” The pout in Daniel’s voice is unmissable.
“True, but then you don’t purr at me, or lick me.”
“Hmm, not sure if that’s true.”
I look up and smile, and god, but my heart turns over. Something in him has changed. There’s a lightness in his features, a contentment fired through with confidence. I know what it is, and it makes me want to weep with relief. As last, after so many years of denial and screwing down the lid on the man he was, Daniel has made peace with the man he truly needed to.
Himself.
I shift, dislodging Wallace who hisses his objection before he jumps from the bed and slips out the door.
Propping myself up on one arm, I gaze down at Daniel as I brush my fingers through his silver-dark hair. To think I might never have touched him again, or felt the warmth of his skin against mine… I blink away my watery vision, and thrust the thought aside.
“Thank you,” I say.
His brow puckers. “I don’t understand.”
“For… for being honest, and having the courage to do what you did last night.”
Daniel smiles, and catches my hand in his to lay a light kiss on my palm.
“I had no choice, not that I wanted one in the end. Taking it slowly, being cautious, they were bricks in a wall called fear, but I never recognised them for what they really were. It took others to drive a bulldozer into them and smash them all away. They made me realise what a fool I was and how I was letting the best thing in my life slip through my fingers.”
“Geraldine, and your mum.”
Daniel nods. “They both know me better than I know myself at times. I’d like you to get to know them both — but only if you want to,” he adds quickly.
Oh, Daniel…
“Of course I do. More than that, I’d be honoured.”
Daniel’s smile is pure sunshine, and I press a kiss to his lips only wanting to feel its caressing warmth. Snuggling back into his arms, I close my eyes and lay my head on his chest, hearing his strong rhythmic heartbeat.
“I’m going to phone my mum later today. I want to talk to her about Christmas.”
Christmas… only days away, but here in this warm safe place we’ve made for each other, I’d all but forgotten that on the other side of the walls the world’s still turning.
“You’re going there on your own this year. I know, and understand.” I do understand, now I really do.
