She didn’t have anything to say. I waited for a second to see if she wanted to back out. But she didn’t. She wanted this.

She wanted my death.

She wanted him.

I pulled my jeans past my hips, floating off the bed for a second while I yanked them away with my boots and socks inside the legs, and as the air touched my skin, my knees, my thighs, it came with the warmth off her beautiful body. I felt as if our skin was touching before I even fell back down between her legs. And as I laid myself there, where only my brother should be, her thoughts changed. I expected her to be tense, unwilling, maybe even push me away, but she looked up, and her heart beat once, steadying itself, her soul crying out inside her for this to happen, making her eyes electric blue—the static in her fingers charge everything with energy. She wanted me. Not him. Not Mike. Me.

And I was going to take full advantage of that. She would be the last girl I ever loved before I died, and I wanted to enjoy her as if she was mine. So many things I always dreamed of doing to her—so many things I had one last chance to do. “I'm sorry, but …while I have you completely naked, I'm gonna do something I've wanted to do for a long time.”

Her eyes went to my lips, as if she knew what I was thinking. “What’s that?”

I sent her an image of my plan, raising my brows. “Kiss you somewhere naughty.”

Her mouth popped open in obvious shock, and I laughed as I moved down on the bed, tracing every one of her perfect curves with my lips on the way. I stopped above her ribs, where the cursive line of her Promise remained from her Walk of Faith. “This,” I said, kissing the Mark, “looks incredibly sexy on you.”

“I'm not sure I fit in a sentence with the word sexy,” she scoffed.

“Tell that to my body.”

Her cheeks flushed with the idea of what she might make me feel—little, plain, ordinary, unattractive Ara—her too-thin body under this man who was cute and carefree, with a sexy tattoo around his firm arm and a tanned chest bigger than her husband’s. She compared herself to Emily in that breath, wondering if I thought Emily had a better body, or if I even compared them—or if I’d ever even slept with Emily. I hadn’t.

I wanted to laugh. She just had no idea—could not conceive the depth of my want for her—how I loved her, needed her, purely because she was my Ara. Fat, thin, short hair, no hair, zits or warts or scars. I loved her. I wanted her flat against me so badly I couldn’t exhale the tightness in my chest away.

She could feel the heat coming off me, but she couldn’t feel the intensity—the way the lust burned through me worse than the fire that melted my skin in my 1942 plane crash. I was harder than I’d ever been, more wanting than I ever wanted to be again, and as my lips went past that permanent tan line above her absent undies and onto the soft patch of hair between her legs, she flooded, too: heat and moisture spilling against my lips like melting chocolate. My brother clearly had never done this to her before, and as my tongue slipped inside, like she was some soft, ripe fruit, tasting the milky smooth sweetness of this girl I’d loved for so, so long, she moaned, crying out my name. My name. I’d brought her heartache and pain. I’d damaged her body, her soul, but as I gently slipped my finger inside, reaching up to where the muscles tightened, I was finally the one bringing her pleasure.

Her spine arched, pushing her closer to my mouth, and I worried for a second that the stubble on my chin might scratch her, but as I checked her thoughts, she clearly didn’t mind. Her legs parted further and she held her breath, trying to be quiet but not really succeeding, and each time I rubbed that delicate spot then kissed her gently after, she wanted to shake inside, not sure whether to laugh, cry, squirm or run.

I saw a flash of blue spark her fingertips as I looked up for second, but she pinned her hands under her pillow, hiding it. And my mind raced with questions. For some reason, that spark caused no pain, no shock when it flared in this situation. I felt it warm her toes against the bottoms of my legs, but it didn’t hurt—not one bit.

“What’s funny?” I asked when she giggled.

“That kind of tickles.”

I laughed, pressing my wet lips into her belly, moving firm kisses over each rib, all the way up to her breasts. They were so soft, so full, fit so perfectly into my hands, and I wanted to tell her that I’d never seen such purity in a girl—the pale pink of her nipple, the way it set so softly into her milk-white skin, like she was some kind of angel or white blossom I had plucked from the Garden of Eden. I traced a gentle line around it and let my tongue follow, drawing the fullness into my mouth for one sweet kiss before burying my face in her jaw, coming finally to rest my open mouth on hers.

It was too much for her. She’d wanted this for too long.

She reached down and I jumped as her small hands touched me, slid me closer to the Threshold of No Return.

“Not yet.” I grabbed her hand.

“Argh! You’re killing me!”

I laughed against her mouth, too afraid to move away in case the kiss ended. It was perfect this way, as if my heart was finally filled with the blood it needed to survive. And our lips wanted nothing more than to stay together—comfortable, warm, and familiar. I’d kissed many girls before, and none of them felt this right. I just wanted to hold on and never let her go. I loved her. And it was as simple as that. No matter what I’d done or would ever do to hurt her, I loved her.

She moved her knees, lifting them up, wrapping her legs around me, and I could no longer bear it. I slipped my hand between her legs and guided myself inside her, thrusting a little harder than I meant to. But she cried only with pleasure, her heart feeling what mine did: free, complete. I could see it in her thoughts.

She tangled her fingers in my hair, using all her strength to hold me close.

“You okay?” I asked, laughing into the curve of her neck.

“I just…” David was never that passionate. “I'm okay.”

So she liked it a little rougher. I looked down at her, smiling as I moved my hips against hers with a little more force, hearing our flesh clap each time it met. I needed to be closer, but I couldn’t pump that way if our chests were touching, so I slowed things down and laid my body atop hers, resting my jaw on her brow, feeling her soft breath warm against my throat.

There was a kind of energy between us, surrounding us, that felt solid, like we were grounded by a force outside our awareness. She leaned down and kissed the Mark on my arm softly, closing her eyes as she remembered the first time she saw it by the lake that day—how much she loved me even then.

“Jase?”

“Yeah?”

“I love you.”

I stopped and drew back to look down at her, dead shocked. I never ever thought she’d have the strength to admit that to me—not in a million years. “I love you, too, Ara. For forever,” I said, then quickly kissed her mouth. “And I will die loving you.”

She rolled back, closing her eyes for a second as my words entered her heart and soul, killing her a little. I couldn’t look. I didn’t want to see her suffer for my death, then reason that it was better than losing David. Then again, maybe I deserved to see it.

I looked down to where our bodies connected, watching myself go inside her, the gentle curve of her waist and the soft white flesh on her belly colouring my peripheral. She was so petite; hips small enough to wrap my hands around, her thighs almost too bony, the joints showing where her legs parted—only a soft, small handful of flesh covering it, quivering each time I brushed against her. I wanted to bite her there—could almost taste the memory in the back of my throat; could still see remnants of the scar I left on the night I tried to turn her. But she wasn’t thinking about that. She was ready. Her body getting hotter and wetter. I wasn’t sure if she’d felt an orgasm before, but I was hell-bent on making sure this was one she’d never forget.

I leaned back a little and licked my thumb before pressing it to the most sensitive spot a guy can ever touch a girl. And she swore, her body almost freezing with shock. Clearly, David had never ventured to this realm, either.

“What is that?” she said, way too loud.

I looked over at her door, smiling. “Clitoral stimulation.”

“Oh.”

I laughed. Such a sweet innocent thing she was.

Her eyes met mine, and past the obvious pleasure she was feeling, I saw curiosity. She wondered why I was smiling that way, what I found so funny. But it wasn’t amusement, not at her expense anyway. I was just happy. Happy to be here, with her, feeling her this way.

I felt her tighten inside. And her mind told me to move left, when I knew I needed to move right. I shifted my thumb, making softer circles, pressing firmer each time she groaned, and when the tightening reached the highest point inside her, I let go, thrusting myself toward it, falling down hard on top of her.

Moisture flooded between us, making everything deliciously wet, scented with her sweet smell. She could hardly breathe, hardly focus on anything, and her fingernails went deep into my ribs, cutting, her legs firmly around my hips, pulling me into place, holding me exactly where she wanted me.

And I let go—felt myself release, emptying every ounce of love, lust, desire, pain, sorrow, regret and longing into her, imagining my life force race through, deeper and deeper to a place where miracles happened and life was conceived. We were one.

One soul.

One heart.

One love.

Forever.

A lifetime of eternity folded out in the seconds before us, and she was mine for all that time. I saw it all—the future, the past, the world that could and never would be. I was not in it. And a part of me wondered, as much as it hoped, that she would not move on from me—she would not be okay without me, because I knew that each day that would pass until my death, I would not be okay without her. A threshold had been crossed, and I never wanted to go back to before. Back to wondering what life would be like loving her. I’d tasted it now, and I would never again be the same.

I could feel her fragile body beneath mine, feel her tight and warm around me, feel every move, every twitch inside her, but the only thing my heart focused on was her hand against my chest, placed there so absently; a touch of love, her thin fingers so precious and delicate, so fiery and dangerous, so sweetly and wonderfully mine. I closed my eyes and focused on our last seconds together before all this would end. If I could have taken her life in that breath and given mine at the same time, and it would’ve meant we’d stay like this forever, I would have.

“Ara.” I slipped my hand beneath her spine and rolled her body up, cradling her face to my chest, feeling her soft, lustful breaths brush my bare skin as tears fell past my lashes and into her hair. “I wish I could hold onto you like this forever.”

She kissed my chest, running a finger over the wet spot her lips left, then wrapped herself around me so tightly I held my own breath. I never wanted her to let go, but I knew it was time. I knew the heat would die down any second now, allowing room for regret, fear, concern…sorrow.