21 #2
His eyes held mine, unflinching and raw.
“Not because I didn’t want to hear it. I wanted those words from you so badly I hated myself for it.
I always knew, Aura. Some part of me always knew you loved me.
I knew it in the way you remembered my drink and pretended you didn’t.
I knew it in the way you gave me control in the dark like you trusted me with your whole pulse.
I knew it in every look you tried to turn into a joke before it got too honest.”
My breath hitched.
“And then you said it out loud,” he continued, voice breaking around the edges, “and it made this whole fucking nightmare feel useless. All the months of hurting each other, all the girls I didn’t want, all the rooms I made unsafe for you, all the ways you cut me before I could get close, all that pain just sitting there between us, and under it was love the whole time.
We did all of that damage around something that was already true. ”
My tears slipped down my face faster now.
Easton’s hand lifted like he wanted to wipe them away, then stopped in the air between us. His fingers curled into his palm, and he lowered his hand.
“I want to touch you so badly right now,” he said, rough and honest. “And I don’t trust that impulse yet.”
That made me cry harder than if he had touched me.
“You don’t trust yourself with me?” I asked.
“I trust myself not to hurt you with my hands.” His jaw flexed. “I don’t trust myself not to use touching you as a way around the hard part.”
The kitchen went quiet.
The rain filled it.
My heart did the rest.
“So what is the hard part?” I whispered.
His throat moved. “Acceptance.”
I held my breath.
“I accept that what happened to you was awful.” His voice steadied around the words, like he had decided they deserved better than trembling.
“I accept that your rules came from survival. I accept that you weren’t sitting around thinking of ways to humiliate me when I wanted mornings and dates and lights.
You were terrified. You were trying to keep yourself safe in the only way that made sense to you. ”
A sob caught in my throat.
His eyes went glassy, but he didn’t look away.
“I accept that Darian and every coward in that room got to walk away while you became the only visible evidence of what they did. I accept that Maddox saying your name like gossip wasn’t just some asshole running his mouth.
It was him putting you back under those lights in front of everybody.
I accept that I didn’t know, and I accept that not knowing doesn’t erase what I did with the pieces I had. ”
My hand pressed harder to my middle.
“Easton.”
“I accept that you hurt me,” he said, and that one came rougher.
“I accept that loving you doesn’t make that hurt disappear.
I accept that I can forgive you and still need you to understand the damage.
I accept that if we go forward, we don’t get to pretend the last year didn’t happen.
We have to carry it differently. Together, if you want that. ”
I stared at him through tears, my whole body shaking now. “You forgive me?”
His face changed.
Softened.
Broke a little.
“I think I forgave you before I knew how to survive forgiving you,” he said. “That’s why I was so angry. Forgiveness was already there, and I hated it. I hated that love kept reaching for you before my pride gave permission.”
The sound that left me wasn’t pretty.
Easton flinched toward me, then stopped again, his jaw tight with the effort.
I stepped into the space he refused to take.
His whole body went still.
“I love you,” I whispered.
His eyes closed for half a second, and when they opened, everything in them was ruined and alive.
“Say it again.”
“I love you, Easton.”
A rough breath left him.
I touched the front of his soaked hoodie with trembling fingers. The fabric was cold under my hand, his chest hot beneath it, his heart pounding hard enough for me to feel. “There is more to the story with Darian.”
“I know.”
“What I gave you was the CliffsNotes version.”
His hand lifted slowly, not touching me yet. “Okay.”
“I want to tell you all of it someday.” My voice shook hard, but I didn’t stop.
“Not like that night in your apartment where we were already bleeding and angry and touching each other like we were trying to prove who could survive it worse. I want to be somewhere safe when I tell you my worst moment. I want to know you have my back and won’t look at me like I’m broken glass.
I want you to see how hard I fought and not just what it did to me. ”
His face folded with something so tender it scared me more than anger ever had.
“Aura,” he said.
I shook my head, tears slipping down my cheeks. “I need you to be proud of me for surviving it, not sorry for me.”
His hand finally touched me, careful at first, his fingertips brushing the side of my face like he was asking with skin. “I am proud of you.”
I broke.
He cupped my cheek fully then, his palm cold from the rain, his thumb catching tears under my eye.
“I am so fucking proud of you,” he said, voice wrecked.
“I’m proud of the girl who walked through those halls with her head up.
I’m proud of the woman who built herself out of ash and sharp edges and still somehow let me close.
I’m proud of every rule that kept you alive long enough to stand in this kitchen and tell me what you need from me. ”
I covered his wrist with my hand. “I don’t want pity.”
“You don’t have it.”
“I don’t want you to treat me like I’m fragile.”
“You’re not fragile.” His thumb moved over my cheek. “You’re terrifying.”
A laugh broke out of me, wet and shaky. “That was almost romantic.”
“It was very romantic. I’m freezing and emotionally naked in your kitchen. Work with me.”
I laughed again, and his eyes dropped to my mouth like the sound had pulled him there.
The air shifted.
I looked at his lips, still faintly blue from the cold and the fight, still cut near the corner, and every part of me wanted to erase the space between us. “Can we make up now?”
His gaze snapped back to mine.
The heat in it almost buckled my knees.
He stepped into me, one hand sliding from my cheek to the back of my neck, fingers firm and familiar as he angled my face up to his. Not rough. Not careless. Certain in a way that made my breath disappear.
“You want to make up, Clarke?”
I slapped his chest, though the sound was ruined by the wet hoodie. “I hate you calling me that.”
His mouth curved, slow and beautiful and dangerous. Then he kissed me softly, only once, his lips brushing mine like he had all the time in the world and every intention of using it to learn me again.
“Never again, then,” he murmured against my mouth. “I promise.”
My fingers twisted in his hoodie.
His lips touched mine again. “Want me to call you sweetheart?”
Another kiss, warmer this time.
“Honey?”
Another kiss, lingering enough to make my toes curl against the kitchen tile.
“My darling?”
I made a sound against his mouth, half laugh, half ache, because Easton Wade saying my darling in that low, rain-rough voice should have been illegal in at least twelve states and most of Canada.
I pulled back just enough to look at him.
His eyes searched mine, hungry and hesitant and so full of love it hurt to breathe around it.
“Just call me yours,” I whispered.
Something snapped in him.
The softness didn’t vanish. It caught fire.
His mouth crashed into mine, and I went up on my toes as his hand tightened at the back of my neck.
The kiss was nothing like the one in his apartment.
That had been rage with teeth. This was worse.
This had hope in it. This had hunger and apology and every unsaid thing he’d carried through the rain.
His other arm banded around my waist, hauling me against him until his soaked hoodie chilled the front of my sweatshirt and his body heat burned through both.
I gasped into his mouth.
He took the sound like it belonged to him.
My hands shoved into his wet hair, and he groaned, low and rough, backing me into the counter with enough control to keep me from hitting it hard and enough need to make me feel the restraint.
His hips pressed into mine, and the proof of how much he wanted me dragged a broken sound from the back of my throat.
He pulled away just enough to breathe. “Tell me to slow down.”
“No.”
“Aura.”
“I don’t want slow.”
His eyes darkened. “I’m trying to be noble.”
“You’re dripping on my floor and kissing me like you’re about to commit a felony. Nobility left twenty minutes ago.”
His laugh was rough against my mouth. “You’re going to kill me.”
“You started it.”
“I showed up to talk.”
“You showed up soaked in a Fury hoodie looking like a tragic hockey romance cover. That was not neutral behavior.”
His mouth found my jaw, then the sensitive skin beneath it, and my head fell back before I could pretend I had dignity left. “I walked here in the rain to tell you about acceptance.”
“You walked here in the rain to make me insane.”
“Multitasking matters.”
I laughed, but it broke into a gasp when his hand slid to my thigh and lifted, fitting my leg around his hip. His palm moved with purpose, firm under my knee, then higher along the outside of my thigh, over the soft fabric of my leggings, stopping before it became too much too fast.
His forehead dropped to mine.
“Is this okay?”
The question tore something open in me.
Not because I doubted him—he asked when he already knew I wanted him, because he wouldn’t take even a yes for granted tonight.
I nodded, my breath shaking. “Yes.”
His hand flexed. “Words, sweetheart.”
I shivered at the name, then laughed softly. “You lasted thirty seconds.”
“I’m workshopping.”
“Yes,” I said, cupping his jaw. “It’s okay.”