I STILL LOVE YOU, BUT...

CHAPTER 15

TRISTAN

"I love him," I step, once, toward her. "That's what I heard you say. Is it" --- I swallow --- "true?"

I take a second step, then one more, to where she is standing, still and full of pent-up tears, with her hair tumbling over her shoulders, her cheeks flaming like the sun, and there is a rushing in my ears, and a tumult of love pounds in my chest. I reach out, and my arms draw her into my embrace.

Her body is quivering like a wounded bird.

I look at her and I can't breathe.

The lamplight dances over her milky skin.

Beautiful. She is so beautiful.

It hurts to look at her. It is almost a physical pain. My heart is so full with the breadth and the depth and the intensity of my longing, my love for this girl. I ache for her. How is it possible to feel so much for someone that I have only known in such a short time?

I want to run my hands through her hair, kiss it and touch it for hours. I want to hug her, sleep with her, wake up with her, for all of this life and all of the next. I want her with every drop of my blood. I want to tell her that I love her, that I can't live without her. Because that is the truth. I want to die for her. I want to live for her. I am everything with her. I am nothing without her.

I want to tell her all of these things, but I can't; I am struck dumb, the weight of my life hinging upon her answer. I am a hard man, an unforgiving man, an unfeeling, passionless robot, who has driven grown men to tears; and yet, here I stand, tongue-tied like a schoolboy with quavering knees, as weak and insecure and fearful as a small child teetering on a precipice, caught in a gust of wind.

"Amanda Barnes, I love you, body and soul," I whisper.

She cups my face in her tiny hands, and those beautiful blue eyes, eyes that I have seen filled with fire and passion and pain, look straight into mine.

My pulse leaps, it lurches drunkenly, careens to frenetic, reckless life, as her eyes fill with an aching tenderness, and she whispers, smiling through her tears, "Not as much as I love you."

I stare wordlessly at her for a moment, running my eyes over every millimetre of her face, one hand on the nape of her neck, the other running slowly along the line of her mouth, to paint it, memorise it with my fingertips. And then I sweep her hair from her sweet face, so that it spills forth in a cascade of black, molten silk, and finally I kiss her.

When we draw apart, I tell her, "I love you. I don't live, unless I am with you. Even if you hadn't loved me back, I would have waited forever. After all, that's how I spend my days and nights now. Waiting to be with you. I miss you when you're not with me. I think of you all the time. Not a minute goes by without me thinking of you. I think of you in my waking hours. I dream of you when I'm asleep. And you know why, don't you?" I take a long, deep breath. "It's because I love you, Amanda Barnes," I say, simply, but there is a tremor in my voice. "I just love you. So damn much."

Her face crumples, quivers into tears.

"Hush," I say gently. "Don't cry, darling. I can't bear it when you cry."

I kiss away her tears, streaming down her pale, damp cheeks in rivulets.

"I love you," she sobs. "I was afraid to say it, but I'm not any longer. I need you to hear it. I want you to hear it. I don't want to wait a moment longer to tell you how I feel. Tristan Remington, you have my heart. My soul. Me." She smiles at me through her tears. "I love you, Tristan Remington, and I can't live without you."