Chapter 38
thirty-eight
Inky blackness smothers the sky, starless and still. The only light—a trembling cone of yellow from my headlamp—carves through the dark. Within twenty minutes, we’re at the front gate made of horizontal black slats of wood.
I press my palm to the reader and pat Ashlyn’s chilled hands, rubbing them to keep her warm. My skin matches her ice-cold temperature.
The gates slide open for us, and I hurry in, revving the engine and speeding down the asphalt lane. As soon as we near the house, the lights illuminate the pathway, the sensors detecting our arrival.
“Shut the fuck up…” Ashlyn’s voice crackles through the helmet, choked and stunned.
My heart rate picks up. I’m more worried about her reaction than her condition at this very moment.
I slip off the bike, but before I can help her, she jumps down, gaping at the structure before us. She shoves the helmet into my hands without looking at me.
“Shut up… Aiden!”
Her hand flies to her mouth, and mine goes dry. Swallowing, I reach for her fingers, and she lets me take them without paying me attention.
“You… You built this? From my design?” With a shimmer in her eyes, she turns to face me, waving a hand out at the mansion. Her voice drops to an awe-inspired whisper. “My journal design from Crest?”
I’m still not sure if she likes it, so I try to explain. “Well, it was here already, but then I asked an architect and contractor if we could change it, and we worked on it since…”
Head on a swivel, her golden hair whips around as she takes it all in. “Since when?”
“You know when, Ash.”
“Since…I was supposed to meet you?”
“I mean, yeah.”
“But I didn’t show up...” she says quietly, almost to herself.
I clear my throat. “I kept working on it.”
Cautious, she crawls a step closer. “Why?”
Chest heavy, I try to talk, but my voice cracks. “Because I love you. Because I never stopped. No matter how much I tried to.”
Her face screws up, and the tears fall over her freckled cheeks. I pull her into me, clutching her like a lifeline. Bruised eye. Cut lip. Hair matted and tangled. She’s beautiful. And she’s mine.
“Can I kiss you now?” I ask breathlessly.
She nods. “Please.”
My mouth brushes hers softly. So gingerly that it tickles. Hand strokes through her long locks, massaging the base of her skull until she groans against me.
She reaches up on her tiptoes to latch her arms around my neck and pull me closer. I take the hint and deepen the embrace, wandering closer to her, parting her lips with my tongue. Tasting iron and steel. Her resilience. Her fierce fire. And the piece of her that she never shows anyone.
The sweet strawberry summer of her.
I’m the only one to get that.
The kiss unmoors me. It isn’t her body I want—it’s her pulse, her breath, her soul winding around mine until it’s no longer ink or ring or vow. Not even love… Something deeper.
She’s me. I’m her. We’re one.
Pressing my forehead to hers, I squeeze my eyes closed. Panting inside her lungs. Our breaths becoming the same.
“Happy New Year,” I whisper.
“That was the best New Year’s Eve kiss I’ve ever had.”
I chuckle, feeling the same, the mist of the chill in the air frosting around us.
She shivers, and I lift her into my arms, still clutching my helmet as I carry her to the front door.
“Press your palm to the pad,” I tell her.
“It works with my print?”
“Yeah. I might’ve…borrowed a sample while you were out. Dungeon perks.”
Her lips form a line, but she unlocks the door for us, and I step inside.
When I set her down, my hands trace her arms, her shoulders, searching for fractures, for cuts, for proof she’s really here. In our house.
“I’m okay. A little banged up, but wow…Aiden…”
She pulls me forward, toward the living room, a two-story, rounded area with floor-to-ceiling windows that cost me almost as much as the house itself. But the serene feeling of living in a treehouse? That was priceless.
“It’s a bit bare,” I tell her as she studies the space, jaw unhinged.
“It’s perfect… I can do things here—”
“That was the plan.”
With a tiny hop, she skips around the room, hands gliding over the buttery sofa fabric. The walnut slab of wood that makes up the coffee table. The jagged stones of the fireplace. I kneel to build a fire.
She hesitates, as if waiting for me, bouncing on her toes, hands in the pockets of my suit coat. Beautiful train of her dress pooling at her feet.
“Go on. Explore,” I tell her with a smirk. “I’ll catch up.”
Her face illuminates with radiance, and it soothes some anxiety I was holding on to.
“The kitchen! This is perfect! Oh my gods, the bathroom in here! It’s gorgeous! The pantry, Aiden! Did you see this? Come look!”
I laugh hard because I already know every detail of this place—every bolt, every grain—but I let her pull me from room to room, let her awe rebuild something inside me that I thought was gone.
Her joy is medicine.
Her wonder, redemption.
When she reaches the master bedroom, she falls silent. The world stills with her. She slides her hand into mine and presses it to her chest, kissing each knuckle as if to promise forever.
“This is the most beautiful room I’ve ever seen.”
“You designed it,” I tell her with a showcase wave of my hand around the circular room. It’s all glass walls. Trees lining everywhere you can see out. Low, intimate ceiling. Large white bed in the middle, looking out into the forest. Green. Natural. Warm.
With a shrug, she drops my coat off her shoulders and glances up at me with a look. That look—holy, devastating, inevitable—undoes me.
I help unzip her dress as she unbuttons my shirt.
We shed our clothes like they’re the last of our armor. My belt hits the floor with a hollow clang.
Carefully, I gather her up against my chest and press my lips to hers. Her legs wrap around my waist as I walk toward the bed, then kneel on it. She settles on my lap, studying me in the soft glow of the moonlight—our only witness. The silver light spills over her skin like anointing oil.
As if I could break her, I brush my thumbs over her mottled cheeks. “Are you okay?”
She nods too fast.
“No. Tell me.”
“I will be.”
“We don’t have to—”
Before I can finish, she lifts off my lap, wraps her fingers around my cock, and strokes until my breath falters. My face buries into her neck, the fruity scent of her overwhelming me to the point I’ll die if she doesn’t sit down.
Head cast back, she lowers herself slowly. Breaking us both open as she sinks, inch by trembling inch. We groan out in unison, releasing the frustration of not being together. And the satisfaction that we finally are.
When she’s seated fully, she exhales a shuddering sound that borders on a prayer.
“I needed this,” she whispers, pressing a kiss to my forehead.
With a hand on her neck, I guide her up and down, shifting my hips with every downward motion she makes.
“You have no idea how much I did.”
My hand caresses her back, her hip, guiding her as she moves. Her rhythm grows wild, desperate, her nails carving my shoulders, her moans spilling like confessions.
Then her eyes collide with mine.
And I see her—the same trembling girl in the back seat, the moment that rewired me.
Our first time.
The doctors said I couldn’t feel things like normal people. They were right.
With Ashlyn, I feel everything.
“Aiden?” she sobs, the sound tearing from her chest.
“What is it, baby girl?” I murmur, pulling her close, rocking her through it.
“I love you. I never stopped.”
And as her words break, something in me breaks too. One tear—just one—escapes before I can stop it. Her body trembles, clenching around me in waves, pulling me deeper until there’s no end, no beginning. Only her.
Only us.