Kelly Meding - As Lie the Dead

Tears blurred my vision. I squeezed my eyes shut, gasping for air, desperate to keep it together.

Warm arms circled me from behind. I pulled away, but he held tight. Unafraid of my weakness. Not seeming to care that I wasn’t the strong, independent Hunter he’d trained. I turned and collapsed against his chest, unable to fight anymore, and let the tears come. Cheek against his shoulder, I sobbed until my head ached and I’d soaked his shirt through with tears and snot.

He didn’t speak until I was choking back soft hiccups instead of shaking gasps. “You scare me, too, you know,” he whispered, breath warm by my cheek. “You barrel into situations you don’t always understand, and you’re way too fond of questioning my orders.”

“Good thing …” I wheezed a bit, cleared my throat, and tried again. “Good thing I don’t take orders from you anymore.”

“I don’t want to give you orders. I want to be your partner, Evy, not your boss.”

“My partners have a bad habit of dying.”

“Well, I’ve already died once, so we can strike that off the list of objections.” He stroked my hair with one hand, gentle brushes, like I was fragile glass. “Why did you disappear like that?”

Tell the truth, dammit. He deserves that . “I was afraid.”

“Of me?”

“Not you.” I pulled away far enough to see him. The look on his face broke my heart and my resolve to shield any more of myself. Building that wall had been easy, placed brick by brick over twenty-two years of loneliness, ignorance, neglect, and pain. Keeping the wall up against something as simple as love … not so easy.

I was tired of it. Tired of battling my emotions. Tired of fearing the future. Why continue to fear what I couldn’t stop? I had too many other enemies out there, too many other things to fight, without fighting with myself all the time.

Wyatt hooked a finger beneath my chin, drawing my attention back to him. I tried to focus on the bridge of his nose, afraid if I looked into his eyes I’d fall in and never climb back out. He didn’t speak. I gave in, looked, and barely held on.

“Then what?” he asked.

“Of us.”

“Why?”

My stomach quaked. A tremor tore down my spine. I balled my hands in front of his shirt and closed my eyes, sure I would break into a thousand pieces if I didn’t hold on tight. Wyatt pulled me close, abandoning his quest for answers, and just held me. I pressed my face into his shoulder. Inhaled him. Felt his heart beat.

“I told you I’d never pressure you,” he said.

“It isn’t that. I want to be with you and let myself care for you, but it’s those things that scare me the most.”

He tensed a fraction, barely noticeable. “I don’t understand.”

“It feels like …” I struggled to put into words what was so clear in my head. My mixed-up, tired, pain-addled head. “No, not feels like. It is . Giving in to this thing between us—to my physical attraction to you—means losing the old Evangeline Stone for good. It means the sensations I feel in this body are well and truly mine, and that what I was before? She’s gone. It means accepting I will never be her again, and that this is my life now. Period.”

I’d finally said it, and I felt strangely good. Relieved, even. There it was—my fear in full-color detail, and even if I’d been able to take back the confession, I wouldn’t. I knew in my brain that I couldn’t go back to what I’d been before my death, but I had not accepted it in my heart. Saying it drove that acceptance home. Made it impossible to ignore, for both of us.

Besides, it was better he know it all up front, so he could weigh the totality of my issues against his feelings for me. He’d more than earned it.

I drew back and searched his face. “Sorry you asked?”

“Never.” The vehemence in his voice made my heart soar. “Are you sorry you told me?”

“No.”

He smiled. I couldn’t decipher his expression. It seemed like … awe, but that wasn’t possible. “I can’t begin to imagine these last few days from your perspective, Evy. Your entire world changed when you came back, and I never considered that, or how inhabiting a new body would affect you. You’re allowed to be scared of this.”

I bit the side of my lip, considering my words. “I hate not knowing if my feelings for you are mine or hers.”

“I thought you and she were the same now.” He touched my cheek, then let his hand drift around to rest on the back of my neck. “It’s all semantics. Everything you are now is because of the woman you were and the woman you’re in, and both of them are you.”

“Semantics, huh? So my existence has been boiled down to what came first? The chicken or the egg?”

“It sounds goofy when you put it like that.”

“It sounds just as goofy when I say it my way. Everything changed when you died, Wyatt. This is me now, and I need to get over the damned past and just … live.” I drew the tip of my finger across his brow, down his temple, across the hard line of his jaw and over rough stubble.

“So live,” he whispered.

A tiny shiver stole down my back. “Help me?”

His answer was in the slight tilt of his head and in the way his hand gently stroked the back of my neck. In his parting lips. My other hand snaked around his neck and drew him down to me. The first kiss was hesitant, the barest brush of lips. I still felt a thrill all over my body. My stomach fluttered.

His other hand slid to my hip and rested. He waited for me to come to him, and I did, claiming his mouth with mine. Falling into the intoxicating taste of him, letting it overtake my senses. Warmth settled in my stomach, then drifted lower. My skin tingled wherever we touched, and I thought I could kiss him like that forever.

Or until my knee started to cramp from our awkward position on the floor.

I hissed and pulled away abruptly, twisting to unlock my angry joints. “Ow, shit, shit,” I muttered.

“Evy?”

“Inconvenient cramp.”

He scooted around to crouch in front of me, concern blaring from his face like a siren. “Your left knee?”

“Yeah.” The pain was already going away, and it faded quickly as I massaged my knee through my jeans. “Now that’s what I call a mood breaker.”

He chuckled. “I didn’t want to say anything, but my ass was starting to go numb.”

“A numb ass,” I said, grinning. “There may be a market for that as an insult.”

“Says the queen of foul language.”

“You always say to go with my talents.”

He laughed again, and I followed suit. It felt good, knowing that a little personal information hadn’t completely altered our existing patterns. I found comfort in them, and I was sure he did, too. A little continuity in the midst of chaos. He stood up and offered his hand. I accepted, and he pulled me to my feet.

I didn’t let go of his hand. “So what happens now?”

“Nothing you don’t want to happen.”

The petty part of my mind wanted him to promise that went for the things going on outside this room as well as in. Only I knew he couldn’t make such a promise. Everything outside of us was beyond our control. Instead, I replied by obliterating the pocket of air between us and pressing up close. Hips to hips, stomach to stomach. I licked my lips; he accepted the silent invitation.

His mouth moved against mine, soft but insistent, and I met his every movement. Fingers caressed my throat and wandered back to massage my neck and shoulders. My lips parted, allowing him entrance to my mouth, and for a moment we shared a breath. His tongue traced along my upper lip, sending delicious tingles through my belly, and I responded by gently sucking his lower lip into my mouth. I nibbled with my teeth, and his hips surged against mine.