“You brought it up,” he reminded me, brushing my hair back from my cheek. “I know what you were going to say.”
“Do you know, all-knowing one?”
One side of his lips tipped up. It was a brief grin. “You don’t want to feel like a burden. That’s what you were going to say, but, Trin, nothing about you will ever be a burden. Everything about you is a goddamn privilege.”
My chest.
Ugh.
It swelled like there was a balloon inside it. “Why?” I toppled forward, dropping my head on his shoulder. “Why do you have to always say the right stuff, Zayne? I’m trying to freak out over here and you’re getting in the way of that.”
“Sorry?” He sounded like he was trying not to laugh.
“And look, my crappy vision isn’t even an issue right now. You’re going to stay perpetually young and buff, and I’m going to get old and my hips are going to break. Then I’ll have to become this better person who discovers if you love someone you set them free. And I’ll have to tell you to go and live your life, find someone young—”
“Stop.” Zayne did laugh then, catching my arms and lifting me off his shoulder. His eyes met mine—eyes that would never dull or become rheumy with age. “That’s not what’s going to happen.”
“You’re right.” I glared at him. “I am so not going to be that person. I think ‘if you love someone, set them free’ is one of the stupidest sayings out there. I’m way too jealous and selfish. I don’t care if I’m ninety, I will still cut a—”
“I don’t want you to be a better person. I like you being jealous and selfish.” He grinned at me like I was being silly, and of course he could think that since he was a freaking fallen angel. “There won’t be another person for me. Not now. Not even when you’re ninety.”
“Easy for you to say when you’ll look like this forever.” Eventually people would think I was a cougar when they saw me with Zayne, and there would be a future where that happened, because I refused to believe that we wouldn’t defeat Gabriel.
“It’s easy for me to say that because I love you, and that runs deeper than skin or broken hips,” he said, and without any warning, he moved. He lifted me out of his lap and onto my back, slipping my body under his. He held his weight off me, bracing one arm by my head. “That’s not something that goes away with age. It’ll strengthen and become unbreakable. That I know for a fact. I wouldn’t have Fallen if what I felt for you was that weak. You wouldn’t have fought for me, refusing to give up, if your love for me was that easy to break.”
I pressed my lips together in a mulish line. “You’re doing it again.”
“Doing what?”
“Saying the right stuff.”
He arched an eyebrow. “Do you want me to stop doing that?”
“Yes.” I sighed. “No.”
Zayne’s smile wrapped its way around my heart. “I get why this would freak you out, I do, but that’s borrowing tomorrow’s problems. We got enough for today, don’t we?”
“We do.” Lifting a hand, I touched his chin. His skin was so warm. “But that’s a lot like crossing that bridge when we get there, and we will get there, Zayne. That bridge is going to come.”
“And we’ll cross it together.” He dipped his chin, pressing a quick kiss to the tips of my fingers. “We’ll figure it out together. That’s all we can do, because you just got me back. I just got you back. We have what so many people never have—a second chance. We deserve that, and we’re still going to have to fight for it. What could happen years from now is not going to steal every day between now and then from us. That’s what it will do if we stress over it now.”
He was right. There was already enough threatening to take away that second chance. It would be hard not to worry about it, just like it was hard not to stress over my vision, but I’d learned to not let what would eventually happen get in the way of living. Just like he couldn’t let what he’d done when he first Fell change who he was now.
Zayne’s lips brushed over mine in a sweet, soft kiss, and I opened up, letting him in. All the many concerns fell to the wayside. That was how powerful his kisses were. Or maybe that was just how powerful my love for him was.
And God, I would never get tired of how his lips felt against mine. I would never not be awed by how the gentle and questioning press of his mouth to mine could elicit such a maddening rush of sensations from me.
Slipping my hands up to his shoulders, I tugged on him until I felt the warmth of his skin through my shirt. The edges of his hair tickled my cheeks as I nipped on his lower lip.
There was an answering rumble from deep inside his throat that curled my toes. The kiss deepened, and the air around us seemed to crackle. There was a razor-sharp, almost desperate edge to the way our mouths met, and I imagined it was hitting us right then how incredibly lucky we were that we got to experience this again. It wasn’t that what we’d done in the pool hadn’t counted. It had, and it, too, had been powerful. Those early-morning hours had been proof that Zayne had still been in there, that his love for me was still guiding his actions. This was different, though, because it was us.
We got a little lost in just...in just kissing. There were soft and achingly sweet ones. Kisses that were teasing and playful. Then there were the ones that left me aching and breathless. All of them were my favorite, because it was Zayne who I was kissing.
More than anything I wanted to lose myself in him, to forget about everything. And I think he did, too, but he lifted his head after one last drugging kiss.
“I’ve missed you,” he said, his voice as unsteady as the breaths he took.
“Same,” I whispered, dragging my fingers along his cheek. The glow behind his pupils appeared muted.
He shifted his weight onto one arm, and slowly, he lifted his hand and tucked the strands of my hair back from my face. “When we were together early Sunday morning?” He swallowed as he drew the tip of his finger along the curve of my cheek. “I...I don’t know how to feel about that.”
“What do you mean?”
“That was me and it wasn’t me. I knew what was happening. That was something that I was controlling, but I just think what if you did that because you felt like you had to? If I could go back, I wouldn’t have done that,” he admitted. “Not that I didn’t enjoy it—”
“I know. I enjoyed it.” I cupped his cheeks. “You didn’t force me. I initiated it. I knew what I was doing and I didn’t feel like I had to.”
“I know I didn’t do that, but it just doesn’t...it doesn’t sit well with me. You had no idea if the Crone would be able to help you at that point.” His finger ghosted over my lower lip. “I’d just dropped you in a pool, and earlier that night, I fought you. I threatened you, and then I was inside you. I could’ve hurt you during it. I could’ve hurt you afterward.”