Page 30 of Light Me Up

“I mean I want to kill whoever did that to you. I want to find them and put two bullets in their heads, but not before I beat them like they did to you.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, they kinda frown on stuff like that when you wear a badge.”

“Yeah, probably.”

“But I also mean, I don’t just care because you’re one of us.”

Her eyes shifted to the floor, so I raised her chin up with my fingers until she looked at me again.

“I don’t care if you think what we did is a mistake. It’s not. You talk about how you know things, how you can feel them?” I gestured in between the two of us. “Well I can feel this. What we have… it’s something real. It might have surprised the shit out of both of us, but it’s real. And what happened yesterday, and you opening up to me… it put things into perspective. I’m not pretending anymore.”

“Theo, I—”

“Don’t say anything about it right now. I’m not trying to put you on the spot. I just wanted you to know.”

She looked me in the eyes, a deep look that felt like she was piercing my soul. And before I could say anything else, her lips tilted up toward me, she rose up onto her tiptoes and she pressed her lips against mine.

It was a soft, slow, meandering kiss. Nothing rushed, nothing heated like our other kisses were. This was different. And somehow, this kiss held a deeper meaning because of it.

I brought my arms around her, and her hands came up to rest on my chest. Still shirtless, every touch from her soft fingers made my skin jolt like she held electricity in her hands. I deepened the kiss, not able to help moaning against her mouth.

And when she broke the kiss, she didn’t pull away, instead nuzzling her face against mine. My damn heart melted like a popsicle on a summer day. This woman. She could own me if she wanted to. And it surprised me just how eager I was to let her.