Page 72 of Kings Don't Break

We find seats in a clearing near the park that’s been designated for marketgoers. Blake plunks down on the wooden picnic table and pats the space next to him.

I’m still flushed from not only losing but his teasing. He’d called my lips pouty. He’s spent all afternoon reaching for my hand and being as funny and charming as ever. How am I supposed to fight off the emerging feelings and temptations making their way to the surface?

I haven’t had a real sex drive in years. The result of Ken’s increasing abuse and my decreasing self-esteem. Yet my dream earlier and my thoughts now have me keenly aware of how my body’s awakening in response to his.

“The brats as good as you remember ’em?” he asks after a moment of silence.

My mouth full of the smoked sausage and pretzeled bun, a nod is all I’m capable of.

He washes down his next bite with a drink from his Coke. “I’m glad. That the brat’s still good and that you came out today. You needed something like this.”

Inhaling the fresh, crisp air and reaching for a napkin, I know he’s right. Today was something I needed.

“Thanks for making me come,” I say, tossing my napkin on the plate of my mostly eaten bratwurst. The thing’s huge and I’ll never finish it.

Blake seems to forget about his food and drink too. He angles his body to face me on the bench, lips tugging into something of a smile. The stare he gives me is the kind of stare he’s been giving me since we were clueless teens running through the Christmas market—certainty.

Certainty that sends a shiver coursing down my spine, like he knows some big secret I don’t. He sees something so damn obvious I’m in the dark on.

The thing is, I’ve never been in the dark about him. Not then and not now.

I only wished he’d done more to make me stay…

“It’s crazy how things can feel like old times,” he muses, proving he’s a mind reader. “Every part of town has a memory with you in it, Kori. I can look at that tree over there and remember the time we cut class and crashed on the grass.”

I blink and feel welled up emotion making itself known. “I did my homework anyway.”

“And I took a nap.”

A small gasp of a laugh leaves me. “That sounds about right.”

“But I see you here today too. At my side as we make new memories. I’ve always wanted that for us.”

“Me… too.” My throat works to swallow. I drop my gaze from his and study our hands only inches apart on the picnic table. His inching closer to mine. Mine palm side up as if instinctually waiting to be grabbed. “I wish,” I try, and then I sigh at the ache inside. “I wish it could’ve been different, Blake.”

“It still can be. It’s not too late.”

When his words are met with my silence, he lifts a hand to cup my chin and guide my gaze back up to his.

“You’re my girl, Kori,” he rasps, drawing my mouth closer to his. “You’ve been my girl since the first moment I saw you moving in next door. You’ve been my girl even when you were somebody else’s wife. You’re always gonna be my girl… ’til I’m fucking dead and gone and buried six feet under. Even then you’ll still be. Stop fucking fighting it and accept you’re mine.”

Our faces are so close they’re almost touching. The space of a breath away from each other. It’s like teetering on the edge as I peer into the boundless blue ocean that makes up his gaze. I’m a second away from falling into deep water that I’ll never be able to swim out of. Over twenty years of feelings that have only grown more intense with age.

It’s in the chemistry that circles us. The heat that caramelizes around us. So visceral and overpowering I feel it in the very core of who I am.

I’m the one that makes the move—something instinctually I know has to happen. Blake needs to know I’m in too. I want this. I want him.

My lips press to his almost shyly. It’s all he needs to lose restraint and seize the rare opportunity. For his rough hand to grip the side of my slender throat and deepen the kiss to sweltering levels. He kisses me as if stopping would mean I’m gone forever. I’ll fade from existence.

His lips warm, his tongue caressing, his kisses set fire to my brown skin. I lean into him as my mind empties and my heart races. A pulse of need thrums through me that’s long gone unsated.

It’s been so long since I’ve been touched like this. Since I’ve been kissed like this.

We lose ourselves to a blur of sweeping touches and hot kisses. Everything else is forgotten—who we are and where we are and what’s happening around us.

In this moment, I feel more alive than I have in years. The wall I’ve erected around my heart collapses. The hole that Blake left so long ago feels as if it’ll finally be filled. I’ll be whole again so long as I give into him. I become the Korine I was always supposed to be but got sidetracked along the way.

Blake’s kiss is nourishing. An epiphany that has me both dizzy and seeing clearly the second we draw apart and stare heavily lidded at each other.