Chapter 19 #2
He kissed me once more—deeper now, his hand stroking down my side, then sliding between us, finding the soft place where I was still aching, still slick. His fingers circled, gentle, coaxing a sound from me I didn’t expect.
“I want to learn what life looks like with you,” he said. “No shadows. No blood. Just ... this.”
My heart stuttered.
He moved inside me, so slowly it felt like worship. Like confession. My legs fell open again, instinctive, and his name left my lips in a whisper as his mouth found my throat.
“Noah ...”
“I’ve got you,” he said, voice raw.
And he did.
His hands held me like something precious, like something breakable. He stroked inside me with long, lazy thrusts that had nothing to do with punishment this time. This wasn’t hate-fueled. This wasn’t pain and betrayal tangled up in lust.
This was something else entirely.
His lips traced my jaw, the hollow of my throat, the curve of my breast. He whispered things I didn’t catch—half-mumbled prayers or promises, maybe. His hands never stopped moving. One in my hair. One pressed between my thighs, coaxing my body open for him again.
And God help me, I bloomed under it.
I cried out softly, arching against him, the pleasure sharp and slow and consuming. It took me apart a little at a time, undoing me with every gentle roll of his hips, every sweet stroke of his thumb.
I came again—softer this time, quieter. Just a gasp and a quake.
He followed moments later, groaning low into my skin, his arms tightening around me like he was afraid I’d vanish.
Then he stayed. Just stayed.
The storm that brought us together was gone for the moment, replaced by something that felt terrifyingly like ... peace.
I didn’t know what would happen next. What this meant. Whether I could trust him with everything broken between us.
We lay there for a while, tangled on the floor, breath starting to even out.
I shifted slightly beneath him, his hand still curled against my waist, and whispered, “Will you pray with me?”
He went still.
Slowly, he lifted his head, brows pulling together like I’d just asked him to step off a ledge .
“I’m not big into that,” he said after a long moment. “Not since I realized God wasn’t gonna show up with a bandage and a rescue plan.” He paused, eyes searching mine. “But I’ll do it. For you.”
I nodded.
“You’re not conflicted?” he asked, brushing a piece of hair off my cheek. “About praying after what we just did?”
“No,” I said softly. “I’m not trying to pretend I’m still the girl who thought purity was a badge. I’m trying to find something new. A way of being that doesn’t throw God out just because I want you, too.”
His jaw worked slightly, like he was trying to find the right thing to say and coming up short. I didn’t need him to. Not right then.
“I want to believe I can have both,” I said. “Faith and desire. A body and a soul that don’t cancel each other out. You and Him. Love and lust and light and darkness, all together.”
He was quiet for a beat, then lowered his head, pressing his lips to the inside of my wrist.
“I think that sounds like the truth,” he murmured. “Like maybe it’s what we were always supposed to be.”
I nodded once. Then closed my eyes.
And right there—bare, breathless—we bowed our heads together, our foreheads touching.
I prayed out loud.
Not the way I used to.
Not polished. Not rehearsed. Not holy.
Just real.
“God,” I whispered, voice shaking, “I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to fix this or who to trust or what comes next. But I want to believe You’re still here. I want to believe You can see me—us—even now, and not turn away.”
Noah’s thumb stroked slow circles at my side.
I took a breath. “If You’re still listening … just help me hold onto the part of myself that still wants to believe. The part that still wants something good. Something true.”
My eyes stayed shut, lashes damp.
“I don’t want to live in fear. Not of the world, not of the people hunting Noah and his brothers, and not of You.
I was raised to think You only saw me when I was clean.
But I’m not clean now. I’m messy and angry and raw, and I don’t even know what this is yet, but I know it matters.
I know it’s real. And I think You made me to feel things this deeply. Even this.”
Noah’s hand stilled on my waist. Not gone. Just quiet. Listening.
“I know what I’ve been told my whole life—that a good woman saves her body, keeps her voice soft, her knees closed, her prayers polished.
But I don’t want to be that girl anymore.
I want to be real with You. And real means I’m here, naked, bruised, bleeding on the inside, in love with a man I maybe shouldn’t trust but who makes me feel more seen than I ever have. And I need You to meet me here.”
My voice cracked.
“I need You to remind me that grace isn’t just for the polished and the perfect. That it’s for people like me, too. Girls who run. Girls who break. Girls who open their legs and their hearts and don’t know which one will be held and which one will be left.”
I paused, breath trembling. “Help me find the pieces of my faith that still work. Help me build something new with them. ”
My fingers curled around Noah’s arm, grounding myself there.
“And if this thing between us is meant to grow—if it’s meant to last—then show me how to hold it without losing myself. Without losing You.”
The silence that followed wasn’t empty.
It felt full. Weighty. Like Someone was listening.
I didn’t open my eyes right away. I just breathed. Just let it settle.
And when I finally did, Noah was still watching me.
Something in his expression cracked wide open—like my words had done more than reach heaven.
Like maybe they’d reached him, too.
He didn’t speak at first. Just looked at me like I was something sacred. Something rare. Like he wasn’t sure if touching me again might break the spell.
Then, his voice—rough and low, like gravel catching on the edge of something soft.
“You really love me?”
The question landed with more weight than I expected.
I didn’t blink. Didn’t flinch.
I just nodded. “Yes.”
His chest rose, sharp and shallow, like he hadn’t let himself hope I’d say it. Not after everything.
“I love you, too,” he said, and it wasn’t soft. It wasn’t poetic.
It was raw. Blunt. Fierce.
Like a vow. Like he’d carved it into himself long before he ever said it aloud.
Then his mouth twitched—just a little. Like he wasn’t sure if he should laugh or confess a sin.
“I think I knew the second I saw you,” he murmured, dragging his fingers gently through my hair. “Back at Grace House. You didn’t even see me.”
I searched his face.
“I was watching through the scope,” he said.
My breath caught.
“You didn’t know I was there,” he whispered. “Couldn’t have. But your eyes—Hallie Mae, they punched the breath out of me.”
His words hit like a tremor low in my belly.
“I tried to ignore it,” he continued, voice quiet now, like he was almost afraid of the truth. “But I couldn’t. You got under my skin so fast it was like you were already there.”
I stared at him, heart thudding.
“You loved me before I even knew you,” I said.
“I did,” he replied. “And I’ll keep loving you—even if you walk away from the blood and fire and ghosts I can’t shake. Even if you decide I’m too much wreckage to carry. I’ll still love you. Because I already do.”
Tears stung the backs of my eyes.
He kissed me then—slow, reverent, like a benediction.
Like he meant it.
We sat in that quiet, the weight of the world pressed out by the sound of our breath.
I held onto that moment—his lips on mine, his breath steady, the words he’d just said still blooming between us like wildflowers growing through a battlefield.
And then I pulled back, just enough to meet his eyes.
“Tell me everything,” I said quietly. “About Department 77. About what you think happened to my dad. I’m ready now. I want to hear it all.”
His gaze darkened a little, not with secrets but with the weight of them. He nodded once, slow and solemn, like he knew there’d be no going back from here.
“I will,” he said, brushing his fingers along the curve of my cheek. “No lies. No half-truths. Just the whole ugly, dangerous, bloody story. Because you deserve that.”
I nodded, heart pounding.
Because whatever came next, I wasn’t running anymore.
I was listening.