lucky you found her. You'll give her the family she deserves."
"No," he said. "I'm the one who's lucky. She's the one good thing to happen to me since I lost you."
"It hurts so much, Noah," she whispered, her voice breaking. He was so close she could smell the dried sea spray on his skin. "When you told me she was your daughter, I hurt so much I thought I was going to die."
"Now you know," he said, his tone fierce with rage and longing. "That's what you did to me, Gracie, when you left me."
"I never wanted to hurt you. That's the last thing I wanted to do. I was scared. I didn't know which way to turn. I did the only thing I could do. I had no choice. It was the only option left to me."
"I pushed too hard," he said, his mouth only inches from hers. "I asked you to give up everything you'd worked for. I wanted you all for myself."
"No, no, that's not what I mean... oh God, this is so hard... seeing you again... seeing you with Sophie—"
They fell into each other's arms as if that was the only safe place on earth to be. And maybe it was. Their kisses were open-mouthed and hungry, hot and wet and impossible to deny. She wanted to taste every inch of his body. She wanted to bite the flesh of his inner thigh and mark him as her own. Years of longing erupted and she was on fire for him. She knew it was wrong. She knew there could be no future for them. She knew it all but she didn't care. She wanted this one night, this one gift to hold onto for the rest of her life.
He pressed her against the wall, trapped her there with his body, his hands, his heart. She clung to him, desperate for more, more of his kisses, his touch, everything he had and was or would ever be.
He was a half-step away from madness. Her slender curves hidden inside that foolish coat awoke a thousand memories. She had been so excited, so eager, so unbearably lovely that first time. He carried those images with him every day of his life. He'd dreamed of holding her again, tasting her skin, hearing her soft cries. And now there she was, in his arms, and he wasn't dreaming. She moved against him, on fire and unashamed, matching him in passion and love and need, all she had been before and more, so much more, because now he knew how it felt to be without her. At once he saw her as she was and as she had been, past and present coming together in a blaze of anger and love and desire that almost brought him to his knees.
"I love you," she murmured, her lips hot against the base of his throat. "I've never stopped loving you."
He pushed the coat off her shoulders, unbuttoned her sweater. "I've never loved anyone but you, Gracie. Never..."
"Those stories... the things you wrote... so beautiful..."
"I remember everything about you... everything—" Every breath she took, every word she had uttered. He remembered it all.
Rachel's voice drifted up the staircase. They needed to be alone, away from the world. He swept Gracie up into his arms and carried her down the hallway to his room, three doors down. The bedroom was dark. He reached for the lamp but Gracie stopped him.
"They'll see the light," she whispered as he stripped off her clothes then shed his own.
They were greedy for each other, avid, intoxicated by the feel of bare skin against bare skin, the wonder of touch. Words of love spiraled between them, striking sparks in the darkness. Their bodies were strange and yet familiar; the rhythm of love was part sense memory, part miracle. He needed all that she had to give, to find the other half of his heart. She needed to make him part of her body the same way he had been part of her heart and soul for as long as she could remember.
Remember... remember this moment...
Remember the way he looked in the moonlit bedroom. Remember the words he murmured against her skin. Remember how it felt to be happy again.
Remember the moment when he pulsed deep inside her body, holding her as if he would never let her go, the way her body answered his with a fierce shattering of her defenses that was triumphant and heartbreaking all at the same time