Page 17

My heart thundered in my throat, my breathing fast and shallow as I felt the weight of her stare.

“Couldn’t help it,” I said, feeling embarrassed as I adjusted myself. My words sounded silly even to me.

She closed her eyes for a moment, as if gathering strength, then nodded. A small laugh escaped her. “It’s okay. Good to know everything still works.”

When she opened her eyes, they held a flicker of heat.

Calculated, curious, possibly a test I wasn't sure I was passing and just like that, my brain short-circuited.

I swallowed hard as the vivid image of her lips wrapped around my cock rammed into my head.

I shifted and tried not to make it obvious that every muscle in my body had remembered exactly what her touch felt like.

Down, big guy. Fuck .

This wasn’t the right moment. But tell that to the part of me that didn’t care about timing; only proximity mattered to my most carnal urges.

She cocked an eyebrow, clearly noticing the shift in my posture or maybe she was reading my mind like she always could. “Jesus, Levi,” she said, voice dry as bone. “You look like you are about to ask me to bless you and defile you in the same breath.”

I held up my hands in mock surrender, a sheepish grin tugging at my lips. “Hey, not my fault. You looked at me like that. You know what that look does to me.”

“Right,” she deadpanned. “I forgot your self-control has the structural integrity of wet paper.”

I laughed, the sound a little too raw, a little too real. “That’s fair. I’ve never been great at... delaying gratification.”

“Understatement of the year.”

There was silence for a beat and then I let the smile fall. “But I’m trying now. Really trying to be better. Not just about that, but… about everything.”

“I see you trying.”

“I’m gonna screw up again,” I said honestly. “Not like before. Nothing like that ever again. But I know I’ll still get in my own way sometimes.”

“That’s what marriage was always about, wasn’t it? Enduring each other’s nonsense and choosing to stay anyways.” Her voice held both hurt and love as she said those words.

My heart ached at that. I reached for her hand, tentative, and when she didn’t pull away, I looped my fingers through hers.

“I love you,” I said. There was no way I could not tell her as we held hands in the hallway of our home. I didn’t soften it or package it in apology or wrap it with a bow of pretty promises. I let the words fall from my lips how it used to.

"I know, Levi." She looked away from my face, down to our interlocked fingers. “Honestly… I should be more stern with you. I should be more angry.” She glanced back up at me, her eyes teary. “But I’m not. Not right now. And I don’t know if that makes me weak or… tired of being angry.”

She stepped closer, hesitating inches away. Her auburn hair was still down, loose waves falling over her shoulders and curling slightly at the ends. I felt the heat radiating off her skin. Her eyes searched mine, wary but open, and for one agonizing second, I thought she might turn away.

Then she leaned up towards me, her hand flat over my chest, grounding me. I let her close the gap.

The kiss was cautious, a brief brushing of lips and the familiarity of it, the ache of it, sent a shiver through me. It was a tenderness that felt like a question and a forgotten promise all at once.

Her lips parted slightly and I followed her lead, hesitant, unsure if I had the right to taste the depth of what we once shared but she didn’t pull away. Instead, she tilted her head, a quiet invitation, and I couldn’t resist. The kiss deepened, her tongue meeting mine in a slow, tender dance.

"Oh, fuck Sloane." I growled.

She was my home. My everything. I felt it in the core of my bones as we kissed, every inch of me waking up to the truth Old Me had been blind to.

In the gentle press of her body against mine, I could almost taste the life we had before it all went wrong.

Every mistake, every betrayal felt distant now, fading into the background as I held her.

Her presence was a quiet haven, her love so strong and forgiving that I felt both weightless and anchored all at once.

She wasn’t just the woman I loved. She was the center of everything I’d ever wanted, even when I hadn’t known it.

“You taste like heaven,” I said, the words spilling out before I could stop them. My voice was low, unsteady.

I felt her heartbeat against me, the rhythm so steady, so full of life, reminding me of the times we’d sat together on the couch, talking about everything and nothing, feeling invincible in our own little world.

“Levi.”

My name, but not like before. It came out as a plea: quiet, desperate, and trembling with too many emotions. Everything we had been and everything we had lost crashed together between our lips.

Each time I broke the kiss, it was only because I had to breathe but even that felt like too much time apart.

I couldn’t stop. Couldn’t hold it in. Every brush of her lips against mine ripped another truth from me, a confession I had carried like a stone in my soul for far too long. "I want you… all of you Sloane."

She was my everything: my anchor, my storm, my salvation, my punishment.

And in that moment, with her mouth against mine, her body molded to me like we were created in tandem.

I felt alive in a way I hadn’t in over a decade.

She gasped against my lips, her hands tangled in my shirt, her breath catching in that way I remembered so vividly as she held on to me tighter.

Desire burned through me, raging like a wildfire, fast, relentless, implacable.

"My only thoughts when I wake up are of you,” I said, the confession spilling out.

“You. Always you. Every morning, every goddamn night, you’re there.

In my mind. In my heart. Only you.” She had no idea how many mornings and nights I meant with those words…

hundreds upon hundreds. I was desperate for her now.

Each kiss bruising and brutal. I br oke apart long enough to growl, "Do you go to bed thinking of me?

Haunted by it? Consumed by desire and love, Sloane? "

I kissed her harder then, as if my breath had been punched out of me and the only way to survive was through her. There was no hesitation in it, no gentle testing of boundaries. Simply raw, uncontrollable need.

"Please Levi." Her breath came out ragged every time our mouths parted. She held herself from the edge, desperate not to fall, yet already slipping. Her lips lingered on mine, clung to me, refused to release.

The intoxicating taste of her, like sweet honey and strawberries, was both familiar and new all at once. Memory and magic. My hands slid around her waist, pulled her tighter, steadied myself in the feel of her, in the reality of her.

A panicked part of me feared this was a dream and that I’d wake up in an empty bed, sweating and full of sadness.

I didn’t deserve that moment. I knew that.

I had taken her trust and shattered it. Yet here she was, letting me in, reaching for me despite everything the Old Me had dragged her through.

I knew, I knew , that if I grabbed her and scooped her up that she would wrap her legs around me, that I would carry her across the hall to the guest room, that we would ravish one another in a hundred different delirious ways…

The words, hysterical bonding crashed through my fantasy like a freight train.

I pulled back a fraction, my forehead resting gently against hers, both of us breathing a little heavier, a little more uncertain. “Sloane,” I breathed, barely more than a whisper.

Her eyes fluttered open, and for a moment, she stared at me, something unreadable in her gaze. Was it hurt? Love? I couldn’t quite tell. It was like she was weighing the same question I had been asking myself.

What happens now ?

The kiss had been a spark, the kind that flickers before it bursts into an inferno. I could see the possibility of us together, shining through the cracks of everything that had fallen apart.

She didn’t speak. She held my gaze in that silence and everything paused. We were both afraid to move, afraid that a single word might sever the delicate thread between us. Her cheeks were flushed. Pink crept down her neck. Her lips, fuck, her lips were kiss-bruised and trembling.

But it was her eyes that undid me. There, in the soft burn of her gaze, was something feral and aching… unfulfilled desire, sharp and flickering beneath all the restraint she was clinging to.

“I…” I started, but the words felt too heavy, too much to say all at once."I don't want to do anything until you are ready."

We breathed together for a long time. Her fingers grazed my cheek, her touch soft, like she was memorizing the feel of me again.

“We don’t have to figure everything out tonight,” she whispered.

“But I felt it too. I… I do need more time, Levi.” Her body was already speaking in tremors and unspoken pleas as she held her ground.

I closed my eyes, trying to keep myself from reaching for her. “I understand. Take all the time you need.”