My eyes follow Blake as he moves around the kitchen with ease. The muscles on his back move as he chops and peels, and his biceps flex as he searches through the cupboards. I swing my legs from my perch on the table and laugh as he tugs a bowl from a low cupboard and almost falls backward.

He shoots me a look, smirking, and stands. Ingredients for whatever he’s cooking are all laid out on the table next to me, and I clasp my hands in my lap. He’s wearing a black shirt, and the open bag of flour is just too tempting …

“God. That was traumatic.”

“You got a bowl from the cupboard.”

“And?” He steps up to me. “I should have known it would have been in the place I’d look.”

“Then you should have looked there first, shouldn’t you?”

“You’re hilarious.” He smirks. I grin.

“It’s one of my better qualities. I thought you’d know that by now.” I poke his arm.

He weighs out some flour and sieves it into the bowl. “Oh, I do. I just try to ignore your so-called humor.”

“It’s because you’re British,” I say matter-of-factly. “Everyone knows Brits have an odd sense of humor.”

“I do not.”

“You do. And you all talk about the weather too much.”

Blake opens his mouth to argue but swiftly shuts it again, nodding. “I’ll give you that. Although it is a great conversation starter.”

“Better than your lame pick up lines?”

His green eyes flick to me. “Nothing beats my lame chat up lines, and you know it.”

“Debatable.”

“Oi. It worked, didn’t it?” He raises his eyebrows and touches his finger to my nose. His flour-covered finger.

“Did you just get flour on my nose?”

“Um. No.” He cracks an egg into the bowl.

I wipe at my nose and white powder falls into my lap. Without hesitating, I shove my hand in the flour bag and throw a handful at him. It settles on his hair, his face and his black shirt. A small childish part of me giggles in glee.

Blake stops and turns his head toward me slowly. I smile sheepishly.

“I didn’t mean to get that much?” It comes out as a question instead of a statement, and Blake catches his tongue between his teeth. His eyes twinkle mischievously, his smile filling with sass. My own eyes widen.

“Oh no. No. No. No!” I jump from the table and run around it straight into a cloud of flour. I cough and sputter, glaring at him. “That was not fair!”

“Neither was what you did. Now we’re even.” That spark is still in his eye.

“I don’t believe you.”

“You’re right not to.” He throws another handful of flour at me, and I shriek, shaking my head like it’ll clear it from my hair.

“Oh, that’s it!” I grab the bag from the table and shake it in his direction. He steps back, laughing, and we do a funny kind of dance around the kitchen table. I laugh with him, taking in the way he looks with the flour clinging to him, and wonder how I look. Probably just as dumb as he does.

“Even,” Blake repeats, holding his hands up. “Let’s call it quits.”

“Fine,” I say after a moment. “But the flour goes in the cupboard.”

“Deal.”

I put the flour away, but when I turn around Blake’s hands frame my face, wet and sticky. I shriek.

“What the hell!”

“Egg.”

My mouth drops open and I stare at him in disbelief. “You sneaky jerk!”

The cheek-aching smile on his face makes him look five years younger, and I have to fight my own smile. I dip my hands into the bowl, getting them covered in both egg and flour. The thick, gloopy mixture sticks to my fingers, and I run at Blake.

“Shit!” He laughs harder. “Abbi. Abbi!”

I smear my hands down his face and scream. His white hands frame my face, his fingers sinking into my hair. I grab his arms, feeling like I’m going to fall backward, and close my eyes at the firm press of his lips to mine.

I half-gasp at the intensity of the kiss, feeling it right down to my toes. They curl against the wooden floor, lifting me up slightly, and my fingers dig into Blake’s arms. He’s never kissed me this way – hell, I’ve never been kissed this way by anyone, and as his tongue flicks across my bottom lip and he sucks it lightly between his, warmth pools in the pit of my stomach. I ache in a way I haven’t for so long, an ache stronger and heavier than I thought it would be when I felt it again.

His hand threads into my hair, and I lean against him. His lips moving over mine both enthrall me and scare me, making me want to hold him tighter and run at the same time as the ache in me just intensifies.

Blake’s arm slides down and around my waist, holding me in place and making my decision for me. I let my hands travel up his arms to his neck, and hold onto him for dear life. I hold onto him like I’m drowning and he’s the only thing that can keep me afloat and save me.

And I may just be drowning – only this time, I’m not drowning under the pressure of my depression.

This time, I’m falling into my feelings for him, letting them consume me and take me under. I’m drowning in the possibilities of tomorrow, the maybes of us. I’m breathing fresher air than I have in months, dreaming of a future that holds more than just dance.

Because I’m in love with him.

And I feel it. I feel it with every part of me, but I’m not scared, and I’m not even surprised. I think I always knew. I always knew my heart was in his hands, so I go with it. I ignore the screaming in the back of my head and let my heart and my body do the talking.

I know the exact moment the screaming stops and my wants overtake my fears because one of the binds tying the depression to me snaps. Usually it’s a slow fray of a rope coming apart, but this was a clean cut, a swift slicing of the steel rods holding the darkness in place.

My back melds against the wall, and I tangle my fingers in his hair, wetness sliding down my cheeks. With each tear that slides from my closed eyes another bit of weight lifts.

“Abbi,” he whispers, pulling away and moving his hand from the back of my head. He cups my cheek and wipes the tears away, leaning his forehead against mine. “Don’t cry. Please don’t cry. We don’t have to–”

“I’m not crying for that,” I half-laugh, half-hiccup. “I’m not crying because I’m remembering or because it hurts. I’m crying because I’m letting go of that hurt, at least a little. And now I’m crying because I don’t want you to stop.”

Blake breathes out slowly, his hot breath fanning across my lips. “I mean it, Abs. We don’t have to do anything you’re not ready for. I’ll go and put that bloody chick-flick on and start the pastry again and–”

I yank his head back so he’s looking me in the eyes. So he knows I mean what I’m about to say.

“Blake Smith, if you let me go and walk away from me right now to make fucking pastry, I will never speak to you again. Ever.”

He blinks at me. “I’m not sure I’ve ever heard you swear.”

“Do me a favor.”

“I’m kind of debating not making the pastry again, if you’re wondering.”

“You talk too much,” I mutter. “For five minutes, can you just shut the hell up and kiss me again?”

His fingers cup the back of my neck, pulling me away from the wall and toward him. “Since you asked so nicely …”

He takes my mouth with his again, this time harder, more needing, and I open for him when his tongue flicks against my lips. His hand moves down and curves around my ass cheeks, pulling my pelvis against his. An inch of doubt from the darkness flashes in the back of my mind when I feel him hard against my thigh, but I bat it away forcefully.

My head has controlled this too long. My head is what holds me back. Tonight my heart has taken the reins. I’m not thinking. I’m just feeling.

He kicks the bedroom door open and walks me backward into the room. My legs buckle when they hit the bed, and Blake puts an arm out to slowly lower us back. His body settles on top of mine, lean and muscular. I let go of his hair and slide my hands down his back to the hem of his shirt. I curl my fingers around the material, pulling it up, and he pauses.

“Shut. Up,” I mumble against his mouth before he can say a word. His whole body shakes as he laughs silently, and I feel the smile on his lips.

“I think I like this side of you,” he whispers, kissing along my jaw.

I pull the shirt up his body and over his head, my hands falling back onto hot, smooth skin. His lips travel down my neck, dropping open-mouthed kisses against my still-floury skin, and I breathe in. I breathe him in. And it’s not enough.

It hits me too fast. Hits me that I more than just want tonight with Blake. I need it. I need every single bit of him he has to give me. And the only reason I have is that I just do.

It’s startling and scary. It’s a hard and fast realization, something I can’t even comprehend, but I need this. I need him the way I love him – so completely and utterly it’ll consume me if I don’t give in to it.

His hands take my shirt from my body with the same ease he kisses me with. His fingers unbutton my jeans as deftly as he makes his way across my stomach with his mouth. His eyes comb up and down my body and drink in every inch of me with the same heat that’s pounding through my blood right now.

His body falling back to mine has the same force as my leg hooking around his. His tongue is as probing as mine. Everything about us is in tandem, from our movements to our breathing to our silent pleas to each other.

I hook my fingers inside his jeans and tug them down, along with his boxer shorts. His hands hold my waist as his tongue flicks along the curve of my chest, dipping in and out of the cup of my bra. Goosebumps erupt across my skin, a contrast to the heat of his breath snaking across my skin. His fingers unclip my bra and move downwards, probing my skin until they reach the hem of my panties.

Blake’s tongue circles my breasts, his fingers hook inside the material at my hips, then his mouth moves to my ear.

“If at any point you want to stop, just say the word, and I’ll stop. I mean it. Any second.”

I nod, turning my face into his and brushing our lips together. I lift my legs as he slides my underwear down them, exposing every part of me to him. Exposing every pounding pulse point. Every throbbing vein. Every begging body part.

Every scar.

He reaches under the pillow and pulls out a small square foil. He tears the packet open and rolls the condom onto himself. I wrap my legs around his waist, gripping his hair tightly, and look into his eyes.

I want to see green eyes as he slips inside of me. Nothing but clear, honest, green eyes.

Pain sears through me for a few seconds as he pushes inside of me. I fight against the cry that wants to leave me and the arch of my back. He stops when he’s fully inside, resting his body down onto mine.

Blake takes my hand with his and brings it to his face. My wrist touches his lips, and he kisses his way up my arm. He drops my arm and does the same to the other, pressing his mouth to my scarred wrist and arm.

And he looks me in the eyes, slowly pulling out of me and easing himself back in. I open my legs a little further, the discomfort disappearing, and stare into a sea of green. Transfixed on him, I barely hear his words as I begin to fully take him.

“You’re beautiful, Abbi, and so are the scars. Every. Single. One.”

And I believe him.