slow at my touch, his gaze dimming. He inhaled sharply through his nose, tilting his head so his cheek rubbed against my hand.
“You’re so cold,” I whispered to him. He felt like ice. It was painful even to touch.
“I don’t feel it,” he whispered back, his eyes still roaming my face.
“How long have you been out here, Conor?”
“Long enough.” He swallowed hard as he watched me. “I’ve missed you so much. I had to come. I couldn’t be away from you, Charlotte. You’re burned into my soul. You’re all I think about, and I’ve tried so hard to let you go, but I can’t, dove. I don’t want to live in a world where I’m not with you. That world’s empty, and I’m halfway dead inside as it is.”
Hot tears ran down my cheeks. I let out a soft cry; his words were a healing balm to years of aching. He dropped his head, pressing his forehead to mine. Eyes closed, we breathed each other in. Time, that dreaded thing, slowed right back down again, only this time I embraced it. Minutes, hours, seconds could have passed by, I wouldn’t know it.
All I knew was everything was going to be okay.
Finally pulling back, I looked up at him. He was already watching me, his lost eyes drowning in my image.
“Come inside,” I told him, rubbing my thumb over his cheek, tracing his cheekbones. “We need to get you warm.”
Taking him by the hand, he let me lead him to the house. No words were said as I opened the door and pulled him in. Careful to be quiet, I glanced up at the staircase in case Penny awoke to our sounds, and then I soundlessly shut the door behind us. I peered up at him in the dark entry room. Drops of water fell off him, and he was shaking now. I pulled him to me and wrapped my arms around him, running my hands up and down his body, trying to build some warmth back into his bones.
All the while, he stood still, allowing me to touch him, but never reciprocating. He just watched me. Entranced, he watched my every move.
I caught wafts of his scent. Different from memory. It felt all wrong.
His eyes had aged. They looked ancient and empty, and it scared me as I stared into them in the dark entry room.
Where is my Conor?
Who is this man in front of me now?
I did not anticipate the foreign feeling to come over me. A whisper of something dark hidden beneath his being.
Something happened to him.
“I’m still me,” he whispered just then, catching my hesitation.
My heart raced. He still read me like a book. Those eyes softened for me, consoling me.
I blinked back tears, pulling myself back to the now, to this man who was cold and broken. A man who’d walked through frigid temperatures for this moment.
God, I loved him.
I loved him so much.
I loved even more the stranger in front of me now because he had clung to what we were for all these years, and he was here now.
“Come upstairs with me, Conor,” I told him.
Again, he let me take him up. He didn’t object when I brought him into the master bedroom. I slowly locked the door behind us, and the gentle click of it seemed so loud in the quiet. We stared at each other for a solid moment. The lamp in the corner was still on, giving the room just enough of a glow to see him. The carpet was saturated under his feet, and he was still shuddering like an earthquake.
I roused out of my stillness and had his arm in both my hands. “You need the heat.”
His face was so white, it was scaring me. His teeth shattered in response, and I frantically pulled him in the direction of the bathroom. I turned the light on and dragged him on the white tiles. Letting him go, I rushed to the shower stall and turned the water on, making sure it was steaming by the time I turned back around.
“Strip,” I demanded, worried he was sick.
Not protesting, he grabbed at the hem of his shirt and slowly brought it over his head. His movements were stiff, his muscles obviously tense from the cold. I stood still, breathless at the sight of him. I hadn’t felt much stir before this moment. For years, I’d neglected my pleasure and the drive for it faded.