Total pages in book: 147
Estimated words: 137176 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 686(@200wpm)___ 549(@250wpm)___ 457(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 137176 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 686(@200wpm)___ 549(@250wpm)___ 457(@300wpm)
“When we finally came face to face, I expected to feel only hatred, but it wasn’t there. That compartment was gone. All the bad shit I’d placed on you, that I’d needed to put on you because I knew you’d forgive me for it, was gone. I didn’t even know about your memory loss at that point. When I saw you standing there with your gun aimed at my chest, you didn’t look anything like the JJ I remembered, but it didn’t matter. I fell in love with you all over again. In that moment I knew you were mine. You. The guy threatening to shoot me, the man I kissed like there was no tomorrow, the man who kissed me back with more raw passion than anything I’d ever known. I didn’t give a damn that you were new to kissing. I loved every second of it.
“That was the moment I felt truly free. I finally believed in something again. I finally felt. I loved you that day, JJ. Not the JJ from the past. It was the same at the cabin. Everything we did, every time we touched, was real. What you’d been doing at places like Tank’s changed nothing about how I felt about you. I loved that JJ too.”
His fingers curled around the fabric of my shirt like he was trying to hold on for dear life. I lifted his chin so he’d be forced to look at me. “Isn’t that what love is, JJ? Real love? You get to have this person who takes your shitty moods, your defiant silence, your rage and anger. They share that with you just like they share your hopes, your dreams, the good days, the not so good ones. A lot of people talk about falling out of love with someone over time but look at all the ones who have been together fifty, sixty, seventy years. They fought, they struggled, they probably had to make sacrifices or give up on some hope or dream to stay together. But they never gave up on each other.”
I kissed JJ softly, once again tasting the saltiness of his tears on his lips. I pulled back only enough that we could see each other. “If I’d spent the last two years overseas fighting some war or completing some mission, I still would have loved you. I still would have dreamed of the moment I could be with you again. If you’d had a terrible accident that had made you forget me, I would have done everything in my power to get you back. That’s what love is. Never letting go, no matter what’s keeping you apart. You, James Joyce Ferguson, are the pieces of my soul that I didn’t even know were missing. Every single version of you, past, present, and future, will make my soul whole just like I hope I’ll be able to do for you someday. I can’t wait for that moment when we become one in every way, but I’m just as excited to experience every moment of that journey with you.”
This time when I kissed JJ, it was with everything I was. It was with every ounce of feeling I’d ever had for him. It was for all the things I’d never be able to find the words for to tell him. It was… everything.
I broke the kiss long enough to look JJ in his gorgeously different-colored eyes. “I’m so desperately and hopelessly in love with you, every part of you, that nothing and no one is ever going to change that. No one is going to take that from us ever again.”
CHAPTER 24
Jj
Please don’t let this be some fucked-up dream…
That was the first thing to pop into my mind as soon as Cass kissed me after his stunning declaration. I was struggling to breathe but not because he was stealing my breath with his soul-searching kisses. No, I had a whole other reason for not being able to draw enough oxygen into my deprived lungs.
He loves me.
Cass loves me.
Me… this version of me.
I thought for sure I’d fucked everything up with my clumsy words as I’d tried to admit out loud what I’d already known for weeks, especially after the stupid mind games I’d forced Cass into only minutes earlier. Turned out the old adage about the truth setting you free was a real thing. I couldn’t remember even one event in my younger days when I’d told the truth about any of the life-altering events that came with growing up. I’d hidden my sexuality from my father and brother, I’d never once spoken up about alternative career paths I’d wanted to pursue because I’d wanted my father to live his dream of being a police officer through me, and I’d hidden my childhood crush on Cass that had turned into something more as I’d grown into adulthood.