Chapter 19 #3
Nevan looks deeply pleased with himself, and Paul shakes his head from behind him.
“Baby boy managed to turn lucid and dream share, I see,” Ridge says dryly, running his hand over his hair and shaking out the splatters.
“It’s easy to find her,” Nevan says, but the smugness disappears from his face the second he looks at me. His whole expression softens as he crosses the remaining distance between us in a few long strides.
His hands are gentle as he cups my face and presses a kiss to my mouth. Not as possessive as Ridge or demanding. Just warm, just Nevan.
He meets my gaze, smiling softly. “Something’s always pulling me toward her.” His eyes flick toward Ridge. “The staying lucid part is harder.”
“That’s the tether,” Ridge says, a little too smug for my taste, and I glare at him.
Paul makes a sound suspiciously close to a laugh as he joins us and takes in my current dreamscape.
I don’t think gummies are anything close to his safe foods.
But when he gets close enough for me to really see him, my stomach tightens. I know that look.
He’s hurt.
“Seraphine told us something useful,” he says.
“She did?”
“She believes you’re stuck because a tether in 5D is more potent than one in 4D. Which means you’d need more than one tether to hold against Tessa’s and be able to wake up.”
Ridge examines his nails. “Apparently, I’m her tether too. For a while now. She just didn’t realize.”
“She is standing right here,” I say.
Ridge leans down and bites my ear, very gently, but I refuse to acknowledge this.
“So, you have two now. Does that mean…” Nevan reaches for my hand. “Can you wake up then?”
I close my eyes and reach for the membrane between here and there, the place where sleeping and waking press up against each other. I reach and reach, but absolutely nothing moves.
My dream doesn’t even flicker.
Slowly, I open my eyes to three pairs of eyes waiting.
“No.”
Ridge claps his hands. “Okay, no need to worry or panic. That means you need to tether to Paul too. Which should be easy, right? You guys are dating, and yeah, I am admitting that right here. Don’t look at me like that, Paul.
You guys are a cute little couple and love each other, so go ahead and tether. ”
I look at Paul and reach for whatever it is that connects me to them. That pull I now understand has a name, and I feel the three cords I already have. Tessa, Ridge, Nevan, but besides that, nothing.
Not absence, exactly. It’s not like Paul isn’t there. He is. But it feels more like a door I know exists but can’t find the handle for, and I don’t understand it, because I know what I feel for him. I know.
I have no idea why I’m not tethered to Paul if I am to Nevan and Ridge. I do have the same amount of feelings for him as I have for them. If anything, I feel even safer with him.
I’m sure of him. I’m with him.
“If I’m not—” Paul starts but cuts himself off again, his eyes finding mine. “If I’m not what you need for this, I can find out what else might work. There might be other options.”
He thinks this means something about him and whether he’s enough. I hear how he said if I’m not what you need, and I want to grab him by the lapels of that cardigan and tell him to shut up, like Ridge did to me only minutes ago.
“Shit, Lemon.” Nevan’s hand tightens on mine, and I turn to find his eyes clamped shut. “I think I’m going to…”
Ridge produces a marker from nowhere and holds it out to Nevan.
“Draw something and focus on the lines. Don’t think about what we’re doing right here.”
Nevan takes it without question, looks around for a surface, and settles on a yellow gummy bear behind him, crouching down to draw on it. Ridge raises his chin at Paul, giving him a look, then turns and steps beside Nevan.
When I turn back to Paul, his face is still doing something I can’t let him keep doing.
“You are what I want,” I tell him, because it’s the truth.
He lets out a long breath like he’s relieved, but his shoulders are still tense, so I add, “I don’t understand why I’m not tethered to you how I am to them.
I don’t know how any of this works, but I want…
” I look at my citrus fingernails on my breadstick fingers.
“I want you just as much. That’s the truth. I need you to know that.”
He steps closer, and his hand comes up to my cheek, letting his thumb glide over my bottom lip. The touch is so deliberate and entirely Paul that I feel it all the way down to my toes.
But his touch also makes me realize my bottom lip is wobbling again.
Can’t a girl catch a break?
“Eyes on me, darling.”
I look up, and his eyes are soft behind the glasses, the love in them plain and unguarded.
“I think I know what the problem is,” he says quietly. “You don’t trust me.”
What?
“That’s not true, I trust you.”
“I know.” His knuckles move on my cheek.
“You trust me with everything except your heart, which is fair because until very recently, I was still trying to figure out how to make you choose me. Only me.” Something moves through his expression that I recognize as the closest thing Paul Bennett has to shame.
“I kept thinking about how to show you I was the one for you. As if that were a competition I could win. I didn’t want to accept the others.
I even told you that it makes me uncomfortable. ”
My chest aches.
“Paul.”
“But I’m accepting it now. You choose them and me. Which means I choose them too.” His hand leaves my cheek and settles slowly between us, palm up. Not quite a handshake, more an offering. “I want to make a soul contract with you.”
I look at his palm. “What? Why?”
“I may not be your tether yet. I understand what that is now and what it isn’t. I’m not that for you, not yet. But I am your soulmate, and I want you to believe me when I say I will always put you first, as well as the people you love.
“Paul.”
“I would die for you, Lennon Maes. And if the way for you to be happy is with them, then that is how I build my life too. I’ll see them as friends, brothers, and my family. I’ll keep this family safe, sane, and as happy as the three complicated beings that we are capable of being.”
A laugh catches in my throat.
“My heart and my life are yours. If you want them.” He raises his palm a little higher in offering.
He is offering me his life. Not a deal. Not a trade. Not a clinical calculation or a careful hedge. Paul Bennett, who runs on certainty, is standing in front of me with his palm up, not knowing what I’ll do.
Not knowing that I love him for all he is and all he’s offering.
I look at his hand again, but I don’t take it.
Instead, I go up on my toes and wrap my arms around his neck. He immediately pulls me in, and the sound he makes is almost desperate. His face is in my hair when I notice that I’m crying again, a little.
“I love you, Lennon. I love you so much.”
“I love you more,” I whisper into his shirt, and something blooms in my chest when I say it. Not warm how Ridge is warm, not easy the way Nevan is easy. Steady.
The steadiness of a man who knew I was his since before I even knew he existed.
The cord pulls taut and settles like it was always there, like it was waiting for me to stop being afraid of it. A fourth point of light, a third cord pulling me home, and the pull is strong.
Holy shit.
Paul sets me down gently and looks at me with wide eyes, then looks down between us with a slight frown, before reaching up and planting a hand on his chest.
“Is that?”
“A tether.” My voice is a little unsteady. “You’re my tether.”
Tears shine in his eyes, and I know he’s about to kiss me.
“Guys, I hate to interrupt, but the baby boy just woke up.”
We both turn to find that Nevan is gone. Left are only the marker and a gummy bear covered in black spider drawings. Paul sees them about a half second after I do.
He makes a sound I have never heard him make before and disappears with a plop.
I stare at the space where he was.
“Shit, okay, that was mean, even for my standards, but I couldn’t resist.” Ridge chuckles, then completely loses it, and I look at him.
I can’t help it and start laughing too. When we calm down, his gaze finds mine again.
He’s still smiling with the full devastation of him.
He closes the distance before he puts his hands on my hips and pulls me in.
“Looks like we’re alone again, sweetheart.
Where were we? Ah yeah, you wanted to sit on my dick. ”
I put one finger against his lips. “Shush.”
“You’re right.” He grabs my wrist and sucks my finger into his mouth, letting his tongue glide around it as if it were one of his lollipops before letting it plop out of his mouth again. “I think it’s time to wake up.”
He steps back, letting go of my wrist, but then holds out a hand, not a deal or a contract, just the offer of holding it. “After you,” he says when I take it, squeezing my hand.
I close my eyes and find the first cord. Nevan, who’s warm like turning toward light. Ridge, right here, solid as anything I’ve ever touched. Paul, new but certain, already pulling me back like he’s been waiting the whole time.
Somewhere underneath, softer but still there, Tessa pulls in the other direction.
I’m coming back for you. I promise.
I let her go.
Just a little.
Just enough.