I nod my head, because I’m suddenly terrified to speak.
“Maybe I’m the same way,” he says quietly, his voice husky and low. “Maybe I have the same memories, and maybe that’s because they’re real, only you’ve forgotten them.”
This stuns me, freezes me, catapults me from this moment and I sit up in the sun.
“What?” I ask stiltedly.
Dare sits up next to me, and his beautiful face is troubled.
“There are things about me that you don’t know. And if I don’t tell you about them, if I don’t tell you about them right now, terrible things might happen, and I’ll be the reason why.”
“Then tell me,” I whisper, and the words pain my heart and my heart pains my chest. “Tell me.”
He reaches over to me and his ring shines in the light and the silver touches my face and everythingeverythingeverything swirls.
The world tilts and spills.
Fragmentsfragmentsfragments
Piece together and come apart,
Like my mind,
Like Finn’s.
I grasp at him, trying to right myself and all that matters all that matters all that matters is his warmth. He grounds me, he holds me, he keeps me safe.
My fingers reach for him, then I kiss him.
His lips are warm and firm and there’s so much familiarity here… so much want and we can deal with the craziness later, after after after. Right now, I just need him. To ground me, to keep me sane. To be with me.
His hands trace my collarbone, running down my arms, setting my nerve endings on fire. They burst into flame, burning away anything else but the desire to be with him, right here and right now.
“You think you don’t deserve me,” I whisper against his neck. “But that’s not true. I’m the one… I don’t deserve you.”
I kiss him again, and he groans in my mouth, the sound of it driving me to the brink because I know he wants me too.
“You want me,” I tell him urgently, pulling at him. “I know you do.”
“I’ve always wanted you,” he tells me roughly. “Always.”
“It’s just you and me now,” I tell him. “You and me. That’s all that matters.”
Make me feel something besides pain.
I kiss him again and his hands splay around my hips, positioning me so that I’m lodged against his hardness. I suck in a breath and look up into his eyes, eyes that hold a thousand secrets, but eyes that I love.
I love him.
“No matter what,” I whisper. He pauses from kissing my neck and looks at me questioningly as he lifts his hand to brush my hair back. The light glints from his ring, again and I’m frozen.
Because fragments come flying into my mind. Memory fragments. Images of that same exact expression, of his ring glinting in the moonlight as he tells me something. It’s a confession and he’s alarmed, upset, anxious.
It’s the night of the accident. Before the accident. I see his lips moving, but I can’t hear the words. It’s like he’s in a wind tunnel, the words are static, and I’ve seen this exact scene before in a dream.
I strain to hear the words from my memory.
“What’s wrong?” Dare asks me now, lowering his head once more, sliding his warm lips across my neck as he leans me back.
At this exact inopportune moment, as Dare’s touch lights my skin ablaze, the fragments finally fit into place. The puzzle pieces fit together. At last.
The memory forms and I suck in an appalled breath as I yank away from him.
“I remember,” I whisper. Dare pauses in apprehension, his onyx eyes glittering, his hands frozen on my arms. “I’ve known you…for so long…you…you were here for me all along. You came here for me.”
His eyes close like a curtain and I know that I’m right.
His breath is shaky and his hands tremble as he touches me, as he refuses to pull away even now.
“You have one question left, Calla,” he reminds me, his voice somber. “Ask it.”
So with fear in my heart and ice in my veins…I do.