I buried my face into her neck.
“I’ve cried so many tears. Prayed so many prayers.”
My voice wouldn’t work. I couldn’t tell her the thousand things I’ve wanted to tell her for what felt like forever. I couldn’t tell her I was sorry, and that I was a complete and utter asshole. I couldn’t tell her why this was a bad idea. I couldn’t do a goddamn thing but hold her, and breathe her in.
“Sienna,” she said on a sob.
I shook my head.
“Not yet, honey,” I said roughly. “Not yet.”
She seemed to grasp that there was something going on that was keeping me from her.
She didn’t question why I’d stayed away.
She knew, just as well as I did, the love we had for each other. There was nothing that would take that away. I wouldn’t have stayed away unless I had a damn good reason, and she knew that it wasn’t something small. It was huge.
It was big enough that I had to leave her. Had to see her cry every night while she thought that I was gone from this Earth.
Then her lips were on mine.
Her tongue swept in, and my body’s battle with staying upright lost its fight.
I dropped down to my knees, then went further, laying Mina’s tiny body down onto the dusty floor.
One hand went to the side of her face, while the other went to the floor beside her head.
I didn’t even notice the dust and dirt on the floor. Didn’t care one single bit that we would both be covered in it before we were done.
Her lips were on mine.
My tongue inside her mouth.
“I need.”
Those words were pulled from my throat, a guttural harsh tone, and I couldn’t fucking breathe.
Couldn’t fucking think.
All I could do was feel.
Remember.
Taste.
She fisted my shirt, and I took it for the demand that it was and shrugged out of it.
My cock was throbbing, pulsing with heat and need. Feeling her so close, knowing that what I’d wanted for so long was nearly mine for the taking…that was a heady feeling.
I wanted to rush. I wanted to go so slow that I could savor every single second.
I wanted to devour her.
But then her hands touched the bare skin of my chest, and my breath hitched.
“I should’ve demanded to see your body.” Her hands ran over the rough ridges of damaged skin on my chest. “I wanted to…but everyone convinced me that I didn’t need to see that.”
She didn’t.
I didn’t even want her to see the aftermath now.
“You were so hurt,” she whispered. “Oh, God. Tun. God.”
Tears continued to slip out of the corner of her eyes, and she couldn’t say anything without her voice wobbling.
But she was doing better than me. I couldn’t even fucking speak.
The fact that she was here, underneath me, was so surreal that I couldn’t make my brain work.
“You needed me, and I wasn’t there,” she whispered brokenly.
I brought my hand up to her face.
“You needed me, and I wasn’t there,” I countered back. “I watched you cry into that stupid cat’s fur every night, wishing that it was me there instead of her. Wishing that I had something to offer you that wouldn’t kill you if I did.”
Her eyes closed, and when she opened them again, she was still crying.
Her eyes, so freakin’ bright right now that I never wanted to look away, pulled me right in.
And then, there was nothing but us.
Nothing but the way she felt. Smelled. Sounded.
She caught the change, and our mouths met in a tangle of tongues and teeth.
I bit down lightly on her lip causing her to hiss in a sharp breath.
“Don’t be soft and gentle,” she ordered.
Too late. That was all I’d wanted for so long that I would settle for nothing else, and I think she sensed that.
My hands went to her hips where her small scrub top seemed to swallow her upper half.
“I’ve let myself go,” she whispered. “I had no one left to impress.”
I moved my hands up, pushing her shirt with it.
She raised her arms high over her head and let me pull the top off.
Pens, medical scissors, and her cell phone clattered to the floor, but neither one of us reached for them.
“I don’t care if you have to roll around on the floor to get to where you need to go, I’d love you still,” I informed her, dropping a kiss to her collarbone.
She lifted her hands to my sunglasses, ones I hadn’t noticed that I still had on, and slowly drew them off my face.
The moment she got the first good look at my eyes, her eyes once again started to spill over with tears.
“I’ve missed you so much,” she sniffled.
I pulled her to my chest, her breasts pillowing against my sternum, and I forgot how to breathe.
The next few minutes happened fast.
My remaining clothes were discarded, followed by hers.
She didn’t question taking my holstered gun off, nor did she put it where I couldn’t get to it easily if needed. She knew me, and knew me well. She’d also done the same damn thing almost every time I came off shift whether she was awake or not. We woke up for each other, and always helped each other get undressed.
So, this moment where we were taking each other’s clothes off for the first time in a long time, it was so sweet and tender that it was hard for either one of us to not lose it.
And when she was fully naked, I didn’t see the small pooch of her stomach where she carried our child. I didn’t see the stretch marks, or the changes in her body and face from time passage. I just saw her. My Mina. My everything.
I maneuvered to my back and pulled her down on top of me, using the spread of our clothes as a blanket as I went.
She followed me, straddling my hips with her legs and forcing me to remain still as she climbed onto me.
Her mouth came down on mine, and I lifted both hands to move the hair back out of our faces.
With one hand fisted in her hair holding it back, the other started to shift down her side, feeling her, breathing her in. Remembering every inch of her body and becoming reacquainted with the thing I’d craved most over the last six years.
“I’ve missed you so much,” I couldn’t help saying again against her lips. “I feel like I’m in a dream.”
Her eyes opened, and she stared at me, eyes so full of love, that I wanted to squeeze her to me and never let go.
“I love the beard,” she whispered, running her hands along the rough hair that covered my jaw. “But most of all, I love having your eyes.”
She sat back, giving me the full view of her naked body on top of mine, and my dick that I’d been trying to keep in check, jumped, causing her to grin wickedly.
Her eyes dropped down to where my cock lay bobbing against my belly, and turned a sly look toward me before she took one lone finger and trailed it up the underside of my cock.
“I’ve missed this, too.” She exhaled at the same time the air burst free of my lungs. “I dream of you every night. Wake up needing you. I haven’t had an orgasm since you’ve been gone.”
I hadn’t either.
Which I told her.
Her mouth dropped open.