She reaches for my hand, and I give it to her, still maintaining our gaze while she pulls my fingers close to her. She kisses my knuckles and lays her cheek along the back of my hand, closing her eyes, before she slowly moves my hand to her side until I touch her. Once my palm is flat along her skin, she places her hand on top of mine and looks back to me.

“This is me,” she shrugs. “I will have these…forever.”

I’m careful when I swallow and mindful of my breath, because I don’t want her to think I’m afraid to look at her. I don’t want her to misread a single movement I make. I reach up with my other hand and run my thumb over her cheek, drying the last of her tears, and then I let my eyes slide slowly along her shoulder and arm until I finally settle and look at the body she calls “ugly.”

The most noticeable one is deep and red—a line that runs at least eight inches along the side of her body, and I’m almost certain it’s a surgical scar. It’s surrounded by others, some small, and many deep, proof that bullets and metal did in fact penetrate her body.

She lets go of my hand, but I leave it there, careful not to move it too quickly. I can feel her eyes burning into me, just waiting for me to run. But I’m not going anywhere. I’ve never been more positive in my life of somewhere I’m supposed to be. I slide my fingers slowly over the rough skin, letting my thumb trace the long line up to the middle of her ribcage, and then I peel my hand away with caution. Her body jerks a little from losing my touch.

“Shhhhhhhhh,” I whisper, touching my fingertips to my lips to kiss them and then pressing that kiss back to her beautiful, scarred skin. When I do, she shivers, so I tilt my head and spare a glance at her face to see her eyes full of tears. I lean forward and kiss them away, and pull her head to my lips, carefully working her body back along the bed until she’s lying beneath me.

I hover over her, kissing her neck first, then the line along the strap of her bra. Her body rises up, arching into me when I come to the rounding of her breast, and I savor the moment, and let her just feel human—her body, for just the slightest instant, reacting to her needs and desires instead of her fears.

I kiss along the soft material of her bra, letting my lips and cheek feel the peaks of her ni**les beneath, and I let my hot breath soften them before I continue to kiss between each, slowly inching my way down her body until I feel her tense up at my arrival at her scars.

“Beautiful. Every. Single. Part of you,” I say, letting my lips fall to the long callused line first, taking note when her breath hitches. I continue to glide my hand along each mark, covering each with a kiss before moving on to the next, until I have cherished every inch of her.

When I come back to her face, her cheeks are sopping wet with tears, and she’s no longer trying to hold in her emotions. Reaching my hands deep into her hair, I bring her forehead to my mouth, and I hold her against my lips. And again, I wait while she quivers and breathes—deep, labored breaths in between sobs—until her body calms, and eventually she’s sleeping.

This…is love.

Chapter 20

Rowe

Waking up in Nate’s arms was like beginning a brand new life. In the last two years, I’ve gone to bed without the aid of sleeping medication only a handful of times. Usually, I’m sick with something like the flu and that’s why I can’t take my medicine. But not when I’m with Nate. He’s my placebo.

He was staring at me when my eyes finally focused. He said he had only been awake for a few minutes, but I have a feeling he had been looking at me for longer than that. I didn’t get to shower at all yesterday, and I feel a little grimy now because of it. But I also don’t want to wash away Nate’s kisses. I know it seems juvenile—the thought of actually savoring a kiss. But I want to.

I slipped back into my room before class and was able to dress in the closet without waking Cass and Ty. I watched them sleep for a few seconds, satisfied at my good work, and then jogged to my first class, making it there right on time.

Next semester I was going to have to rethink how I organize my classes, because having philosophy this early in the morning is a challenge. My brain isn’t ready to think this hard, and I’m pretty confident that I am going to fail the quiz I just turned in. I have learned one thing from this two-hour block class I take every Monday and Wednesday—I am not going to major in philosophy. I like it, bending my brain and forcing it to think about things differently, to see reasons behind actions. But it doesn’t feel like something I want to do forever. But art—not necessarily the making of, but the appreciating of—that was something that I needed to explore more.