30. Riggs
Riggs
W e finally break apart. We're both breathing hard, and I rest my forehead against hers. My thumbs trace slow circles on her hip bones, feeling the soft skin there, memorizing the contours of her body.
“You don't have to say it back,” I murmur, my voice barely audible over our ragged breathing. “I just needed you to know.”
“I know,” she whispers, and I notice how hoarse her voice sounds. “I've always known, I think. Even when I didn't want to.”
Something shifts in my chest. It’s not quite hope, but something close. Something dangerous. My hands slide up to cup her face, tilting it so I can see her eyes. Those storm-gray eyes have haunted me from the first moment I saw them.
I didn't plan to say it like that. Not with soapy dishes in my hands and water dripping onto her kitchen floor. Not after a night of violence and blood. But, I don’t fucking regret it.
The words have been living in my chest for so long, growing and expanding until they were too big to contain anymore.
I love her.
No, that's not even enough. I worship her. I'm consumed by her. She's in my bloodstream, my nervous system, rewiring everything I thought I knew about myself.
“What are you thinking?” Maren asks, her fingers tracing the line of my jaw.
I could lie. Could give her some watered-down version of what's happening in my head. But we're past that now.
“That I've never meant anything more in my life,” I tell her, watching her pupils dilate slightly. “That loving you isn't just some feeling. It's who I am now.” My thumb brushes across her bottom lip. “That I'd burn down the whole fucking world if you asked me to.”
She shivers, and I feel it travel through her body into mine where we're pressed together.
“You shouldn't say things like that,” she whispers, but her eyes are hungry.
“Why not?”
“Because I might have you do it.”
I lean in closer, my lips a breath away from hers. “Good.”
Neither God, the angels, nor the Devil could keep from this woman.
“Take me to bed,” she says, and it's not a request.
Like a worshipper obeying their deity, I listen.