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Chapter Twenty-Two

Sarah

I’m still trembling when we get back to the motel.

I can’t believe what just happened. Dallas has blood splattered on his white shirt, some streaking his forearms, and his expression is grim.

He said that he would do that for me. He said it from the beginning.

He meant it. He would kill for me. I’m glad he didn’t.

I’m glad he didn’t make it so that he would be separated from me.

We have all my things, I’m out of the rental.

That part of my life is over. And I really do believe that Chris is never going to show his face again.

Because at the end of the day, he’s a coward. He’s an absolute coward.

Seeing Dallas reduce him like that, took him from being the monster that I always believed him to be, and showed me what he really is. A sniveling, weak, disgusting human being, who can barely lay claim to the species.

He’s nothing. And he has no power over me anymore. I hate him. I always will. I will never forgive that piece of shit for everything he put me through. Some people are monsters.

Some people should rot in hell.

And he’s one of them.

I’m very clear on that.

I’m also free of him. Detached from him. He has no claim on my life. That’s not the same as forgiveness. It’s simply a choice not to let him occupy any more of me. Ever again.

We pull up to the front of the secluded hotel, and I’m also grateful that Dallas picked this place, because there’s a secure gate to get in, with a code, and the parking lot isn’t visible from the road.

I really don’t think he’ll come after us, but part of me needs that added layer of security.

Just for my own peace of mind. While we’re in town at least.

He pulls up to our little cabin, and we get out, he unlocks the door, his hands steady.

I follow behind him, and then he turns around, fury and fire in his blue eyes.

He deadbolts the door, and then grabs me, hands cupping my face as he kisses me with ferocity.

His hands are sticky with blood, and I take hold of them, pulling them away from my face, holding them between us. “Thank you.”

“It’s what I always needed to do.”

“Thank you,” I whisper.

He backed me toward the bathroom, reaching inside the shower and turning it on. He strips off that blood-splattered shirt and throws it onto the floor. He looks feral. Like my warrior. The one I always dreamed of. He looks like my hero.

He looks like Dallas. The bull rider.

The love of my life.

The love of my life .

Maybe we need time and space, and maybe I need my own place. Or maybe… Maybe I just need him.

Maybe nothing else matters because while we were the unluckiest children in so many ways, we found each other.

And in this world, in this life, that makes us lucky.

We have something different than what anyone else has.

We have something beautiful and strong, forged in this impossibly fucked up fire.

We are infinite.

The stars that keep on shining, despite it all.

We were meant to be. I thought a long time ago that I’d accepted my weirdness. But part of me has always been looking for a way to feel normal. A way to feel like what I’m doing in a given moment is right, and easy and good.

I don’t care anymore.

I want him.

If it makes no sense to anyone, oh well. I want to marry him. I want to have his babies. I want to belong to him in every possible way.

And I’m done pretending I don’t want it. I’m done trying to be measured and balanced and normal. I am obsessed with Dallas Dodge. I love him, and I’m going to have him.

He strips my clothes off me as he finishes taking off his own, drags me into the shower, the water washing the blood off his hands, his forearms, the water running pink down to the floor.

And he’s still kissing me.

“I love you,” he whispers against my mouth.

I’m undone.

Completely unraveled, like he pulled a thread that had been holding me together for all these years, one that I needed gone. So that I can be remade. Into this new thing, with a new life, new hope.

“I love you,” he growls. He pins me against the shower wall, big hands roaming over my body, thumbs rough over my nipples.

“I fucking love you, Sarah Anderson. You’ve been mine from the moment that I saw you.

And I knew, I’ve always known that I would kill for you.

That I would die for you. But I think even more important, I will live for you.

Be whatever you need. I will… If I could cut myself open and show you everything that’s inside of me, the way that I feel about you, everything, I would.

If I could make you understand like that, I’d do it. ”

“I understand,” I whisper. “I do. Because it’s the same in me.

“I love you,” he whispers, as he thrusts inside me, my hope, my heart, my Dallas. “God, sweetheart.”

And he begins to move, deep and sure within me, I’m clinging to his shoulders, crying out with pleasure, when I realize I didn’t say it back.

“I love you,” I say.

He grips my face, kisses my mouth. “I want you to live with me,” he says. “And I know I shouldn’t say that. If you need to live on your own, I respect that. If you need distance. I’ll let you have it. But I don’t want to give it to you. I want you to live with me.”

“I don’t want distance either,” I say. “I want us.”

“I want you to marry me.”

“I want that,” I whisper, emotions making my words thick. “I do. I don’t care if it seems healed or healthy or balanced, because we don’t need to be anyone else. There’s no guidebook for surviving the shit that we’ve survived. There’s just this.”

He shudders, and he continues to move inside me, and my own climax hits me like a freight train. He goes over, his head falling back on a guttural sound as he comes deep inside me.

“I’ll pay for you to go to school,” he whispers against my neck. And you can’t complain about it. You have to let me. You have to let me take care of you. It’s what I want.”

I touch his face, the water running down his skin. “You have to let me take care of you. Because it’s what I want.”

“I will,” he says. He holds my chin, his eyes gazing deep into mine. All I see is blue. “Sweetheart, I’ve had so many good things over the last decade, but it was never quite right. Because there was never you. It’s like there was a missing piece. And now here you are.”

I’m not afraid anymore. I just trust him. I’m choosing it. To dive headlong into this whether it’s logical or not, to forget that I’ve ever been hurt. To forget that life is scary, because I want Dallas more than I want anything.

I imagine myself standing on a precipice, over a magma-filled volcano, a gold ring in my hand, representing every trauma, every issue that I’ve ever had. And I picture myself just letting it go. So that I can hold onto Dallas. “I love you.”

“I love you too.”