Chapter 20
NICK
The most beautiful pair of ocean eyes stare up at me, glistening with tears that stain her face.
My body trembles uncontrollably as my brain fires off like a machine gun, memories pelting me like bullets as each of them find their way back into my consciousness.
A school hallway with a beautiful girl.
A meal and a truth shared at a diner.
A searing kiss on a couch.
A blindfold and sweet, parted thighs.
Her body beneath mine.
My heart eviscerating when she lied.
Happiness blooming when I held her again.
My wrath when they took her.
Agonizing pain in my chest.
Quiero besarte hasta la muerte.
Rhiannon.
Rhi.
My mouth parts on a shaky exhale, though I don’t say her name out loud. Still, her eyes widen, and the sob that tears from her throat breaks me.
Oh my fucking gods.
Icy panic presses sharply on my chest, similar to the pain that woke me nights ago. My breathing becomes erratic, and despite how much air I attempt to suck down my throat, I can’t even it out.
“Hey,” she says, her voice the most divine symphony. “Nick, look at me. Breathe, baby. Breathe.”
Nick. Not Raphael. Not the name I was born with. Nick. The name she knows me by. The only name I want to hear from her lips.
Looking at her is the easy part. I never want to take my eyes off her again, but with the memories continuing to flood my brain, this time of my sister, my mother, childhood moments, tragedies, and triumphs, I fear my mind can’t recall how to breathe.
Her hand at my chest rises to sweep sweat-soaked tendrils from my forehead while the hand cupping my cheek continues to stroke my lower lip. “Breathe.”
Her motions are soothing, easing me into comfort. I keep my eyes locked on hers, too afraid to look away, too frightened that if I do, she’ll disappear.
“Are you real?” My voice is a hoarse whisper, as vulnerable and timid as I’ve ever heard it. I don’t think even as a child, I ever sounded this fearful, but how can I be anything else? How can she be here?
Pomegranate, my brain supplies from my memories. His memories. Raphael’s. Though I suppose they are still mine.
“I’m real,” she says, just as soft.
“Touch me,” I beg her. I need to feel her, need to know this is not a memory I’m reliving when I sleep at night, only to awake with it wiped from my mind. Memories of my dreams return too, the ones stolen from me as soon as I opened my eyes.
I inhale deeply, letting her scent envelope me, grounding me into this moment with her. A hint of jasmine and honeysuckle.
My body sinks into the soothing motions of her fingers, fingers I remember with biting clarity raking down my back as I brought her to the throes of pleasure.
Her fingers continue exploring, tracing my mouth and jaw before trailing down the column of my throat and settling upon my shoulders. They lightly brush my upper back, my skin pebbling beneath her touch.
I allow myself to drink her in, to pull my gaze from the eyes that hold me in such reverence, reverence I’m not sure I deserve.
Her chest rises and falls softly, and I mimic the action, allowing me to finally breathe properly.
Using my thumb, I brush away the tears that still fall, watching her lips tremble.
The warmth of her body beneath mine reminds me of another particular warmth somewhere in my lower body before I realize I’m inside her, and gods, I never want to leave.
Home. She feels like fucking home.
I suck in a sharp breath as my brain finally comes to terms with what I’d be too afraid to hope: she’s real. This is not a dream.
Rhi whimpers as I slowly slide from inside her. I rise on my own shaking legs as I help her to stand as well, my hands finding purchase in the curve of her waist, settling there as they were always meant to.
Fire crackles in the space around us, the only other sound besides our heavy breathing.
“Say my name,” I plead, the second time I have begged in the span of a few minutes. But for her, I’d beg every day for a godsdamn eternity.
Rhi draws in a rattled breath, a look of uncertainty in her eyes. Finally, she says, “Nick.”
I swallow up the single syllable with my mouth on hers, my hands roaming over her body with a frenetic desperation.
Touching every dip and curve, I make my way over the swells of her breasts, inhaling the gentle sigh she emits like I’m an addict and my only salvation is her mouth.
My fingers wind their way into her hair, the silk strands sliding freely between them, like gold-dusted ribbons.
My memory blossoms at the feel of her beneath my fingertips, at the feel of her mouth molding against my own.
Her hands are on their own voyage, fingering the ridges of my abdomen, climbing higher until they trace the line of my jaw before finding the tendrils at the base of my neck.
She curls them within her fingers, no doubt remembering how much I love when she does that.
Pulling away is perhaps the hardest thing I have ever done, but I have to look at her. I have to hear it from her own lips.
“You’re real. This isn’t a dream. You’re here.”
“I’m here,” she says, lightly brushing her fingers with the soft curls at my nape. I shiver. “I’m here, and I’m not going anywhere. Not without you.”
Night bleeds into dawn, and we do nothing except talk and kiss. Each time she tries to wriggle away, to adjust the blanket I’ve thrown over us or stretch her limbs, I grab her face again, stare into those eyes I love so much, and press my lips against hers.
“Aren’t you tired?” she asks, her eyes clear of any exhaustion.
I smile down at her. “I don’t think I’ve ever felt more awake.”
“I haven’t either, but…” She frowns.
“But…” I prompt, raising a brow.
“I’m almost afraid to close my eyes,” she says quietly. “I’m afraid if I do, you’ll disappear.
“I feel the same way.” Brushing loose tendrils of hair from her face, I wrap my hand around her waist and lift her effortlessly so she straddles me, our mouths now a mere whisper from each other.
Just the way I like it.
“I dreamt of you, you know.” I tuck another strand behind her ear and sweep my knuckles down her cheek. “Every fucking night, I dreamt of you, and even that was taken from me.”
Rhi’s hands rest on my shoulders, but her eyes stay locked on mine. “I couldn’t leave my room after…” she exhales a sharp breath, “after you died. I left Alystair and went home. I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t…” She breaks off on another shuddering exhale.
My lips steal the heartbreak in her voice, choking it down like penance for putting her through such an agonizing ordeal. She was left alone to navigate her heartbreak while I lived in a state of miserable ignorance, unable to remember a fucking thing.
“Never again,” I say against her mouth. “I will never be apart from you again, do you hear me?”
Rhi nods, her fingers again combing through the locks at my nape. My cock instantly stiffens, and while I want nothing more than to fuck her as Nicholas, I know there is more we have to discuss.
He needs to know we’re running out of time, her voice rings out clear and sharp in my mind.
“Running out of time for what?” I answer out loud, my brain still hazy from the onslaught of memories. Because there’s no way I actually heard her in my head. She must have spoken.
Her gasp is the first inclination something is wrong.
“You… How did you know what I was thinking?”
“Thinking?”
“I never said that. I….I thought it.”
What. The. Fuck?
“You know,” her fingers continue to curl within my hair, “I heard you too. Earlier. In my head.”
I freeze, unsure which of my unsavory thoughts might be the winner.
“What did I say?”
Rhi smiles, and godsdamn, it’s more breathtaking than the rising suns.
“My name,” she says. “It’s how I knew you came back to me.”
I smile back before I gently kiss her. “Tell why we’re running out of time, Rhi. Then, we’ll get to this…telepathic connection.”
I try not to wince as I say it, because….holy shit. There have been rare, and I mean rare circumstances in which soulmates have been telepathically connected, but why wouldn’t it have happened when we first discovered our soulmate bond? Why is it happening now?
Rhi brings her right wrist in front of me and turns it over, exposing the hourglass tattoo. “We have until the hourglass empties to leave Hell, or else we’ll both be trapped here.”
My fingers tighten around her waist, my blood thrumming with the news of this time restraint. “Fuck,” I mutter.
Her hands cup my cheeks, those warring eyes imploring. “It’s ok. Your memories are back. That’s all I came here to do. You and I can leave. We can—”
I grab her wrists, the solemn expression on my face silencing her. I give her a sad smile. “I can’t leave, Rhi.”
Her brows furrow, lips pressed in anger. “What are you talking about? You can’t possibly want to stay here?”
“Of course not.”
Rhi pushes against my chest. “Then what’s the problem?”
Before I can answer, she climbs off me and turns so I can no longer see her face. Her arms wrap around her middle.
I sigh as I rise and close the wide distance between us, though I don’t force her to face me. “My soul is tethered to this realm, Rhi. I am bound here by a greater force, and as badly as I want to go with you, I can’t.”
Rhi slowly turns, her face once again riddled with tears, and I swear, my heart caves in on itself.
“I’m a selfish prick when it comes to you, and I’ll do whatever it takes to keep you, but I won’t force you to stay.”
Her glassy eyes widen before she attacks me, slamming her fists into my chest. I let her beat my flesh, taking every swing and punch I know is her only release after months of devastating heartache.
“I fought for you! I died for you! What don’t you understand?” she screams, still attacking me with her fists. “I tried to live without you, and I couldn’t do it. Please don’t make me do it again. Please.”
I catch her wrists in my hands just as my heart ruptures into a thousand pieces, like an exploding mirror. Rhi falls to her knees, and I willingly go with her, pulling her into my body, but she resists, trying to push me away.
“Stop,” I attempt in a soothing tone. When that doesn’t work, I dress my voice in a dominating darkness. “Stop.”
The pushing ceases, and her hands finally fall limp to her sides, as though the fight in this little Hell Beast finally waned.
Her face pressed against my chest, she says, “You forgot that you loved me.” Her voice breaks, and if my heart was still intact, it would break all over again.
“But I never forgot. I lived with the memories of us every day, of the way I loved you, and I had no idea if I’d ever see you again, touch you again.
” A soft cry rips from her throat. “I had to wake up every day knowing the other half of my soul forgot he loved me.”
I didn’t forget, I want to scream, but the reality is, I did.
The reality is, she fought to come to Hell, died to come to Hell, at the risk she couldn’t restore my memories.
She’s been here, day after day, as I lorded my title over her, calling her my mistress, for fuck’s sake.
Sure, the argument could be made that Nicholas didn’t do any of that, but it still doesn’t change the fact that, yes, I forgot I loved her.
But it was her love for me, the love I have for her, that moved the fucking suns themselves, and I need to remind her of that.
“L’amor che move ‘l sole e l’altre stelle,” I whisper, cupping her face in my hands. I kiss the tears on her cheeks, a hint of salt exploding on my tongue.
She blinks, another tear dropping. “What does that mean?”
“It’s from Dante’s Paradiso. It means,” I say, sweeping my thumbs over her cheekbones, “‘the love that moves the sun and all the other stars.’ It means love is the most powerful force on Earth. It means,” I say as I close my eyes and press our foreheads together, “that although my brain couldn’t remember I loved you, my heart remembered and will never forget.
” I take her right hand and place it over my heart.
“My heart will always know you, Rhi. In whatever body. Whatever form. Whatever lifetime. Because I love you. I am in love with you. There is no one else. Not for you. Not for me. In this life or the next.”
A single tear spills down her right cheek, which I swiftly wipe away.
Rhi closes the distance between our mouths, sighing into my lips and pressing hers against mine.
Placing my fingers beneath her chin, I tilt her head, angling it so I can take her mouth the way the Devil in me wants to.
My tongue slides inside, caressing her own, and Rhi whimpers when my fingers drift down her side, brushing the bare skin of her breast.
She pulls away, a bit breathless. “I love you.”
Smiling, I repeat, “L’amor che move ‘l sole e l’altre stelle.
” And then I take her right there on the floor, at an unhurried pace, making her scream first with my face between her thighs and then with my cock inside her.
And when she shatters around me for the third time, Nick spills from her lips, and I know without a doubt that this is Heaven.