There was a split second where I considered lying to her. Blowing it all off and insisting I was fine, this was fine, everything was fine. But I'd never succeeded in telling Zelda anything but the absolute truth. Every single one of my lies and omissions came back to kick me in the ass. "It's frustrating, you know?"
"Yeah. I know." She paused, probably waiting for me to disembowel myself further but when I didn't say anything, she continued, "I think the hardest part is the doubt. You let yourself believe that people understand you, they get you. You let yourself believe they trust you to do the right thing too. But then someone says they don't get it and they don't trust you, and maybe you're wrong for thinking you could be trusted or understood. And you just doubt that anyone will ever be able to do those things for you."
She ran her hand along my spine in elegant, artful passes like she was drawing a map to my salvation there and all I had to do was open my eyes and see it. I felt a tremendous surge of emotion, as if pins and needles and goose bumps had colonized my skin and now I was a man-sized nerve ending hiding in an overgrown canopy of summer green with a woman I fully and irrevocably required in my life.
"Yeah, Zelda," I said, turning my gaze away from the woods for the first time since I'd marched out here. "The doubt."
I hooked my arm around her shoulders, yanked her tight to my body, and kissed her. I wasn't especially kind in the manner I took her. There was no gentle brushing of lips, no respectful hand placement. It was rather unhinged—I was unhinged—and my body seemed to interpret this as the proper moment to calm down and tighten up all at once. I could breathe again, I could think beyond the headache behind my eyes, and I also wanted to burn down anything that dared to separate me from this woman. I already knew her subtle scent and the way she felt against me, and now I knew I should've done this a long time ago.
She flattened her hands on my chest and bunched my shirt in her fists, forcing me closer, pressing me harder to her torso.
"Yeah?" I murmured against her mouth. I needed her to want this the way I did. Unhinged and fiery and all this overwhelming relief.
She reached up, cupping her hand around the back of my neck. "Yes."
"Thank god."
Everything fell away as I melted into Zelda. My hands roamed over her body, cataloging her with more than a little entitlement while her tongue wiped out everything I'd ever known of kisses and affection and desire, replacing it with a screeching kettle of instructive lust. She was delicious comfort, one that lulled me into a sense of buoyant peace—before biting my lip and laughing as I blinked down at her in delirious awe.
"Again," I managed, and she complied, taking my jaw in her hands and raking my bottom lip between her teeth.
She smiled up at me with those strange eyes and the smile that understood unspoken things. "Like that?"
"Again. More."
There was a second where Zelda paused, her eyes glittering as she no doubt held in a quip about my domineering ways. If she only knew the half of it.
She pushed up on her toes to meet me as I locked my arm around her lower back, my hand coming to rest on the tender round of her ass. When we crashed together this time, in this backyard jungle with a mountain of disapproval and meddling waiting for us on the other side, I knew there was nowhere else I wanted to be. There was nothing else I needed.
A twig snapped behind us and I groaned into Zelda's mouth because only one person arrived at my parents' house by way of nature walk. "My brother has terrible timing," I whispered.
"Just passing through," Linden said. "Don't mind me."
I kept my lips fused to Zelda's as I cut a glance in his direction. He raised a hand in greeting as he passed, the other wrapped around the neck of a growler of beer. Since Linden minded his own business like a champ, he kept his gaze fixed on the path toward the house.
"On your way, then," I called.
He waved once more and made an effort at eliminating himself from our hideaway but the moment