“A couple of months ago, you told me you were ready.”

All I can do is stare at the boxes strewn around me as Flash’s voice sinks into my skin, digging deeper into my bones, right before they bury themselves in my heart. The tiny pinpricks of pain each word leaves there is like I’ve taken actual hits to the chest.

For the past month or so, Flash and I have taken our relationship to…well, to the relationship level. The label hasn’t been spoken between us, but wWe’ve made it clear to those we love and who love us that we’re together, and despite the cautious reservations Brantley’s expressed, everyone seems happy for us. Axel’s become like a big brother to me, and I couldn’t have imagined the reaction my parents had to Flash when they came up from Florida for Christmas. I’ve never seen my dad take so well to a man, even with Trenton. My dad, being a businessman himself for nearly his entire adult life before he retired two years ago, fired question after question to Flash about SJI. My mother had a lot of quiet, private questions about the accident that took Flash’s eyesight, and I could tell her heart was going out to him. She fell for him even faster than I did. It was more than I could have hoped or asked for.

I thought my heart died that day, the day of the accident. When I woke up and found the most important parts of my life missing, never to return, I honestly felt it shrivel up and was certain there was nothing left but dust inside my chest. I was living, breathing, walking, and talking…but I was dead.

A corpse walking.

And then I ran into Flash in the park, and everything changed. He says I helped him, that I took him from an angry, bitter man to someone who stands tall and confident in the man he’s becoming. But the truth?

The truth is, he saved me from drowning.

Right now, though, at the words he just spoke, I’m feeling the water filling up inside my lungs once more.

“I…I know I did.”

Flash’s voice is gentle, but firm, as his arms wrap around me from behind. His chin rests on top of my head, a pose that’s always brought nothing but comfort to me. With the warmth of his strong, broad chest against my back, he’s the solid rock wall holding me up.

When all I want is to collapse.

“I don’t know, Flash. I thought I could do it…” My voice breaks on the last word.

“Bunny, you’re the strongest fucking woman I know. You can do this. But this is your decision, not mine. If you aren’t ready, then you aren’t ready. All I have to do is snap my fingers, and these boxes are gone just as fast as they got here. I’m with you, either way, baby.” His arms slide slowly up my own, building me up, filling me with his solid strength.

But it’s true. I did tell him I was ready for this, the night I nearly broke down. The first night I trusted Flash with all of me. Even my broken pieces.

I suck in a deep breath and close my eyes. When they’re closed, and I stand really still, blocking out the world around me, I can still hear him.

Danté.

My little boy’s voice, full of life and love, as he shrieked with laughter or asked me a question about this world that he just had to know the answer to. My little man, who I couldn’t wait to watch grow and stretch and soar.

Now he’s soaring in a different way.

And I need to let him go.

But how can I do it?

When I open my eyes, the soft blue walls of the bedroom surround me, and my son is filling up the room.

A sob escapes me, and Flash is in front of me in an instant, holding my face with his hands. “Arden.”

He waits until I’m looking at him, and a part of me still wonders how he knows.

“You’re letting him go in this room.” As his thumbs stroke my cheeks, his voice drops. The emotion there scrapes against my soul, like he’s feeling what I’m feeling “But it doesn’t mean you’re letting him go in there.” He drops one palm, pressing it to my chest. Over my heart.

His soft touch grazes the wetness on my cheeks, and his forehead presses against mine. “I’m right here, sweetheart. I’ve got you.”

He said those words to me, months ago. I believed him then.

I believe him now.

And so, piece by loving, painful piece, we work together to dismantle my son’s room. I place the things I want to keep forever in one special box, and I let Flash flag the rest for charity. This room, the room I spent so much time in with my boy, was full of love, but it’s also full of things another little boy can use, and I don’t want that to go to waste. I share stories and tidbits from Danté’s short little life with Flash as we round the room, and by the time I’m finished, I feel wrung out, emotionally drained. My legs are shaking, my face is soaked with my tears, and when I look at Flash, I can see the pools shining in his own eyes.

But this…I did this. I was able to take this step; do this big, unimaginable thing.

Because of Flash.

God…this man. Every single day, he finds another piece of my heart and stitches it back up tight.  It’s always going to be scarred…but I can feel the healing happening just as surely as a tulip feels the sun.

If I’m not careful, he could mend it. And if he does?

That heart, the one that started beating again when we met, will completely belong to him.

Much later, after the boxes are full and a delivery company hired by Flash has picked them up, along with the furniture to be donated, we leave my house. Staying there, knowing that the room where my son used to sleep is now empty…I can’t stay.

Not tonight.

Flash’s driver, Brooks, takes us back to Flash’s house. I lay in the security of Flash’s chest. He’s propped against the headboard of his bed, his arms encircling me, like a protective barrier against the exhaustion and emotion of the day. Both weigh me down, but there’s also a distinct sense of freedom that comes with letting go; something I didn’t expect. A sigh escapes me, and the quiet rumble of Flash’s voice flows into the dimness of his bedroom.

“You okay, Bunny?”

I think about it, really considering.

Am I okay?

At one point, I thought the answer to that question would always be no. As I settle into his chest, though, I finally nod.

“I think so, Flash.” Turning my body so that I’m looking up into his beautiful, strong face, I place a hand on his stubble-rough jaw. “Thank you. For everything. I don’t think I could have taken this step today without you.”

He grabs my hand and turns it palm up, kissing the skin there. “You don’t ever have to thank me for taking care of you. God, sweetheart…it comes as naturally as breathing.” His voice goes low, thick. “What are you doing to me?”

Turning fully into him, I straddle his lap, my thighs squeezing against the hard muscles of his through our jeans. My fingers delve into his hair as I eye him, my thumb stroking against his jaw. “I don’t know, Flash. What am I doing to you?”

He moves me, flipping us so that he’s hovering above me. His body, strong and hard and capable, covers mine while his hands frame my face. He searches my expression with eyes that don’t see it, and somehow, his gaze penetrates me so deep it’s like he can see straight through to my soul.

I don’t know how long we stay there, staring at one another, but when he sighs, it rattles him completely through. His lips brush mine, but it’s not a kiss. Heat and warmth radiate from him, into the battered, cold parts of me.

“You’ve been through so much,” he whispers. “Honestly, Arden…it’s everything I didn’t want. I thought there was no way I could handle your pain. But what you did today, being there with you while you did the single most difficult thing you’ve ever done…it changed me.”

I stop breathing.

“You’re ruining me,” Flash murmurs against my mouth as his hand smooths down my side. “You’re fucking destroying me, Arden.”

I kiss him. I swallow any other words he might have said, capturing his mouth with mine as my fingers lose themselves in his hair. He groans, every inch of him growing hard against me as he meets my kiss with one of his own.

I reach for the hem of his shirt, because I want to feel more of him.

I need to feel more of him. Tonight, I need something good.

He goes still, his mouth leaving mine. His head drops to rest on my shoulder, his words tickling my ear. “What are you doing?”

I pull his shirt up and over his head and toss it to the floor. “Undressing you.”

He’s silent while he evaluates me. I wait.

“We don’t have to do this tonight, Arden.”

And that’s the moment I realize how much danger I’m in. My heart surges, beating with a frantic need I know better than to want. I can’t allow myself to release my heart to this man, because losing it to him makes me vulnerable to the kind of loss that nearly killed me before.

I don’t say a word as I push him aside and sit up. Standing beside the bed, I watch him as he waits, leaning back on his elbows. He’s so beautiful, stretched out on his bed in his jeans while the bare planes of his chest and stomach are on display.

I undress completely before climbing back onto the bed with him. His hands slide over my bare hips as he catches me, and his breath hitches, his hands roaming over me. “Arden. Are you—”

I cut off his words by sealing my mouth over his, my hands moving to the button of his jeans. I slide them off his body, along with his underwear, baring him to me.

In a moment, we’re flipped over again, his lips at my throat as his fingers find the slick wetness between my thighs. I gasp, my hips rising to meet him.

“Please, Flash,” I rasp. “I need you.”

His answer is the most perfect thing I’ve heard in so long. “I’ll always be here when you need me.”

And that voice, the one that tells me this is something dangerously like love? I silence it while I lose myself in the man who made me feel again.