A week later, Ivy came out of her office to find Liam walking back into the apartment. His cast was finally removed and he’d gone out with a cane to explore the park to build some strength back up in the muscles. She heard him coming in and rushed to him, excited to tell him about the latest development in her book. She reached up to his face as he took her in his arms and felt his hands already there, removing what felt like sunglasses from his face.

“What’s this? Why are you wearing sunglasses, you haven’t before?” Ivy asked, confused.

“Oh, um, I just started wearing them, I didn’t know if the light would harm them if I walked around in sunshine without them.” He brushed the question aside moving away from her quickly.

“Ah. Right. Why didn’t you just ask me?” Ivy wondered aloud.

“You’ve been busy darling, it was a silly question and I didn’t want to bother you.” He evaded. She could hear the evasion in his voice. Now she was suspicious.

“Okay. Can you hand me the post from the table?” She asked, waiting to hear his hands slide over the table.

“There’s nothing there darling.” Liam said, forgetting that he hadn’t slid his hand over the table.

“Right, if you’re going to lie to me Liam you can just pack your things now and get out.” Ivy said, walking to her bedroom and closing the door quietly.

“Ivy, what are you talking about? Ivy, can I come in?” Liam asked through the door.

“You may come in but if you’re just going to lie to me again don’t bother.”

“What are you on about, love? What am I lying about?” He asked, feeling guilty. He’d been able to see fully without any problems for a week now but he’d not told Ivy. He’d watched her, realizing that he was in love with her but he couldn’t tell her that either. She might accuse him of pitying her and he had no idea of how to get around the mess he was in.

“You know very well what I mean. What colour is the duvet?” She asked.

“Red. Oh fuck me!” He said automatically, then slapped his hand over his mouth.

“Indeed. Now, tell me again?” Ivy said coldly, a wall coming between them suddenly.

“Ivy, I had no idea how to tell you darling, I didn’t mean to lie, I swear. I just didn’t want to destroy what we have.” He pleaded.

“That’s the fastest way to do it darling, by lying to me.” She responded.

“But Ivy, we’ve had such a very strange relationship. It started out as a way to prove myself to some…um, well to prove my charm could work even on the blind, and then I found I absolutely adored you. But you were so prickly about your independence. Early on I wanted to protect you so desperately I almost wanted to own you but you weren’t having any of it. You tore that idea down quickly and trampled it into dust. Then I had the accident and everything changed. You showed me how to live, with or without sight, and I didn’t want that to change. I know we’ve never said it but I love you. I’ve never said that to another woman but I do, I love you desperately and I didn’t want to jeopardize that. I couldn’t tell you.”

Ivy hadn’t said the words either, she’d never used them, too afraid of giving up her independence but she realized now that this was her chance at real love. Maybe even the one true chance she’d ever had.

“I suppose we aren’t the best pair at this are we? We’re both so afraid to commit, for our own reasons that I suppose you did think that was the only option.” She moved on the bed, gesturing for him to come and sit next to her.

“I’m not saying it was okay to lie to me, Liam, that had better be the last one you ever tell me, but I can see why you would. Especially if you love me. Do you really?” She asked, hoping this wasn’t another lie.

“Yes, I do darling. Ask anyone that knows me. The simple fact that I’m living here has everyone at the station bowled over. I’ve never really had a relationship, never a long-term commitment. Staying overnight is the longest I’ve ever lived with a woman. This is so very new to me and I’m so lost. I’ve found you, lost my sight, regained it, and I’ve been terrified I was going to lose you. It’s been so confusing for me.” Liam said and took her hand, watching her lovely green eyes move around in confusion, as if she was trying desperately to find his face to look for sincerity. His heart broke for her in that moment and he swore he’d never again lie to her. Liam never wanted to see that look on her face ever again.

“Right. But you can see again, you don’t need me anymore.” She said, giving him an out if he wanted it.

“I will always need you, Ivy. You are my heart now, my everything, and without you I might as well lose the ability to see again because my world will be meaningless. I need you to make me whole whether I can see or not because you are the other part of me. You know my fears, my secrets, my hopes and dreams. You understand me and I hope you love me.”

“I, well, Liam, I do. I, oh my I never imagined it was this hard! I do love you.” She said finally, the words pulled out of the depths of her soul. She’d hidden that emotion away when she lost her sight, locked it away as a defence. She couldn’t get by in her world with vulnerability and love was vulnerability. It was a weak emotion but Liam had shown her there was a strength that came with love, a companionship and a partnership that she hadn’t realized existed. She drew strength from him and she returned it. Perhaps that really was love, perhaps that’s what had been missing from her life, even more than her sight, someone to lean on and someone to lean on her.

Ivy reached her hand out to him, needing to touch him. The sudden realization that she could have sent him away and that she could have destroyed what they had by refusing to listen to him made her heart ache and the wall that had gone up around her heart melted instantly. Liam took her hand and pulled her to him, drying the tears that had suddenly come to her eyes.

Together they removed their clothes, desperate to be skin to skin, to find that link that made them whole in a far more than sexual way. This wasn’t just sex it was the sharing of souls and they both craved it. Ivy realized that’s why they were so good together, why the sex was so different. They’d reached for each other in the inescapable darkness and found a light that neither could see, a fire that grew between them, and fed their souls.

Ivy reached desperately for Liam’s body, hungry for the taste of him and Liam responded by slipping his mouth over hers, his tongue twining with hers. He realized she was still crying but knew it was an emotion that she couldn’t control. She’d locked herself away from the world while fighting to be a part of it, she was overwhelmed now with just how much she felt for him and though he regretted her tears he rejoiced in knowing she returned his feelings.

Ivy clung to him, his naked skin solace, his seeking tongue a lifeline. She craved his lips on her breasts and they were there, she longed for his fingers to fill her and they were there, she needed his scent to encapsulate her and there it was, filling her nostrils with the smell of the man she loved desperately. Ivy gave herself up to the depths of her passion, her desperation for Liam and fed his own needs with her hands, with her body. She writhed beneath him, needing more and more with each moment, each wave of passion overwhelming her, demanding more from him, demanding she give him more.

As he stroked her passion into stronger flames that threatened to consume her she exploded, his fingers delicately stroking her over the edge as she let out an agonized moan of release. But he wouldn’t let her stop and replaced his fingers with her tongue, stroking the oversensitive nub until she wanted to scream but again Liam drove her over the edge, a sensation of colours filling the vision she did not have. She gasped, the sparkling colours real to her in that moment, even if they weren’t, and she fought to stay in the realm where she could see something, if even for a moment, but then lost the battle and had to let go to Liam’s will.

Liam still wasn’t ready to let her go, however, he wanted more of her moans, more of the gasps he’d become addicted to when they were his anchor in the darkness, and he drove his cock into her pliant body, driving his hips into her body again and again as her legs wrapped around his waist, pulling him deeper into her liquid heat. The grasping glove of her silken muscles spurred him on, and he felt her urgency as her nails raked his back, as she begged for more from him, until he exploded into her. He felt as though his soul was pouring into her, not just his seed, and knew he was exactly where he needed to be. Ivy was his home and as long as he had her it truly didn’t matter whether he could see or not because she was his light, his vision, and all he truly wanted now was her.

“You are my home, Ivy, you are what makes me real. I far more than love you, I need you. Nothing in this world can replace you and if I had to give up my vision to see you then that’s what I’d do.” Liam whispered against her sweat dampened hair, still joined to her body.

“Well, I have to say, Liam, it’s good one of us can see. I have a feeling we’re going to need to see test results if we keep doing this.” She laughed.

“What do you mean?” He asked, not sure what she meant.

“We haven’t used protection, my love, what usually happens when people don’t?” She asked, the idea pleasing her.

“Oh. Oh wow. Do you think so? Would that be alright with you? Do you want children?” He asked, worried she might not.

“I didn’t used to want them but they’d be part of us, wouldn’t they? We’ll find out tomorrow, darling. Never fear. Now, I want to show you how much I love you again, are you up for it?” She asked, teasing him by squeezing him intimately.

Liam gasped, blood flowing directly to the hard flesh she was now, somehow, stroking from inside of her body. “I don’t know how you’re doing that but don’t stop, it’s glorious!”

Ivy hushed him by pulling his mouth down to hers, her world complete and happy now. She’d been so happy when she accepted that award for her book, so certain that she couldn’t feel any more complete. She knew better now. Nothing quite compared to having the man you loved in your bed, in your heart, and in your life. Ivy was now truly complete, part of a whole, and though some might say she should have been happy with what she already had she was greedy enough for Liam to not care what anybody thought.