Chapter 19 #3
“No, but I convinced myself I needed someone who at least knew what normal felt like. Who understood how I was and the cost of the military. Someone I didn’t have to explain it all to.
I just wanted to feel fixed. All I had to do was be that hero she wanted.
And I thought I could make a stable life with her.
But I still wanted to keep you. In a box over there. ”
Her heart was beating so fast, she thought it might burst through her chest altogether. “The women in your life don’t exist just for you.”
“I know. I know that. I am living with the consequences of that mistake. In the regret I feel for what that marriage did to you and to her. What it did to me. I just wanted to change the way I felt. And I thought I could do that using external forces. I was an idiot.”
“I wish I could understand,” she said.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked.
She could see that his eyes were tortured.
“Why didn’t I tell you what?”
“You wanted me? Why didn’t you kiss me, Perry? When we were teenagers, why didn’t you?”
“Because I was scared. I was scared you would reject me. I was scared that I would ruin our friendship. I was more afraid of life without you than I was of not kissing you.”
She was seized by the conviction that she had to love Carson and everything he had done, all the decisions he had made in his life. There were some hard things.
But he was hers now. And he was here.
Every gruesome step had somehow brought them here, and yes, maybe they should have done this years ago.
But maybe declaring their feelings then wouldn’t have protected them.
She had to stop fantasizing about it. She had to stop wishing.
She had to love the man as he was right here.
Because that was love. And anything else was …
Protecting herself. That was what she had been doing.
Using Carson as a shield. To protect her from any other man.
Any other relationship or love. To protect her from the dysfunction in her household.
To protect her even from the love that she felt for him.
Because as long as she kept him out of reach, it could happen.
The possibility existed. There was safety there.
She had been angry at him.
It was wretched and unfair. She was being dishonest. With herself most of all.
She had blamed him for the fact that he had never looked her way.
But he was right. Why had she never told him how she felt?
She had always been a pirate right along with him, fearless.
But she had hidden all of her spark, all of her desires; she had accepted ice cream she didn’t even want to avoid the pain of being denied the ice cream she might not be able to have.
God. What a horrendous thing to realize. She had loved her own safety more than she had loved Carson.
This anger she felt over not being picked was valid. But the way she’d let it define her every feeling for him in the years since wasn’t.
She’d held a piece of herself back ever since the principal she’d trusted had made it clear to her what mattered was her father, not her.
That moment with Carson, when he’d looked at her in fury by the lake—fury she now knew was tortured, teenage desire—that had been an excuse.
She was safe as long as she wanted Carson, the man she could never have. As long as she loved him, she could never love any of the other men she slept with. There was no chance a relationship could ever overtake her. Could make her lose control.
She’d built a little house to hide all her little traumas, so she could walk around out in the world and pretend to be normal. Oh, she dated and she was just fine. Her only problem was that her best friend had her heart, but never her body. Everything else was just great.
It was a lie.
And she’d used that lie to make sure she never had to see what life would actually be like if she had Carson.
He was right.
Even in her letters, she hadn’t said everything. Just in case. She was always leaving space for herself to wiggle away, just as she’d done at the lake all those years ago.
And she’d had the nerve to call him a coward.
She suddenly felt caged by her cowardice.
She didn’t want to be this version of herself.
She wanted to be the pirate child who’d run barefoot with him through the weeds and screamed as she’d jumped off the swing.
She wanted to be wild and free and all the things that life had taught them had too high a cost.
They’d been like Adam and Eve in Genesis. That day by the lake they’d realized they were naked—even if not literally. That he was a man and she was a woman. That they had to make decisions to protect what they were, to protect themselves.
At least that was why she had run from him.
Over the years they’d doubled down on their caution every time they’d drifted.
She wanted her wild back.
He moved to her then, his eyes intense. “Don’t be scared of me.”
“I’m not,” she said. “I’m not. Not now. I won’t be. Not ever again.”
“My pirate princess,” he whispered, his mouth crashing over hers.
They kissed and she gripped his shirt, dragging him down to the floor of the old house, this place he was restoring for her to sell to someone else.
This place that had housed her family, her ancestor who had come west for freedom and found passion along with it.
“I’m not a pirate princess,” she said, rising up onto her knees and shifting herself so that she was straddling him as he sat back. “I’m a pirate queen. Your pirate queen. And you’re mine.”
He growled, moving his hand up to the back of her hair, gripping it, tugging.
There was a feral light in his eyes, and she loved it.
Something wild that she had never seen before.
It had certainly never been directed at her.
Even though their recent encounters had been passionate, this was different.
It was all their history, and everything new, crashing in on each other.
All their new promises, their new revelations, and all the old tarnished but beautiful things.
There was nothing and no one between them. She was done with protecting herself. She was laying it to rest. Nothing else mattered. Nothing but this. Nothing but him. Nothing but everything they could be.
She pulled his shirt up over his head and threw it onto the floor.
She raked her nails down his chest, reveling in the feel of his muscles beneath her fingertips.
She took her own shirt off, her bra. She pressed her body to his.
She wanted him close. With nothing between them.
She was the only one who had him like this. And that was the honest truth.
No one had ever known him the way she did.
He wanted to be her hero. He was already her hero.
He was more than that. He was the little boy he had been in the man he had become.
He was all of the painful things, all of the things that he tried to forget.
All the things he’d tried to accomplish.
He was everything he had ever done, and every goal he felt he’d fallen short of.
To her, he was perfect. And that was all that had ever mattered.
Because he had been there when she needed him.
And yes, there had been times when it had felt as if she had lost him, but part of that was her own inability to tell him what she needed. So she was going to show him now.
She kissed him. Deep and long. She ground herself against him, reveled in the feel of his heart between her legs.
“Carson,” she breathed against his mouth.
“Perry.”
These were their vows. They would save more formal words for their friends. His family. They would make a legal commitment to each other, and it would matter. But this, this was what was real. These were the things that really needed to be said and done between them.
He pressed his palm to the center of her back, moved over her, pressing her against the floor. He unbuttoned her pants, stripped them off, left her naked. And then he was naked too.
“Carson,” she said. “I need you. Inside me. You have no idea how long I’ve wanted this. How long I wanted you.”
“I want you too,” he said. “I didn’t let myself want this. I couldn’t let myself want you, Perry. You’re too perfect. You’re too beautiful. You were everything, and I knew that I could never be enough for you.”
He pressed a kiss to her collarbone, to her shoulder. Maybe he was making it up. Maybe he was trying to make it all okay now. But she didn’t care. She couldn’t care. Because every word he said healed something inside her.
“I’m going to be enough. I swear it,” he vowed.
She nodded. She took that vow. She held it close. She let it expand inside her. Along with all the love that she felt for him.
“I used to fantasize about you,” she whispered. “You were what made me realize why a kiss might be wonderful. You were the man who made me understand desire.”
His elbows buckled just slightly. “I don’t deserve that.”
“Yes, you do. Carson Wilder, you have always been my hero.”
He claimed her mouth in a deep, ferocious kiss. Consumed her. Until the flames consumed them both.
He put his hand between her thighs and began to stroke her. Carson, touching her like this. She would never get over it. No matter how many times it happened. Because she had wanted this so much in secret, and now it was out in the open. Now they were telling each other the truth.
And it was so glorious. Almost too much. He stroked her until the rest of their life flashed before her eyes. Until she was clinging to him, crying out his name.
And when he entered her, inch by inch, she put her hands on his shoulders, she met his gaze. She didn’t let herself close anything off. Any feeling.
She let it be like it was the first time.
For both of them. Like there had never been anyone else.
Because they were Carson and Perry. And no one else was them.
No one else ever would be. How could she be second, when no one else could ever be her?
It was a deep, profound feeling. To allow herself to be special.
Her own fear, her own feeling of being inadequate, had hurt her. It hadn’t protected her. She had kept herself in prison.
She had to let herself out. Carson couldn’t do that for her. He had already said beautiful things to her. He had already made it clear that he felt a lot for her.
But he couldn’t make the insecurity go away. She had to make that go away on her own. She had to stop resenting what had come before and accept everything about the man who was inside her now. The man she loved.
She gave thanks. For this moment. For who he was.
She wasn’t going to give thanks for all of the terrible things.
The feeling of abandonment. The abuse. The things he had seen in war.
The loss. No. She wasn’t going to give thanks for those.
But she could give thanks for the people they were on the other side.
The people they were in spite of everything.
And maybe a little bit because of it. She gave thanks for how strong he was. How wonderful. How glorious.
“I love you,” she whispered. And then again as he thrust deep. “I love you.”
They had said that to each other before. But this time, it wasn’t out of habit. Not out of routine. She hoped he understood. Because she didn’t have more words. She didn’t have anything more articulate at all.
They were committing themselves to each other. They were committing to a future together. So she clung to him. And she said it again. “I love you, Carson.”
And when the release washed over them both, she said it like an incantation. Because she had held back for all this time. Because she hadn’t really known what it meant.
She did now. It meant being brave. It meant accepting the time-line of their journey.
It meant accepting him. Everything that he was. Everything that he had been.
She loved him.
She was Perry. He was Carson.
The pirate-ship captain and his pirate queen.
And everything that they were or ever had been was something they shared. But the best part was now they were going to share everything they were ever going to be.
Perry held that truth close, because it was all the hope she had ever been looking for.