Page 116 of Midnight Between Us
“I want you.”My voice is low—raw.“But I’ll take the guest room if that’s all you’re offering.”
She looks at me like she’s seconds away from shattering—or kissing me.
Thank fuck she chooses the second.Simone leans in first.Her lips press against mine—uncertain, unsteady, but devastating.
It’s not a kiss.It’s a collapse.
Of years.Of pain.Of everything I pretended didn’t matter.
And fuck, I fall with it.
The second her mouth touches mine; I swear something inside me comes undone with a snap.A soundless rupture I feel in my ribs, behind my eyes, in that place right beneath the skin that never stopped aching for her.
I don’t just kiss her back—I fucking breathe her in.
Her lips are warm and trembling.Her hands reach up, fingers fisting the fabric of my shirt like she doesn’t know if she’s pulling me closer or holding herself together.My palm cups her jaw, and I swear I can feel her pulse racing beneath my thumb.
She tastes like heartbreak and hope and something floral I can’t name—but it’s her.It’s always been her.And I’m kissing her like I need her to know that.
As I need her to feel it in her bones—that I never stopped wanting her, never stopped carrying her name in my heart and my soul.Her memory was the only thing keeping me sane—breathing—maybe even human.
My heart is beating out a war drum rhythm in my chest.Fast.Desperate.Familiar.Because this isn’t new.This is muscle memory.This is my body remembering what it means to be home.
But it’s different, too.There’s grief in this kiss.Forgiveness lingers—it’s too cowardly to speak aloud.There’s punishment.Desperation.Worship.
I tilt my head, brushing my nose against hers as our mouths realign, and she gasps when I nip her lower lip.She always liked that.I remember that.I remember everything.
I remember us.
Her fingers slide into my hair, tugging with the same softness she used when she was trying to wake me from nightmares.When I still believed I could protect her from mine.
And I kiss her like I’m sorry.
But also like I’m not sorry at all for taking all the air out of her lungs with this kiss.
Because I need this.
I need her.
I need her lips on mine like I need oxygen, like I need absolution.Like I need someone to reach in and pull me out of the wreckage I’ve been surviving in since the day I walked away from her.
She makes a small sound—somewhere between a sigh and a sob—and it rips through me.
Fuck, I missed that sound.
Missed this softness, this friction, this fire between us that somehow still burns even after everything we did to snuff it out.
I want to tell her I never kissed anyone else like this.That every mouth since hers felt like a placeholder.A mistake.A comparison no one ever came close to winning.
But I don’t speak.I can’t.
Because right now, her lips are poetry and punishment.Death and fucking resurrection—and I’m not risking a single second of it with words.
Her body curls into mine, like maybe she’s remembering it too.Like maybe the years we lost haven’t made us strangers after all.
Like maybe she still loves me—even if she’ll never say it again.
Not tonight.
