70. Dylan #2
He’s pressed against me. I know what it feels like when he leaves. I know what it’s like to give him up. But that was before I’d ever really had him. And already that felt like ripping my heart out. It would be immeasurably worse this time around.
I lean my head back against the wall and close my eyes.
“Freya,” I say the one word that encompasses everything between us. My biggest insecurity.
I’m honestly not sure if he can ever say anything that would make me believe there’s nothing to worry about. Maybe he can’t.
I hold my breath. I don’t mean to, I just can’t breathe.
He presses his forehead against mine. Licks over his lips.
“I’m not going to tell you I don’t love her anymore,” he says in a low voice. “I can’t. I do.”
Everything inside me stutters to a halt. I’m not going to say I crumble into tiny pieces. I don’t. It’s more of a numb acknowledgment.
Of course.
Of course.
What did you expect?
It hurts, but I knew.
I don’t want him to look at me like this. With that kind of intensity in his gaze. I don’t want to be transparent for him right now. I don’t want him to see what this does to me.
I push myself off the wall, and he stumbles back a bit.
I look around wildly, like a cornered animal. I need an escape route. It’s pointless, though. Just postponing the inevitable.
I back away, though. Put a bit of space between the two of us.
“I’m not done talking.” He grabs my arm and yanks me back to him when I try to move.
I take a stuttering breath.
“I’ve been trying to figure out if it’s possible to love two people at the same time.
Not in the same way. Differently. But just as much.
It’s all I’ve been thinking about ever since we got back home.
It started to feel like an unsolvable math problem.
Too complicated for me, and unlike in high school, I couldn’t rely on you to solve it for me, so I’ve been stuck and too dumb to see the answer. ”
“You’re not dumb,” I whisper. “I keep telling you that.”
A small smile appears on his lips.
“Dyl, it’s not about me choosing between you and Freya,” he says softly. “I can’t choose. Because that choice has already been made for me.”
He’s looking at me intently. I don’t know what to say or feel because I don’t know what he’s saying.
“I love her,” he says. “What Freya and I had… It’s the best relationship I’ve ever been in. The kind where you see the rest of your life unfold before you so easily. I loved her, I love her, and I will love her for the rest of my life.”
I turn my head and look away because I can’t face him like this.
He takes my face in his hands and makes me look at him.
“She is what could’ve been. An expressway to happiness.
But I veered off course. I figured it out, you see.
It’s not about whether I love you or Freya more.
It’s not about weighing the love I feel.
I would’ve been happy with Freya. I would’ve had a good life with her.
” His eyes get even more intense. “If everything had stayed the same.” He says those words very clearly, almost stressing each syllable.
“It didn’t. I’m not the same person anymore.
The island changed both of us. It changed everything.
I’m not Freya’s Adrian anymore. I’m yours.
I’m Dylan’s Adrian, and the idea of being without you…
When I think about my life, all I see is you.
I love you. You’re not an expressway to happiness.
Never would’ve been. You’re my fucking adventure, and I want to hold your hand and continue taking the road unknown with all its twists and turns because you will be there.
Right next to me. Forever. There’s nowhere else I can be other than here with you.
It’s you,” he says. “My heart wants you.”
He blows out a shaky breath once he’s done, a feverish look in his eyes.
I can’t move.
“Say something,” he says hoarsely.
I lick my dry lips and try to calm my galloping heart to no avail.
“I sometimes think the only reason I was put on this earth is to love you.”
He closes his eyes and exhales. He laughs.
“Then let me love you right back. For the rest of our days.”
I swallow.
“I’m scared.” It’s hard to admit it, but I want him to know anyway. “Terrified, to be exact.”
“I’m not. I’m just yours.”
I let out a wet laugh, look down, and then at his smiling face. “Okay. I have a question.”
“Ask me anything.”
I wipe the stupid tears away and grin at him. “Are you finally gonna kiss me or?—”
I can’t finish the sentence because his lips crash down on mine. My fingers clutch his shirt, and I tug him closer. Lips fused together, we smash into the wall.
It’s desperate and ridiculous and rushed, and it’s trust and happiness and home. Most of all, it’s love. Pure, complicated love. He tastes like love. He feels like love. The kind I never expected we’d have between us.
It’s terrifying, yes, but for him, I will take that risk. I will love him with all my heart and soul.
I will love him the most. I will love him the best.
It’s a silent promise to myself.
His fingers move to the hair on the back of my head, and his lips devour me. I’m a willing victim.
“I missed you,” he whispers against my mouth.
I pull him even closer. His arms wrap tightly around my waist, and he leans back so my feet lift off the ground. I laugh into his mouth.
He grabs my ass and I jump and wrap my legs around his waist, my mouth still fused to his.
“You kiss like a dream,” he says. “And I love you. I love you like I’ve never loved anybody before.”
Tears burn the backs of my eyes again, but these are the good kind of tears.
“You’re my life,” I whisper into his mouth. “I will do anything to keep you.”
“You have me.”
“Love me,” I demand. Because I can.
“Always,” he promises.
There are so many emotions moving through me that I can’t contain them all.
“Fuck,” I say.
“I will,” he murmurs against my lips.
He flicks the tip of his tongue over mine.
“Do that again.”
He complies.
I shiver.
“You’re cold,” he murmurs against my mouth. “We need to get you warm.”
“I’m fine,” I say. “That’s not from the cold.”
“Still,” he says. He sends me a thoughtful look. “Your place. Mine’s a lot crowded, and I really need privacy. A lot of privacy.”
A shiver goes through my insides at the barely disguised promise.
I nod.
We’re both shivering from the cold once we finally make it to my apartment. The rain still hasn’t let up, and we’re both soaked to the bones by now.
It doesn’t matter.
I barely notice it.
The front door closes behind us with a quiet snick, and Adrian leans his back against it. His eyes slowly take me in.
My heart gets even louder, and it was already loud to begin with.
“We have to get you out of these wet clothes,” he says hoarsely. He steps closer. His fingers grab the hem of my shirt, and he peels it off me. It lands somewhere on the floor. My pants are next to go. Then my underwear.
Adrian takes my hand and leads me to the bedroom. Once there, he pushes me down on the bed, and I land on my back, bouncing on the soft mattress.
Instead of joining me, he begins to undress. I push myself up on my elbows, heart beating faster and more frantically with every item of clothing that lands on the floor in an unceremonious heap.
I watch, and I try to be still, but it’s a struggle.
“Nervous?” Adrian asks.
He’s unbuttoning his jeans now, so it’s a miracle I even manage to hear the question.
“No,” I say, voice hoarse. “Never with you.”
He pushes his jeans down, and my mouth goes dry. Still not nervous, just anxious. My toes curl as I watch Adrian. He’s naked now other than a snug pair of boxer briefs, and those do very little to hide his impressive erection.
My stomach jolts with anticipation, and I start to push myself into a sitting position, already planning to get my hands on him.
Adrian pushes me back down. A sound of protest escapes my throat.
“I’m going to take my time with you,” he says in a low voice, eyes moving up and down my body. “And I want all of you. You can’t hold anything back. Not a single sound. Not a single feeling.”
Now I’m definitely nervous. I swallow hard. It shouldn’t be any different from all the other times.
But that’s a lie.
He comes to the bed, lifts my right leg, peels off my sock. His thumb brushes over the hollow spot just below my ankle. I shiver at the intimacy of that gesture. Goose bumps appear all over my skin.
“Every part of you will be mine by the time I’m done with you,” he says.
The room that seemed cool just minutes earlier is almost unbearably hot by now. It gets even hotter when he slides his palm over my ankle and up to my knee. And then up my thigh.
He gets to my hip, and my body gives a violent jerk.
His hands move up my hips to my stomach, then up my chest. I squeeze my eyes shut. His hands stop.
“Look at me,” Adrian says softly.
I do.
Adrian’s eyes burn when they travel over me.
“Love,” he murmurs softly, and I shiver again. My nipples pebble at the word. My cock is stretching toward my navel, hardening even further under Adrian’s gaze.
I squirm under his attention.
“Touch me,” I say.
He hums in reply. “We have a lot of time on our hands.”
He says it casually, but he sounds like he’s just swallowed gravel.
It’s a lot after months of nothing. I clench my jaw while I try to process.
“Spread your legs for me,” Adrian says.
I blow out a breath through my teeth at the shot of arousal that moves through my cock, but I follow the command.
The mattress dips when Adrian puts his knee on it and climbs over me. His body is above me, close enough to touch but not actually touching me.
I whimper.
He lowers his head and kisses me. He takes his time, soft and slow and languid. I wrap my arms around his neck and sigh into his mouth, and his chest rumbles, and I can’t believe I get to do this.
It feels like a dream, and if it is, I don’t ever want to wake up.