19.
Dahlia
I watched Matt strip off just outside the shower cubicle, dropping his clothes on the dusty ground with no care in the world. His muscular body glistened with salty sweat, and I found I couldn’t look away from him. He had grown into a man in the years that had passed between us. He’d always been tall and strong, but his body had filled out, his shoulders broadening, his hips widening to accommodate his muscles.
I watched him as he stood outside, the forest light cascading over his powerful frame as he waited for the water to heat up. His body, a canvas of sinewy strength, glistened under the sunlight, each droplet accentuating the contours of his form. The sight of him, so raw and unguarded, stirred something deep within me—a blend of desire and a longing for the intimacy we’d once shared.
He'd always been good with his hands and his body, and had always known how to make my body sing in ways no other man had since, and I found myself unwantedly thinking back to those times now as he reached a hand out under the cascading water to check its temperature. I bit down on my lower lip as his muscles clenched with his movements, and swallowed as he rolled his shoulders before stepping under the hot water. He didn’t care that he was standing ass-naked in the forest for anyone to see. He was unashamedly proud of his body—that much was clear—and who could blame him?
My cheeks felt hot, my body flushed with something I hadn’t felt in a long while, and I opened my mouth and took a long, slow breath before exhaling just as slowly as the water ran down his face and chest. A tremble ran through me, my nipples hardening without my consent, and a quiet, unwanted whimper escaped me.
Jesus, what was wrong with me?
I looked away, my forehead scrunching up with confusion, but I found my gaze being automatically pulled back to watch him.
His large hands trailed over his strong, capable frame with purpose and familiarity, each movement feeling deliberate. The water cascaded down his body, carrying away the dust and grime of the day. My breath hitched as he ran his fingers through his wet hair, the action mundane, yet something about the movement sparked something in me. He turned slightly, his heady gaze meeting mine for a fleeting moment, and I saw a spark of recognition, a silent acknowledgment of the shared longing and the past that lingered between us. I hated that he could still make me feel this way. That I still desired the man that had broken my heart. But there was a switch inside me and I couldn’t turn it off.
I still wanted Matt, and I hated myself for it.
I longed to feel his hands on me, gripping me tightly to him as he spread kisses across my body, his hips moving rhythmically against mine. We had been so good together. Our bodies always in sync. Our hands and tongues knowing exactly what the other had wanted.
Tension filled the air, a magnetic pull that drew me to him despite the years that had forged a distance between us. It was a yearning, not just for the touch of his skin, but for the connection that had once made us so inseparable. His presence conjured memories of nights spent entangled in each other's arms, of our whispered confessions and the passion that we had once shared.
As he rinsed the soap from his skin, the sun's rays painted his muscular body in an autumn hue, making his every movement seem ghostly. I stood there, transfixed, caught in a web of past desires and present yearning. The forest around us seemed to fade away, leaving only the two of us in this moment of shared solitude and wanting.
He finished his shower and stepped out, droplets of water still clinging to his tanned skin, his eyes locked onto mine. The silence between us was loud, a testament to the unspoken words and unresolved emotions that hovered in the space between us. I took a step forward, my heart pounding, unsure of what would happen next…uncertain of what I wanted to happen next.
Matt was naked, water glistening against his skin as he stared at me with the same longing in his eyes as I had in mine. His hand moved to his stomach and then slowly lower to hold himself as he waited to see if I would say anything. If I would tell him to stop. My lips parted in a silent O as hunger flooded me, my body tingling with want.
“Matt…” I breathed out his name, my chest heaving.
I wanted to look away.
I wanted to tell him to stop.
My body though, had other ideas.
Matt strode toward me, his large frame filling every inch of my vision, the trees disappearing, the cabin nonexistent, until all I could see was him. The intensity of his gaze burning into mine. I couldn’t stop staring at the man he had become in the time that had separated us, and I felt almost dizzy with need as he drew closer, his gaze never leaving mine.
I shook my head, a pathetic protest against the yearning that burned through my body. I held up a hand to tell him to stop, but when he reached me, my palm pressed against his chest, automatically, and instead of pushing him close, my fingers curled with the desire to pull him closer.
“You tell me if you want me to stop, Dahl,” he said, his voice rough and gritty.
“Stop.” I breathed the word out on a whisper immediately, but it was a whisper neither of us believed.
A smile crooked at the corner of his mouth, his arms reaching around me and tugging me closer to his muscular body. I felt him, hot and hard against my thigh, and I stifled the groan that begged to escape.
“Matt, I can’t,” I pleaded with him.
One of us needed to see sense. One of us needed to remember that Alex was my husband. That he might be dead, but he wasn’t even in the ground yet. That I was still a taken woman. I still belonged to someone else.
His hand curled under my chin and he tilted my face up to his, his eyes flicking toward my mouth and then back up to my eyes again, practically pinning me in place with his hungry stare.
He was strong, his muscles twitching as he held me close like he never wanted to let me go again, and deep in his eyes I saw the hate he had for himself, the regret he had for everything that had passed between us. For the loss we had both shared, for whatever reason he had for leaving all those years ago. I hated him for it, but if I was being honest with myself, if I pushed away the pain of him leaving, I knew him…I knew him better than he knew himself.
Matt would never have intentionally hurt me. Matt had loved me with all of his being. He had loved me for all of my flaws, and he had loved me unequivocally. He had to have had a good reason for leaving. Did it stop the pain? No. Did it make it okay or erase how his loss had shaped my life? Hell no. Could I forgive him…? I wasn’t sure, but I felt like by not forgiving him I was hurting us both. And to what end?
I was already drowning in pain.
The pain of losing Alex, and the pain of finding my one true love again.
Because that’s what Matt was to me. And I could see it now—I could admit it now.
Matt was the love of my life.
He always was, and he always would be.
I could marry a hundred men, and I could marry none. I could love others, but I knew in my heart that I could never love anyone the way I loved him.
“I still love you,” I said. And I hated myself for being the one to say it first. For the one to admit it. But God, it felt good too. “I never stopped, Matt. I never stopped missing you.”
I felt his hands grip me tighter, the muscles in his jaw clenching and unclenching, and I silently begged him to say it back. To tell me that I wasn’t stupid for trusting him. For believing that one day he would come back to me. That maybe we could do it all over again.
That we could have a second chance at love.
But Matt didn’t say anything.
His grip loosened on me, and he took a step back. The lust that had been on his face was replaced by something else, by something sad and anxious. A ghost’s smile fell across his handsome face.
“What is it?” I pleaded, hating that my voice sounded like it might break, that the next words out of his mouth might very well kill me if they weren’t the right ones. I hated that I was so weak that I still wanted him. Needed him.
“I have to tell you something, babe,” he said. And suddenly the spell seemed broken. Suddenly it was like he realized that he was naked and vulnerable. He took a step back from me, and I desperately wanted to go to him but the look on his face was terrifying.
“What is it?” I asked warily.
“I’m scared you’re gonna hate me when I tell you.” He dragged a hand through his short hair.
And now I was the one who was scared.
As scared as the day he didn’t come back. I had waited and waited at the train station for him. Hours went by but he never showed. I had been terrified of what was happening, replaying the day he had left over and over, analyzing those final moments for something, anything to explain his loss.
I had wanted answers for all these years, but now that they were here, I would have done anything to stop them.
“So don’t tell me,” I said, and there was a spark in his eyes at that, like maybe that would be okay, but it faded as soon as it came.
Matt shook his head. “No, you deserve to know the truth, finally. I want you to know everything. All of me,” he said before pausing. He sighed heavily and continued. “And all of him.”