Page 130 of Whisper

After five years and two wars, and horrors he’d never imagined could be real, was any of that true?

He’d still been a child when he watched those planes slam into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon. A college graduate and a junior CIA officer, but still a child where it counted. His world would forever be shaped by that morning, ripples translating in both directions, forward and backward in his life. Was there a life he could live, somewhere, that wasn’t impacted, saturated, with the War on Terror? With September 11 and the day’s aftershocks? Would he ever be able to live with himself if he walked away, knowing what the world was capable of?

The only thing as monumental to his life as September 11 was David.

“What do you want?” he whispered.

“To stay with you. Forever. Wherever that is.” David kissed the back of his hand. “This is your career. You’re admired. Respected. I’ll follow you to the ends of the earth to support that. And you.”

Shit, he was going to cry again. “David—”

David swallowed. Turned fifty shades of magenta, every hue of flushed unease. “There’s just— There is something that I do want.”

“What? Anything.” Whatever David wanted, needed, he’d give him. “Is there something I’m not doing for you? Something I need to change?”

“No, no.” David kissed the back of his hand again, lips lingering on Kris’s skin.

He dropped to his knees, both of them. Cradled Kris’s hand in his palms. “I want tomarryyou,” David whispered. “I want you to pick me. I want you to keep me, forever.”

Kris’s jaw dropped. He was definitely going to fucking cry again. His heart was pounding, tears were erupting, and something was bursting in the center of his chest. “David—”

“The Quran says all souls were created in pairs. One soul, one life, that was meant for two people. In this world, we’re supposed to find the other half of our souls and join together with them. Rejoin, and find the house of peace that we once knew before time.” David moved closer. “I feel that with you. I always have. From the moment we met, it’s been like I’ve known you for forever. Like everything in me is supposed to belong to everything in you.”

Tears poured down Kris’s face. He couldn’t breathe. “David…”

“I was incomplete without you. I never want to be that way again. I want us to be together for all eternity.” David kissed Kris’s hands, the backs, his fingers, and turned his hands over. Kissed his palms, the very center of each. “Will you allow me to marry you? Will you let our souls join together? Forever?”

He pitched forward, falling into David’s arms as he nodded, sobbed, gasped, tried to speak, all at the same time. “Yes, yes—” He could only repeat the word between hiccupping sobs as he clung to David, as he buried his face in David’s neck, his shoulders. Kris poured into him, folded into his arms, into his hold.

David carried him to their bed and stripped Kris’s bathing suit, tears in his eyes as he kissed his way up Kris’s body. He took his time, savoring Kris like they were marrying that moment, like Kris’syeswas all it took for them to be wed, their souls joined together. He made love to him, joining their bodies as if making love were a prayer, an act of devotion to Kris’s soul. A promise for all time in the curve of skin on skin, the thrust and hold, palms sliding up thighs and ribs, and in their curled toes.

Kris was a bonfire, a firework, dynamite that kept erupting, a nuclear warhead that kept expanding along every one of his nerves. There was no end to the moment, to the lightning, to the blaze. And he didn’t want it to ever end.

Late the next day, when Kris finally raised the white flags, completely spent and physically unable to endure another moment of David’s lovemaking, they discussed how to make it all work. How to turn the spiritual into the legal in the world of men.

“I’ve been researching.” David flushed as he ate slices of mango. “I think we should go to Canada. We can get a license and get married right away. No residency requirement, no verification. We can just be married.”

Kris sipped his mimosa, his third. The world was soft on the edges, the roar of the ocean an ever-present hum in his veins. “Let’s do it. Let’s do it right now. I don’t want to wait.”

“Really? You’re sure? About this, and us?”

“It’s been five years. I’ve been sure for a long time.”

“I can arrange everything.” David had a small smile, a look of expectant wonder on his face. “I’ll see how fast we can actually get it done.”

Kris beamed. “I will take care of the clothes. I’m only marrying once. So we’re going to look phenomenal.” He savored his mimosa, visions of white suits with black satin finishes, black bow ties and magenta cummerbunds flitting through his mind. “Phenomenal,” he repeated.

David smiled. Their laptop had been abandoned on the kitchen table, but he spun it toward them and turned it on, plugged it into the ethernet cable. “I also want to buy you a house.”

That stopped Kris’s fantasies. “What?” They still, supposedly, lived in Kris’s tiny studio, even though they hadn’t been there in over a year. The rent had been auto paid. Hopefully everything was still there.

“I made way over three hundred thousand while we were in Iraq. And I have savings from before, when I was in the Army. I want to buy you, us, a home. A palace, just for us.”

“Apalace?”

“Figuratively speaking.” David grinned. “I want us to have everything. I want to give you everything you’ve ever wanted.”

You already have.” Happiness, security. A man who loved him, and who he loved in return. Stability. Confidence. Empowerment. “I never had a house. I grew up in Manhattan. We had a two-bedroom block, stacked on top of other blocks. Low income housing.”