I push the quilt away so he can sit beside me. The sensation of his strong, muscular body next to mine is a comfort.
He leans forward, his elbows on his knees, his head bent. I can only stare at him, dread spreading black tendrils into my heart, my chest so tense that I struggle to pull in my next breath. I get to my knees on the sofa and put my hand on his thigh.
“Dean?”
“When we first met, I felt like I’d woken up,” he says, his gaze on the floor. “Like everything before you had just been the prologue to my real life. I’d spent all those years waiting for you, not even knowing I was waiting, and then you were there. The second I saw you, I knew I’d do whatever it took to make you mine. But even when I did… it scared the hell out of me, being with you.”
His confession from our first year together echoes in my head. “You’re the first woman who’s ever made me afraid. Afraid of how good this is. Afraid it won’t last. Scared to death of losing you.”
An ache of love spreads through my own apprehension. I turn my palm upward so we can twine our fingers together.
“I don’t want to be afraid anymore,” Dean says.
“You don’t have to be,” I tell him. “Not with me. You know how nervous I was when we first met, how I flinched when you touched me, how I ran from you when I realized how badly I wanted you. But you were so gentle, Dean, so warm and inviting, like this big, comfy quilt that I wanted to burrow into forever. And you wrapped yourself around me so tightly that you made my fear go away. I want to do that for you.”
Dean tightens his hand on mine. I feel his wedding band pressing against my fingers. I stare at the lines of his profile, the way his hair tumbles over his forehead, the column of his throat.
“I resigned, Liv.”
Not until he says the words do I realize I’d been half-expecting them. And yet they sear into me like a burn, filling my entire body with pain.
“No.” My voice cracks.
Dean turns to face me, his eyes dark. “I know. I didn’t tell you before I did it. Exactly what you’ve been asking me not to do. But this time, keeping it from you wasn’t just my way of protecting you.”
“Why… why didn’t you tell me, then?”
“Because I wouldn’t have been able to go through with it if I had.” He pushes to his feet and crosses to the window, staring out at the wet, gray light. “I wouldn’t have been able to stand the look in your eyes. Knowing how much it would hurt you. I was… in a way, I was trying to protect myself. I couldn’t weaken. Couldn’t make it harder than it was.”
I press my hands to my face. Anger and sorrow boil inside me. This can’t happen to him. Not Dean. He’s worked so hard. It’ll kill him to lose the solid ground of academia and scholarship. It can’t all crash down like this.
I try to stem the tears flooding my eyes as I cross the room and slip my arms around him from behind, fitting myself against him. Then I let the tears fall, soaking into his shirt, my body trembling against his.
“I’m sorry,” he says.
I shake my head, swiping at my damp face. “I don’t care that you didn’t tell me, Dean. But I don’t understand why you did this now. You don’t even know yet if Stafford is going to pursue the case. And there’s no evidence against you so how…”
My words fall away as the truth strikes me.
Of course.
My white knight. My beautiful, strong, brave husband who loves me more than I ever knew it was possible to be loved.
This man would give me the stars, the moon, the sun. He has slain monsters for me and alongside me. He’s battled through dark, tangled woods with me because he has never once wavered in his belief that we are meant to be forever. He would do anything for me. For us.
He’s a rare gift, my husband, perfect and flawed and completely, unreservedly mine.
I tighten my arms around him. Absorb his solid strength. Press my body against his back. After a few minutes, the rhythm of my breath rises and falls in time with his.
I move around to face him, pressing my hand to the back of his neck to guide his face down to mine. Pain gleams in his eyes, but he allows me to bring our lips together.
“You promised you would kiss me for a long time,” I whisper. “How about we start right now?”
Warmth lifts some of the darkness from his expression as he takes my face in his hands and settles his mouth over mine. A cascade of gentle shivers falls over me as we ease into the delicious rhythm of kissing that is both familiar and wonderfully new every single time. I part my lips under his, letting his tongue slide into my mouth.