Chapter Twenty-five: Never Say Never

Chapter Twenty-five

Lincoln

NEVER SAY NEVER

Performed by The Fray

I woke to a gray haze enveloping the room and a warm body tucked up against mine. For a moment, I thought maybe I'd died. Heaven couldn't be better than this. Soft lights and gentle touches. Sugary scents and delightful peace rippled through me.

How long had it been since I'd slept this long?

A lifetime ago.

Willow and I hadn't moved from where we'd landed together.

And my body responded to the feel of her naked curves pushed into mine. She must have been awake already, because she felt all the parts of me that stiffened and laughed quietly, tipping her head back to meet my gaze with tired ones.

"Good morning," I said and kissed her tenderly.

She put a hand between our mouths. "I stink."

I chuckled. "If this is what you smell like when you stink, I might pass out from delight when you don't."

I let my fingers glide over her bare shoulders and her arms, and then back up. Fire danced through my veins. I wanted her again. I wanted her maybe more than I had before last night. I'd thought her an addiction before I'd embedded myself in her, and now she was simply a necessity. The unbreakable string that had knotted into me was no longer unwelcome. Instead, it felt like comfort.

I'd come to Cherry Bay to find myself and found us instead.

I nipped playfully at the fingers covering her mouth. "I demand access to those pretty lips."

Her eyes flickered with a feeling I knew well. Remorse.

She pushed against me, breaking our connection, and I felt cold rush over me. Not just the air but the distance she'd somehow shoved between us while I'd slept.

She slipped out of bed, darting into the bathroom without another word.

I rose, pulling on the sweats I'd discarded before making love to her.

As I headed for the door, movement in the corner of my eye had my head swiveling to the side. Sienna stood by the television with a wry, knowing grin on her face as she scanned my shirtless torso. It disappeared into a serious frown as she said, She's wrong. She won't die. This isn't the end of her story.

I wanted to demand she tell me what she meant. To stop speaking in riddles. But she faded as the toilet flushed.

I pushed my hair back from my face.

Why the hell was Sienna back at all? I'd slept all night. I hadn't taken the drugs that could cause hallucinations. I'd given her what she wanted most—the gallery. It hit me like it had the day before that she must actually be real. Ghosts were real. Not just a twisted manifestation of my brain.

I didn't have time to analyze it further.

Instead, I headed for the bathroom, focused completely on the distance Willow was trying to push between us. She'd pulled on the T-shirt I'd given her last night and wouldn't even glance my way.

"I'm assuming you don't have an extra toothbrush," she said. "So, I'm just going to go home and clean up."

I blocked the door, reaching out to tip her chin up so I could see the torment I felt drifting through the room. Damn. I'd never sleep again if it meant her retreat. I didn't need sleep. I'd proven it for the almost twenty-nine years of my life.

"What happened while I was passed out?" I demanded. "Why do you suddenly regret it? Regret me?"

She swallowed hard, shaking her head. "I don't. Not the way you mean. What we did... Like I said last night, it was beautiful…" She tugged at the necklace with her dad's ring. "It was more than beautiful. A memory I'll never forget."

"It was beautiful. And we can make more of those memories. Tonight. Tomorrow. Next year."

She pushed my hand away, stepping back and pressing the heels of her hands to her eyes as if fighting tears.

"Don't you see? That's exactly what we can't do." It was barely a whisper.

My heart spasmed. I wasn't stupid. I knew what she meant. I knew the chasm that laid between us, but I was determined to fight. Determined to find a way to bury the divide under a mountain of rock and stone. "Is it really that easy for you to give up before we even try?"

"Try what? To get you killed right along with me? Get my mom killed? Don't you see? It was so selfish of me, Lincoln. I've been playing make-believe, pretending I could live in this moment. Pretending that if someone was only willing to take the risk, then I could have this"—she swiped through the air between us—"for however many seconds it lasted. And hell, it had to be okay because, like everyone insists, life is short, right?" Derision crept into every syllable. Self-incrimination. "But I can't, Lincoln. I can't. I won't. I won't do this to you."

What had Sienna said ? She's wrong. She isn't going to die. It hit me all at once. This wasn't just about Poco, or the Chicago gang, or even the damn press that loved to hate me. This was about her. About the fatal familial insomnia.

Easing closer, I took her hand in mine. She didn't pull it away, but she did step back and shift her eyes down, keeping the space between us. I wanted to laugh. To tell her not even the air could sever the bonds we'd forged long before we'd consummated them in my bed. "Why don't you explain what it is you think you're doing to me."

She looked up at me with defiance in her eyes, as if trying to deny what was wafting in the very air. "Look, even if it wasn't risking your life and my mom's for us to be together, the truth is, we'd still be an impossibility."

"Again, I'll ask, why?"

"Lincoln, I might die before I even hit forty!" The words burst out of her like a shotgun blast—frustration and remorse and anger that were all self-directed.

She twisted her father's ring again, and I realized the damn memento did more than remind her of someone she'd loved and lost. It reminded her of what he might have handed down. Irritation coursed through me. At her dad for maybe giving her the disease. At the Marshals and the Viceroys for ensuring she hadn't been tested. And even at Willow herself for not allowing love and human connection into her life.

It took me a moment to leash that frustration, and even when I thought I had, my words still came out as a guttural howl. "So what?"

Her eyes whipped up, wide and shocked. "Excuse me?"

I stepped completely into her space, backing her up against the counter and putting my arms on either side of her. "Don't get me wrong. I have no intention of just standing by and letting you die an early death, whether that's because some asshole comes after you or because some mutated gene thinks it can get the better of you."

She huffed out a breath but looked down in that way she did when she was afraid to meet my gaze. "Not even you or your dad or an entire army of scientists can change my DNA."

Something deep inside me denied Willow had the gene. Denied that this magnificent bright light could be snuffed out before she'd even had a chance to really live. I couldn't accept it when I'd already had one light squashed too early in my life. But the truth was, I wasn't sure there was anything to accept. Sienna had insisted Willow wasn't going to die. And if she wasn't just some figment of my imagination, then she was tied to whatever was on the other side. Sienna knew things us mortals didn't. But I had no way of explaining that to Willow. I couldn't tell her a ghost from the great beyond had assured me she wasn't sick. If anything, that would make her want to run even more.

So instead, I changed tactics. "Let me ask you something. Do you think I regret even one minute of the time I had with Sienna?"

She stared at me but didn't respond.

"The things I regret in my life have nothing to do with the time I spent with someone. I'm ashamed of the choices I made that meant Sienna was in the driver's seat that night, and I hate the fact that choosing to wallow in my past meant I wasn't standing with Lyrica the day she was shot. But even knowing what I know now, even knowing I'd lose Sienna, if I had the chance to do it all over again, I would. I'd take every second I got with her. Every damn second."

My body vibrated with the force of my words. My conviction. I wished I could make Willow feel it too.

Her chest was heaving. I reached out to cup her neck, my thumb landing on the wild pulse fluttering there. It made me ache. Made me want to feel it beating at that wild pace because we were skin on skin making love and not because she was fighting her fears.

"I haven't felt alive in a really long time," I told her. "I've been going through life more vampire than human. More lost than found. But as soon as I pulled you into me in the cemetery, a switch flipped. You're everything I need. Everything I want. The light forcing back the shadows. I have to believe, no matter what fate hands us, that spending this time, any amount of time, in light with you is worth it."

Tears flew down her face, and she brushed at them as if she despised them, shaking her head. "You're wrong. I'm not the light. I'm every shadow that still lingers. I'm everything that could destroy you, and I refuse to be the reason you suffer another great loss. It's easier, Lincoln, if you just let me walk out the door. It's easier to stop now before anyone falls too hard. Before we completely shatter."

"I hate to break it to you, but I've already fallen. You walk out right now, and I'll already break."

"Don't say that. Please don't."

"I won't ever lie to you, and the simple truth is…my heart is already yours."

She inhaled sharply, mouth parting, pulse racing even faster. "You can't mean that."

Lyrica was right when she'd said I fell fast and hard, but what she hadn't realized was it hadn't happened nearly as often as anyone thought. Not even as much as I'd thought. I'd fallen for Sienna as we'd argued over a cupcake in second grade, and I loved her all through our childhood and teen years. And I'd loved Lyrica, but just like she'd insisted when she'd broken up with me, we hadn't been "in" love. We'd had affection and an easy friendship. We'd never been soulmates clicking together. And Felicity…that had been all wrong from the moment it had started. None of those times, none of those women, had tied permanent knots around me the way Willow had.

What I felt now, what we had, it was already an unbreakable bond.

Yes, it was too fast. Too furious. Too overwhelming. Especially for someone like Willow, who'd closed herself off for so long, who only saw all the risks because she had been forced to see them. But it didn't make it wrong.

She wasn't leaving. I wouldn't let her hand me back my heart and walk out without it.

But what she needed right now was time to see how deadly serious I was.

And time I could give her. I'd lighten the mood while ensuring she stayed. Until we could find a way across the cavern she saw swelling larger and larger between us.

I leaned in, kissed her temple, and then locked her gaze with mine as I felt around in a drawer. When I found what I was looking for, my lips curved upward in triumph.

"You're wrong, Sweetness. About all of it, but especially about this." I showed her the plastic-wrapped item. "I absolutely do have an extra toothbrush."

She looked down at it and huffed out a little laugh that made every nerve ending in my body sing and my dick twitch. She grabbed the package from me, searching my face, indecision still warring in hers. "My house is mere yards away from your door. It would be easier to shower there, get a change of clothes."

Go back to my old life. I heard the unspoken rest of that sentence, even though she didn't say it aloud.

If I let her walk out, she'd take those mere yards and turn them into a brick wall I'd be unable to surmount. The only chance I had of making this stick, of finding a solution to all our problems, was if I ensured she stayed.

"I have several boxes of Katerina's clothes. Our things were in storage together, and the moving company accidentally delivered hers along with mine. I can't promise the clothes will be anything trendy, but you're about the same size."

"That's ridiculous. There's no reason for me to wear your sister's things."

"There's that word again. You like to throw it out when things aren't going the way you think they should. Not only are you a food snob but you're also a control addict. But fine, don't wear her things. Wear mine. I like seeing you in mine better."

I let my hands drift under the T-shirt she'd thrown back on and was thrilled to find her bare. I skimmed her thighs, fingers lightly dancing along her curls, and her breath evaporated, snowy eyes turning the color of a dark storm.

Every taste of her last night had been a sugary treat.

I wanted to dive in again. Wanted to live all day in that sensuous haze.

She was trembling as I brushed barely there touches along her skin, upward to the curve of her breasts. Small and firm and delicious. Golden apples. Snowy pears. I slid back down, thumbing the belly button piercing I'd been so surprised to find, before continuing to her inner thighs and finally palming her heat.

She trembled, and I kissed her neck, nibbled her ear, and muttered, "I've changed my mind. You can't have Katerina's clothes or mine."

"No?" she asked, a breathy gasp escaping as my fingers found home.

"No clothes. We don't need clothes. We should never wear clothes again."

Her enchanting, lilting laugh filled the air, and my shoulders finally relaxed. "Unfortunately, the world disagrees with you. Clothes are completely necessary."

"Let me prove to you why the world is wrong."

And I did, by showing her once again just how our bodies notched together. First, by exploring and tasting and teasing her with my hands and mouth until she was chanting my name as she soared over the abyss. And then, by spending a far longer time planted deep inside her, driving her up and over again. Driving me over the same ledge and knowing I'd never recover from the leap I'd made.