Chapter 33
Tonight was perfect—food, friends, and not a care in the world. I love seeing my sister so happy, and I have a big, gruff cowboy to thank. Izzy had a crush on Reid for years. It took him way longer to realize she’s everything he needed.
She, Livy, and I have been scrapbooking and giggling like little girls planning their wedding. She’d be happy in flip flops at the courthouse, but Reid wants to give her the wedding of her dreams and I’m determined to ensure she gets it.
I know Izzy didn’t mean to hurt me tonight, but her comment about my future wedding cut me to the quick.
I won’t have a wedding. Because the only man I’ll ever want to marry isn’t in love with me and never will be.
Connor kneels before me, vowing to do anything to make me happy. As he rubs my legs, more tears fall from my traitorous eyes. Doesn’t he realize the kinder he is to me, the more it breaks my heart? Every day he shows me the life we could have, but it’s an illusion.
“It kills me when you cry. Talk to me, doll. What’s going on?” Connor brushes the tears from my cheeks with his thumbs.
I can see my future in the depths of his eyes, so dark I get lost in them—but it’s a future I’ll never have.
Someday he’ll meet someone and fall in love with her and there won’t be room in his life for me. What woman would tolerate a man having such an intimate friendship with another female? I wouldn’t.
“It’s not fair,” I lament, choked by my tears.
“What’s not fair?” he says, pain lacing his voice. “I can’t fix it if I don’t know the problem.”
I nudge him back by the shoulders so I can stand, and round the back of the sofa to pace. My fingers tangle in my hair, gripping so hard my roots scream.
I’ll explode if I keep it in any longer. But if I risk everything and tell him the truth, I could lose him.
I always thought having a part of him was better than nothing—but my soul has been dying from not having all of him.
The gilded heartstring that’s connected us since the day he found me crying in the dirt has frayed to a gold fiber about to snap. Hope and denial can’t hold us together anymore.
“Is this enough for you?” I blurt, my heart overriding my head.
He stands to his full height but doesn’t dare cross the barrier of the couch to reach me.
“Is what enough?” he asks, confused and in pain from the distance I’ve created. He’s so beautiful it hurts. Hair mussed from taking off his shirt, jeans slung low on his hips revealing the band of his black boxer briefs, a golden canvas inked with masterpieces immortalized beneath his skin.
“This. Us,” I say, unable to meet his eyes.
“You’re scaring me. What’s going on?” He rounds the couch and blocks the path I’m wearing in the floor.
“I thought after the bonfire things would change between us, but they didn’t. Everything went back to the way it’s always been, and I can’t take it anymore. It’s too painful. I can’t do this anymore,” I ramble, frantic, bordering on a meltdown.
Connor gently grabs me by the upper arms, not allowing me to flee.
“Can’t do what? I can’t lose you, Delilah. I’ll do anything, give anything, be anything to make you happy. All you have to do is ask,” he says with such confidence he can’t possibly know what I want to ask for.
“Please,” I beg, my voice laced with desperation. He’s standing so close my nipples graze his bare chest with each inhale.
I can’t meet his eyes, so I fix my gaze on the intricate sun tattooed over his heart. It’s my favorite of his gallery of ink.
Aching need thrums through me as he tilts my chin up, cupped in his calloused hand.
“Please, what? Baby, anything you want is yours.”
My heart’s too big for my rib cage and my lungs aren’t filling with enough air. My chest burns with the words I can’t say.
I barely get the words out. “Not anything.”
His eyes frantically search my face for an answer, brows creased in frustration and concern. The pieces fall into place for him, and his frown deepens in disbelief.
“What are you saying?” An emotion I can’t name laces his voice.
Is he really going to make me say it? My mind’s made up.
It’s always been Connor.
I can’t wait another day, another minute, without knowing if he wants me back.
His massive hands wrap around my waist, tremoring fingers biting into my flesh. I want to be confident and strong, but my words come out as a whisper.
“Please kiss me.”
I’ll die if he rejects me—the pain would be too great to survive. He has to feel the chemistry between us. I refuse to accept this pulsing need is one sided.
Doubt, my ever-present companion, creeps in reminding me if Connor had feelings for me, he’s had years to make his move.
Oh god. Is this all in my head?
I’ve ruined everything. Connor doesn’t want me. Why would he want me?
My panic is snuffed out. One second my heart is breaking, the next it stops all together.
Connor crashes his lips to mine.
It’s more than anything I’ve conjured in my wildest dreams. His mouth is plush and hot, firm and sure. Our lips move together in a dance they’ve always known but were never allowed to perform.
His hands slide up my arms and shoulders, one gripping the back of my neck, his fingers tangling in my hair, tilting my head exactly where he wants me—the other pressing my sun pendant gently into my chest.
I’m floating—his grip the only thing tethering me to reality.
His tongue doesn’t request access to my mouth, his ironclad self-restraint doesn’t demand entry, but the kiss is perfection, forever imprinting on my DNA.
His lips stop and pull away from mine by a breath. Another soft kiss is pressed to my lips and the love of my life lifts his head to look into my eyes.
“Is this real?” Connor asks.
My brow furrows in confusion, silently asking him what he means.
“It’s impossible. Everything I’ve ever wanted is…” His words cut off and he clenches his jaw to stop them from tumbling out.
“Baby, I need you to hear me because I meant what I said.”
He pauses and the world stops spinning on its axis, my heart hangs by a thread, about to be cut by whatever he says next.
Leaving no room for interpretation, Connor vows, “Anything. You want. Is yours.”
I’m paralyzed by fear of losing him—I’ll lose everything if I’m misreading him. So, I say nothing.
A kind smile takes over his face. The same smile that’s always comforted me. The same smile he gave me that first day sitting beside me in the dirt.
“I’ve been yours since the day my bike led me to a fallen angel, and every moment since.” Calloused fingers brush my hair from my face.
“I was yours when I punched Danny Parker in the stomach for pushing you off the swings.” A gentle kiss to my forehead.
“I was yours every day I packed your favorite foods for lunch to share with you.” Lips trailing to my temple.
“I was yours when I went to the nurse’s office when you got your first period.” My face flames at the memory.
“I was yours when Roger fucking Mirowski stood you up for homecoming and I picked you up with split knuckles from bashing his face in.” His lips trail down to my hot cheek.
His hands were wrecked that night. When I asked what happened he said, “you should see the other guy,” and gave me a lopsided grin. I had no idea he was being literal.
“I was yours when I danced with you in the moonlight and kissed you for the first time under the stars.” He chuckles with mirth.
“I was so nervous I’d ruined everything. After I took you home, I puked in the bushes.”
There it is. The moment we’ve ignored for nearly a decade. Our first kiss.
I always assumed it meant nothing to him, and I was too embarrassed to bring it up.
But he remembers.
He pauses and I think he’s finished confessing, but he takes me by the hands and interlaces our fingers, his aura darkening.
“I was yours when I nearly beat Peter Rickard to death when I found out he’d taken your virginity.” Rage and sorrow seep from his pores.
But why? Because I didn’t give myself to Connor? He’d already had sex by then and I was convinced he didn’t see me that way after the kiss that “never was.”
“I was yours when I broke all ten of Robby Thompson’s fingers after he dared to touch your naked body. He’s lucky I didn’t break his tiny dick too.” Connor’s seething.
My mind’s spinning with his confessions, putting together missing pieces from the puzzle of my life.
It’s impossible he’s felt the way I have all these years.
How much time have we wasted lying to ourselves that we were just friends? It makes me ill with grief for the life we could’ve had together.
Connor composes himself and kisses the tip of my nose.
“I was yours yesterday, and every day before. I’ll be yours every day my heart is still beating. I’ll be yours if there’s an afterlife, and in every future life and universe for eternity.”
He presses a soft kiss to my parted lips and wipes the tears trickling down my cheeks.
His eyes soften and his voice wraps around my heart with the unadulterated adoration with which he says, “I’m hopelessly in love with you. I have been since before I understood what it meant. I’ll die from a broken heart if I wake up and this was all a dream.”
I shake my head furiously, gazing up through tears at the man I’ve always loved.
Sweet kisses punctuate each word as he says, “I”—kiss—“am”—kiss—“yours.”
We stand in silence, holding on to each other for dear life. The final boundary between us obliterated. His eyes search mine quiet and pleading, begging me to feel the same.
He’s laid himself bare and I haven’t managed to say a single word. I wipe my eyes and pull myself together enough for the truth to rise from my battered heart.
“All this time. We could’ve been together all this time. For every moment you’ve been mine, I’ve been yours. Every breath I’ve breathed has been for you. My heart has always beat in time with yours.
“I wanted all those memories to be with you. Every year I wished you’d ask me to the school dances.
I wanted you to be my first time…but you’d already given yours away, so I settled.
I only dated other guys because I couldn’t have you.
You always had another girl on your arm, stealing the attention I was desperate for. ”
Tears stream down my face unbidden.
“Why?” I barely croak. “Why didn’t you ever choose me?”
I’m just as guilty. I never made a move either.
Torment radiates from him. Regret, frustration, confusion, and grief mingling.
“I thought my feelings for you were plain as day, and I wasn’t what you wanted. Having you as my best friend had to be enough, since I couldn’t have all of you,” Connor admits.
He links his pinky with mine and leads me to sit on our couch. He turns to face me, one arm slung over the back of the sofa, fingers gently playing with the ends of my hair.
“I was scared. The way I wanted you was ugly and all-consuming. You were so good, and pure. I thought there was no way you’d want me. If I acted on my desires and you didn’t want me, or I fucked things up and hurt you…it was too big of a risk.
“I fell into the same safety net I think you did. Having you as my friend was better than not having you at all, and I promised myself I’d never do anything to jeopardize our friendship.”
Connor patiently waits for me to say something—anything, but I can’t.
He continues. “I was stupid. I tried distracting myself with other girls, that’s true, and I’m so fucking sorry I hurt you.
I never would’ve touched another girl if I knew you wanted me.
I honestly don’t know how you sat by and watched me be such an idiot.
I nearly went to jail each time I found out another man touched you. I couldn’t handle it.”
My best friend pours his heart into my hands. He’s completely transparent, releasing a flood of pent-up sadness, disappointment, and anger from years of denying his feelings.
“If I knew you wanted me to be your first time, I would’ve waited forever.” He tugs on his hair, visibly distraught.
“I’m so fucking sorry. Did that piece of shit hurt you? Did he force you?” His temper’s rising, he’s about to lose it. Connor’s protectiveness has always been one of my favorite things about him.
I squeeze his knee in reassurance. “No, he didn’t force me, and he didn’t hurt me—well, beyond the pain that’s unavoidable your first time…”
His jaw’s clenched so tightly he could crack a molar.
“You’d already lost your virginity, and after what happened to Izzy, I wanted to control the situation. I know that’s a terrible reason to have sex for the first time, but it felt like the only way…” I’ve never been ashamed of my sexual choices until now.
“He was nice, it was safe enough, we didn’t kiss—”
“Stop. Please. I can’t hear about another man touching you,” he growls, tortured.
“I want you to know I was okay…even if it wasn’t really what I wanted. I can’t take it back any more than you can take back any of the women you’ve been with.”
His molten chocolate eyes shine with shame and sorrow.
“I’m so fucking sorry. I wish I could take it all back, but I can’t.” He looks away from me, trying to compose himself.
His coarse beard tickles my fingers as I pull his face to me. When he resists, I climb onto his lap, straddling his legs. I hold both sides of his face, forcing him to look at me.
“I take it back,” I say softly. Connor jerks back in panic.
“No! I mean, I take back saying we wasted so much time being apart. We’ve had the most beautiful friendship, and every choice we made led us here.”
I pause, because I can’t take back what I’m about to say.
He loves me. He wants me. He’s mine.
And I leap.
“I’m in love with you Connor, I always have been. I’m yours, forever and ever.”
And with my deepest secret hanging between us, he closes the distance once and for all, wrapping his arms around me and irrevocably binding our souls together with an earth-shattering kiss.